Unrealistic expectations from senior leadership - Marketing The Foschini Group Employee Review

Senior management sets unrealistic expectations without providing the resources or support needed to meet them. There is a strong culture of micromanagement that stifles autonomy and makes it difficult to do your job effectively. Despite being told that collaboration is a core value, communication from leadership is poor. Messages often go unanswered for extended periods, leaving you without the guidance needed to move forward. This creates an environment where employees are set up to fail, only to then face pressure and scrutiny over the very tasks they weren't supported on. The meeting culture is excessive and counterproductive. Simple updates that could be handled over email are turned into lengthy calls, and daily check-ins eat into time that should be spent on actual work. This is felt most acutely during peak trading periods like Black Friday, where hours are lost to corporate jargon and box-ticking exercises rather than allowing the team to focus on execution. Employees are expected to manage three brands with no support. During the hiring process, it was made clear that only one brand was sizeable and the other two were small. In reality, all three carry an equal and significant workload. To make this worse, the external recruiter confirmed via email that executive support would be provided. This never materialised. When the workload is raised and additional resource is requested, it is refused, yet the expectation for outstanding results remains. The role is fundamentally misrepresented from the outset.