Geotechnics (UK) Reviews

Starting pay is very poor and any annual salary review and/or upgrade is usually dependent on who you are and your relationship with immediate management and not down to the quality/quantity of work produced. The laboratory is steeped in nepotism and cronyism which can determine who does what. For example, people have secured jobs in the lab without a formal interview by simply being previously known to management. They are even treated differently (more favourably) by line management where some are located in air conditioned offices whilst the rest of the staff have to sweat it out in an abnormally hot laboratory due to the presence of a large number of drying ovens. If you are not a relative or already friends with someone who works there, expect a very bumpy ride. The working environment can be stressful particularly if your face doesn’t fit which can result in a situation where one can feel bullied and isolated. You are given work to do and told to get on with it. You are not encouraged to ask questions or challenge instructions as this could lead to misconduct charges. For those people who are prepared to graft, it can be very frustrating to see other people playing on their mobile phones or incessantly chatting all day. Work instructions can differ depending on who is in charge on any particular day. Senior management do not appear to have a clue what actually happens in the lab. There is also a marked difference in atmosphere and access to facilities between the lab and the rest of the building. People in other departments have been observed to spend considerable time chatting, surfing the web, watching YouTube videos and doing internet shopping DURING work time. Conversely the lab staff are not permitted to have access to an office phone or ANY PC for accessing the internet to resolve the occasional personal matter. Instead the staff were instructed to use their smartphones for booking holidays or hospital appointments and this HAD to be done DURING their breaks and without being allowed to hook up to the company Wi-Fi. The break periods for lab staff are strictly monitored whereas a more relaxed and flexible approach is applied to members of staff from different departments. The current management has no idea of what constitutes person management. If one does something wrong, the usual response is to give you a very vocal reprimand in front of colleagues and in full view of the rest of the lab. This is very unprofessional in my opinion. There is a grading structure which is apparently related to pay. However if the structure is examined in more detail, it would appear that a female technician would find achieving the highest grade, and therefore pay, extremely challenging due to certain tasks involving heavy weights/samples. If correct, this could be seen as being potentially discriminatory. The lab management also appears to have a very limited comprehension and appreciation of H&S and its requirements. Broken glassware is allowed (and in some cases encouraged) to be reused instead of being thrown away due to cost implications. There are also long standing issues that demand urgent attention under H&S legislation which beggars belief how these have been overlooked by senior management for so long. However if an issue is identified, the normal response is to throw PPE at the problem rather than the HSE recommended approach by seeking an engineering solution. Working in this lab is not recommended if one wants to gain experience in a progressive and modern laboratory. However, if you enjoy mundane chatter, like playing angry birds on your phone, being shouted at and/or patronised or do not want to think any further than what’s on TV that evening – this is the ideal job for you. The lab looks and feels very tired with a lot of old equipment – some of it falling apart. The company seems to prefer to spend money on the engineering department rather than updating and modernising the lab.