Alarm bells started ringing for me when I was asked to complete an "Enneagram Personality Test" the day after my interview. I suspected it was pseudo-scientific nonsense and it prompted me to dig into the company a bit more - which brought me to Glassdoor. I saw all of the reviews from March, April, and May 2021 and also found a review of the company's previous incarnation, The Early Years Training Hub, on Trustpilot.com. My heart sank. It sank even further when I was actually offered a job, as I felt I couldn't turn it down, having been unemployed since December 2020. I wish I'd gone with my gut instinct and declined.
My role as a Creative Consultant was supposed to consist of researching, editing, and proofreading material to be used in eLearning courses for care workers, teachers, early years educators, and young adults. However, the definitions of research and proofing used by this company are misleading at best, completely unethical at worst. I would go into detail here, but don't want to transgress Glassdoor's house rules.
I worked at the Big Initiative for 6 weeks in 2021. Every single day felt like the first day in a new job. Training and instruction were inadequate. Procedures and template documents would change from week to week with no warning, sometimes even overnight. I was supposed to be given feedback on my work in order to learn on the job. This did happen, but infrequently and it was not of a helpful standard (nor was the advice I was given while working on tasks). In short, it was impossible to understand and adapt to company working practices when the company was not making it clear what they really wanted from me. There were few written procedural documents to refer to. The ones I did see were badly written, full of typos and formatting errors, and seemed to have been produced on an ad hoc basis. Also, no time was given to establish working routines - there was no time to LEARN how to do the job, no time to think about or comprehend tasks. Ironic given that this is supposedly a training company. Once I got behind on my workload, it was impossible to catch up - and it was impossible to complete the other tasks related to daily admin. In the end, my role completely changed and I had about three days to adapt to it before being paid off.
About halfway through my time with the company, all staff were put on "garden leave" for five days. Knowing that this is usually the prelude to being dismissed, this was a very stressful time for me. However, we were all asked to go back into the office to receive new training on yet more new procedures. Unfortunately, that training consisted of three days of being asked what I thought the definition of education was and why it was important to get training right for Social Workers. Yet again, I was not told what the company expected of me, or wanted its products to be.
Looking at the earlier reviews, it can be seen that the problems I encountered while working at The Big Initiative keep recurring. I have to ask why that is. No reputable employer would keep making the same errors over and over again. Neither would they have to dismiss so many staff for the same reasons. So, what is going on here? I got the feeling that the company never expected or wanted to produce a completed product which could be used on their site, and that I was being deliberately set up to fail. So my advice to anyone looking at this review is to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, look at older reviews which raise the same issues, and seriously consider NOT working for The Big Initiative.
I realised early on that I would be paid off at some point. The only question was when. Every morning I expected the axe to fall. In the end, I lasted a nice round six weeks. When I was finally let go (along with all the other staff hired at the same time), I was completely relieved. I can now look for real, meaningful work with a reputable employer.
No doubt there will be a response to this post along the lines of "well it's a really fast paced environment, not for everybody". I repeat - look at all the other older negative reviews.
