Haygarth Reviews

Low pay and very little care given to wellbeing of employees. Turning up early, working through lunch break and staying after hours are the norm and if you want to pop out at lunch or leave on time you need to think of an excuse to give your manager. Very cliquey environment which is fine if you're in the right team and they consider you cool enough. Ignore awards - staff are cajoled into voting for the company to be a great place to work for awards on the pretence it will benefit their career.

On the flip side, being in Wimbledon isolates itself from central London and is only accessible via train, so you'd need to add £30 minimum to your weekly travel budget. The exec team have been at the agency for years (some 20+ years) and this does mean that the agency is run by a lot of old white men. Even middle management were all white. This makes the agency ultimately hugely outdated. Even the decor of the office feels like you've walked into 2004. The agency is predominately white middle-class and the only diversity I saw was in intern/graduate positions. This in my opinion is sadly reflected in the quality of the creative work, which was generally outdated, safe and uninspiring. Weekend work is common and expected. The days in lieu will never reflect the work you put in. I witnessed a huge amount of stress in my team from creative to account management due to demanding clients and unachievable deadlines. In terms of the job itself, I felt very little support from my line-manager(s). This is very much a 'do your job' job rather than a progression job. I saw little promotion in my time there and I can see why.