A great place to work, let down by crushingly low wages
Pros
Excellent city centre location. Spacious office. I had a very supportive manager and team around me. Civil service pension contributions are generous, as are some of the salary sacrifice benefits.
Cons
Wages were completely stagnant. No real policy or movement to move up financially within your pay scale without substation job re-evaluation. The official line seems to be, if you don't like being paid so little, leave. So you end up with staff learning the business, how to do your job, then you have to go and find more money in another job. Very few paid training opportunities to further your career. One paid course made available in nearly six years. A strong culture of staff helping each other out. Plenty of ED&I discussions, but how well it works is something I couldn't judge as I'm fortunate to be born into a race that doesn't see much in the way of oppression. Total reward: A good concept, but unless you're able to make use of the savings offered on goods you probably can't afford, lumping salary, pension, annual leave, flexible working & retail offers into "total reward" feels a little hollow when you look at your payslip.