It is definitely not headed in the right direction - Software Engineer Simply Business Employee Review

Hi and thanks for taking the time to leave such detailed feedback. Over the last year, we’ve grown our business substantially and, naturally, this comes with challenges. Maintaining our unique culture throughout this growth period has always been our top priority, and we’d like to think we’re doing a pretty decent job – our regular employee surveys suggest that people really enjoy working for Simply Business. We’ve always been a people-first company and know that creating an environment where people can be happy and fulfilled also results in the best outcomes for our customers. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on our new onboarding program. We’ve worked hard to create a program that’s both engaging and culturally right for Simply Business. The good news is that our onboarding programmes have been very well received by new starters so far, and we’ve always been careful to place new joiners in teams where they can learn from others. Like anything, it’s not perfect. Your feedback is really helpful as we continually look to make the experience as good as possible – both for our new starters themselves, and for the teams they join. With regards to our office, we’ve invested a lot of money in our office spaces across the board, from London to Boston to Northampton. And we’re really proud of them. Feedback on our offices is always hugely positive – whether that’s for our working spaces themselves, or spaces dedicated to downtime (like our breakout areas, roof terrace, or wellness room). Growing our team so quickly does of course mean that the office is more full than it was 12 months ago, and that’s why we’re continually looking at ways we can use our space more intelligently. Our ongoing investment is set to unlock even more private meeting space, which should make booking rooms easier. We’ll also be increasing our number of product pods as we grow – areas that we’ve had fantastic feedback on. It’s our office spaces that allow us to be a remote-friendly company – something we absolutely pride ourselves on. Our meeting spaces come equipped with big screens and Zoom as standard for remote joiners, as do our Product working areas. Tools like Zoom (and Slack) really support this, while our brand new intranet (CAKE) has been a big help in effectively documenting and archiving everything online in one place. We believe strongly in the ‘product’ way of working, pioneered by Marty Cagan (and the Silicon Valley Product Group), and in cross-functional, empowered teams that set their own objectives. We continue to invest heavily in developing our people to help us get better at both building products customers love, and getting there in the most effective way. Honesty, as always, is critical for us in this process. On the subject of salaries, we regularly benchmark against market rates, and proactively adjust salaries for existing staff to make sure we pay fairly. We’re absolutely confident that we compensate our brilliant people fairly for the great work they do. A big thank you again for taking the time to feedback. As you know from your time at SB, we value feedback incredibly highly and know it’s critical to helping us improve. If you’d like to talk further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We wish you all the best in the future, and thank you for the years of hard work whilst you were here. All the best, Jen / Head of Talent Acquisition @ Simply Business