Beam (UK) Reviews

Attributing issues to 'natural scaling problems' is a deflective statement that avoids taking responsibility for significant concerns. The departure of nearly twenty employees this year speaks volumes, and I'm now considering my departure as well. While the company has been transparent about addressing cultural issues, a change in leadership is essential for lasting and effective change. They seem to take advantage of the inexperience of young, recently graduated staff who may not fully grasp what constitutes an ideal workplace. This isn't a critique of the younger staff, but rather an observation of Beam's practices. Beam has cultivated a peculiar culture marked by contradictions: Employees are rapidly promoted, primarily based on their unwavering 'Beam-y-ness,' while talented colleagues from more diverse backgrounds struggle to advance, and when they do, it's at a much slower rate than their white counterparts. The company places a strong emphasis on revenue while justifying lower pay due to its social mission. Although they offer attractive benefits, they often come with conditions. For instance, they claim to provide unlimited holidays but set guidance for just 25 days. They also offer free therapy, but it seems mainly geared towards addressing workplace-manager-induced stress. While the company emphasizes compassion in its dealings with members, the same treatment does not always extend to staff. It's worth noting that there have been requests for employees over the last weeks to write five-star reviews to counterbalance negative feedback.

It’s honestly hard to know where to start, as it’s truly such a mess at this stage I don’t see any way it will improve unless the CEO and COO are replaced. The founders do not listen to anyone. Decision making is held solely at the highest level, and there is an extreme lack of diversity of thought shared as everyone is too afraid to oppose SLT’s views from fear of being branded ‘negative’. Those that do share receive criticism and often have their progression stunted. The day to day work involves constant fire fighting and overwork. Staff are leaving at an insanely rapid rate, company culture is a mess and still nothing real is being done to fix it. People with lived experience are tokenised and pushed to publicly platform their experience by SLT (and in the past often used without consent), but are rarely listened to when advising on how we could improve the service for our members or company culture, and experience discrimination when it comes to progression opportunities or having their contributions valued. Managers are directed to follow SLT’s instructions on big and small decisions, but are rarely consulted or given an opportunity to input on any of them. Promotions and pay rises are decided by SLT and are largely guided by who they personally like or dislike, despite them having almost no day to day contact with the vast majority of the team. The goal posts for progression are constantly moved. Despite the People team doing their best to implement better policies and practices, these are applied so unevenly across the company so have limited impact on improving things. It’s very clear that the senior team don’t actually care about helping people at all. They largely speak about the rise of homelessness or the refugee crisis as business opportunities for Beam, but show a real lack of empathy in their day to day language around members and staff. The CEO and COO are only interested in creating a ground-breaking tech company that is worth huge sums of money. The people it may help along the way is an afterthought. The quality of the service is far worse than it could or should be, given the huge sums it costs the taxpayer through Beam’s government partners, but the company continues to sell more contracts at a rapid rate instead of genuinely looking at how we can provide value for members and government partners. ‘Open and transparent’ is one of the companies values, but this is weaponised and used as a way to manipulate staff and create a false sense of trust and safety with SLT. Heavily manipulated data is published on the company website to present an image of business success so far removed from reality. Staff are frequently gaslit and told their concerns are baseless or they are the problem. Staff are fired and then coaxed into telling the wider company it was a ‘mutual’ decision. Caseworkers are encouraged to try to meet unrealistically high targets, inevitably meaning the quality of support they are able to offer drops and those easiest to help are prioritised. The company’s goals and strategy is structured so that Beam can cash in the maximum revenue possible for the minimum effort possible, even if that means cutting corners on member support. Beam does nothing to try to end the problems it profits off of, instead simply exploring more ways to squeeze the taxpayer while offering minimal impact. Whilst some of these cultural qualities would be unsurprising in many fast-paced businesses driven by profit, it is directly opposed to the framing of Beam that the founders constantly shove down staffs’ throats. A narrative around company empathy, openness and happiness is constantly pushed, despite the total lack of compassion they show the team or our members. If you want a cut-throat culture driven by growth, at least just be upfront about it.