Pros
- Employee benefits such as private healthcare. - Cycle to work scheme. - Money off gym membership using corporate discount. - Office was very central.
Cons
- Working at this company was an unpleasant experience due to the toxic and antisocial atmosphere. - The high turnover rate among employees was concerning, with many individuals taking extended sick leave before ultimately leaving the company. - There was a significant lack of training and support for new employees, particularly those without prior experience in patent work. Tasks were assigned without proper guidance, leaving me feeling overwhelmed and unprepared. - I felt like I had no help in relation to my learning disability. I had a meeting and was asked for proof of my learning disability which came across in a very negative tone. It felt very condescending in the way I was asked as if I was lying about my learning disability. - There was a lack of clear direction and feedback, making it difficult to understand expectations and how to excel in my role. - Despite repeatedly requesting training for tasks related to accounting and billing, support was inconsistent. Furthermore, the work from home policy seemed arbitrary, with different rules applying to different employees. - I was told in my early days that the fee earners are super busy and don't have time to answer my queries. This didn’t give me much hope in reaching out for assistance. - No real further development for paralegals. - Within my first year I was allowed to work from home for one week prior to the Christmas period, this was no issue. I didn't take time off as I was happy to work over the Christmas period. The year after and I was not allowed to work from home the week prior to Christmas, bearing in mind that I did not take any holiday off and was willing to work back home as I am not from London and wanted to make sure I could spend Christmas with my family. I was told that it was essential that I had to come into the office and work on my office days. I queried this and asked why it was a different rule this year and was told that it should have never been allowed to happen last year as it was still a working week and I had to come in on my office days. The person who sent me this response approved me to work from home the week before Christmas the year prior. Definitely felt like I was treated unfairly and didn't understand why it was an issue to work from home 5 days in a row for just one week out of the whole year when you had employees who would always work from home or only come into the office 1 day a week. - In the end I got let go and was told "we don't feel like this job is for you". Even though in previous meetings I had feedback saying there were no issues with my work.