Pros
There are no pros of working at Huws Gray.
Cons
If you want to work somewhere that respects your time, Huws Gray might not be the right fit for you.
- Friday 10 April, [Manager] rang me at 4:56pm on Teams. No planned call. Normally, if someone is ringing you at 5pm on a Friday, it's because there's something urgent that needs doing right then. I thought maybe they were ringing for a 5min chat to ask how my first couple of weeks have gone. But no, it was to brief me on more work for the following week. The call lasted over 45mins... after 5pm on a Friday afternoon.
- Thursday 16 April, I had a 1:1 with [Manager] in the afternoon. During that meeting I was quite concerned about the volume of work already being given to me within 2 and a bit weeks. I was told that someone else could help pick some bits up and that we could regroup at 6pm (after hours). [Manager] turned up to that call at 6:50pm and I didn't get off the phone until gone 7:45pm. No respect for the fact people have a life outside of work, or might want to cook dinner...
[Manager] suggestion on managing workload was for me to work my weekend... great suggestion, that's exactly how I want to be spending my weekend. Two weeks into a new job and already working weekends to catch up. That is not normal.
- Friday 17 April, I caught up with [Employee] around midday to review how they was getting on with the piece of work. [Manager] had unrealistic expectation that all work would be completed and would listen to the experts delivering the work. On the same day, [Manager] was calling me on my work phone - they hadn't tried messaging or calling on Teams, or emailing me. My phone was on silent so I didn't realise and when they got hold of me their words were "if I call you, I expect you to pick up. It's fine this time, but in future you need to answer the phone."
The role was sold as one where you'd have autonomy. The reality is that there is a culture of dictatorship - you are told to jump and you say how high.
In the short time I was there, I'd been asked to write a video script and an email on behalf of the CEO. Both communications have been completely rewritten by [Manager]. I have done comms for over 10 years, I know how to draft a video script and a leadership comm... it's insulting that someone with no internal comms experience thinks they can do a better job than you, just because they're more senior.
They took none of my feedback on board regarding the role and workload and readvertised the job as a 2-for-the-price-of-1 (Internal Comms & Change Manager).
The way [Manager] spoke to me when I got back from holiday was out of order. I had voluntarily shared my calendar with them, for transparency. They had gone through my diary and sent an email picking out all the things I should be deleting out of my diary (inductions, comms learning webinars). They also told me that I wasn't allowed to tell anybody why I was leaving and that "my credibility has been tarnished" as colleagues had been discussing the work they were doing and said it was a busy company to work in. They said that several people had fed back to her that they weren't suprised I was leaving. When I questioned [Manager] on what they'd said and who had said something, they wouldn't give any more detail.
Needless to say, I didn't complete my notice period - there was no way I was working another day for that horrendous company.
The culture is very toxic and I couldn't recommend it to anyone. It's not a business going through transformation, it's a business in chaos which doesn't see the value in investing in people resource to ensure things are delivered well, without burning people out.
