A lot to cover so brace yourselves.
Since Photobox got overtaken by investment company Electra, the company culture went from dynamic start-up in e-commerce to a corporate hell that doesn't even recognises itself as such.
The power of inertia at Photobox is probably unparalleled. Therefore, you will have to spend the time and energy required to move mountains to only create a cloud of dust. Everything is put in place to make sure that projects either never see the light of day or have to go through several iterations and goal reassessments to become a barely tangible reality : absolutely zero project management, laziness and incompetence throughout, complete lack of communication between teams and departments and a turnover so fast that it's a waste of time to get to know your colleagues.
Promotions and recruitement are mostly based on personal connexions and friendships. Therefore, expect to work with your boss' wife even though she failed her interview process and doesn't have the qualifications for the job. Similarly, expect to see colleagues with no discernable talent other than being good at faking friendships with their managers.
Do not believe anything that you will be told progression-wise unless you have a definite written and signed guarantee that you will get the job, salary increase etc. Photobox are especially good at promising things they have no intention to deliver on so they can keep naive employees a couple of months longer in the company at the same position and with the same insulting salary.
Expect to have to introduce yourself at absolutely every meeting to people who will stay in the company for three months and then leave for the same job somewhere else but with a better salary and more recognition.
This is sort of true at senior management level, where certain people appear out of the blue with some lush vanity project that nobody really asked for, manage to unlock a considerable budget and sort of fail to deliver on promises. For instance, no money will be wasted... sorry, spent, on fixing the multiple bugs on the website or improving a creation studio that has been hated by customers for over a year and a half, but the magic money tree suddenly grows fruitful branches when it comes to revamping the visuals of the site to "forest green" (spoilers, it's actually teal but nevermind). Then, every year after peak or at the beginning of the financial year, people suddenly realise that spendings do not align with real business needs and that the promised results are not there. As a direct consequence, Photobox will decide to say goodbye to valued staff members and only use contractors, which actually cost more than full-time employees. This is also means that, if you're any good and willing to work, you will find yourself accomplishing tasks which are so far outside your job description that you might suffer from an identity crisis in the process. Again, don't expect any sort of recognition.
The penny chase starts right there, with fewer fruit baskets a week, no washing-up liquid, no hot water over the weekend, no fixing the aircon despite employees' desperate pleas to be able to breathe while they are working (shocking, real diva behaviour I know), etc.
The Photobox group has put a lot of time and effort to acquire several brands such as Moonpig, Hofmann, Greetz, Poster XXL, etc. However once those brands are part of the group, Photobox seem to lose any interest in them overnight and stop investing capital and resources. Hofmann France is probably a very good case, where the website still shows products which were discontinued two years ago, descriptions riddled with spelling mistakes and translation errors, a buggy desktop program and non existent customer service. No plans to fix anything.
As a general rule, don't be a woman, lgbtqia or any minority you can think of because your life will become much harder. Despite the really bad attempts at looking like they are trying to promote equality in the workplace, Photobox HR and management will turn a blind eye to cases of bullying and harassment and will do everything in their power to brush "inconveniences" under the carpet. You can be called names and touched inappropriately at work, as long as it remains a secret.
To keep it short, stay away for your own sake.
