Focus on career development, good salaries and benefits and new management team
Pros
Very knowledgeable team with extensive industry experience. Extremely approachable and a variety of work across the south-east of England. The company is fast-paced and varied, but takes the time to talk encourage personal development for every one of it's ecology team members. Offer bespoke and defined career progression pathways for the ecology team, with regular mentor catchups and training (internal and external) throughout the year, including technical training but also wellbeing, time management and 'soft skills', There is also an award system where you can nominate outstanding colleagues on a regular basis for entry into a prize scheme. Following a recent merger, this company has taken lengths to encourage sustainable working. The new management team monitors work load and hours to mitigate burn-out and holds regular team-wide catchups for updates and idea sharing, valuing the wider teams input and suggestions. Great opportunity to get involved in long-term monitoring programmes of wildlife and habitats and there is an appetite to be involved in and develop research fields and new survey techniques. There is a variety of contracts available, with FT/PT/temp/perm and zero-hr contracts available after discussions with employees to ensure that personal needs are catered for, such as reduced hours/flexible working/split hours to accommodate childcare etc... There is an extensive employee benefit package available and this can also be extended to immediate partners and family members. Wages also seem to be above industry average.
Cons
Regularly working as an external contractor for large projects can be an interesting experience, with a lot of external influences affecting work streams last minute. As such, an element of flexibility is therefore required, but it should be noted that majority of the influences are outside of SES's control and originate from 3rd party contractors. As with all ecology, the work can be away from home on occasion and outside the 9-5 standard working hours.
