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Interactive Schools

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Interactive Schools Reviews

3.1

44% would recommend to a friend

(10 total reviews)

35% positive business outlook

Reviews by job title

10 reviews
2.0
6 Jan 2024

Micromanagement Central

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The team is fantastic. I felt very welcome from the start, surrounded by very inclusive, talented individuals who are all incredibly personable. You form an incredibly strong bond with your colleagues and support one another through trials and tribulations. The people are a shining part of the company. As a result, social events are wonderful fun. You are able to be yourself and know that there is always someone you can connect with in a social manner outside of regular work. Everyone is so approachable. Predominantly young colleagues (staff demographic mostly 20s) and so the culture is good as an entry job opportunity, especially as the company will readily employ new graduates with zero experience. It's an ideal place to get on the employment ladder. You will be able to get involved in a range of different projects and experience cross-business tasks, collaborating closely with different departments. Casual, fun culture, with the ability to work with flexible start and finish times. Managers are happy for you to take time out for appointments or other personal responsibilities provided the time is made up at a later date. There are no expectations to check emails or messages outside working hours.

Cons

The aforementioned colleague support is required to get you through working here. The company has high turnover and resignation of entire departments isn't unheard of. Goalposts constantly move. You will feel you've misunderstood what was expected of a task because the criteria will change without communication. Employees trying to lead projects are often confused on direction as a result. Employees receive promotions/additional responsibilities and no pay review. There is a culture of distrust and suspicion from management to employees. Rather than focus on overall strategy critical business problems, the CEO micromanages how you plan your work. Employees have a 'task planner' to be filled out a week in advance which is then checked by their manager during team meetings. Every minute of your working week must be accounted for. Each task and estimated duration you plan out is interrogated, and your planner is criticised right down to the format with which you've written it into the document. You are accused of "bloating time" if the CEO thinks tasks should be quicker to complete. Employees are highly-attuned to ensuring their meeting/task duration on their planners matches other colleagues' that they've had meetings with or worked with on mutual tasks to avoid investigation. Managers are told to check planners 3 times a day to review your progress. Employees spend more time worrying about being questioned and covering their backs than working efficiently. Ironically, the CEO is highly disorganised himself. Your carefully-curated plan is suddenly thrown out of the window for something urgent that he knew was coming up but failed to communicate. If you act on this though, it shows "you don't have enough work to do if you can drop everything". You work long hours for no compensation to get it done due to higher up's lack of planning. Management are not empowered to approve projects themselves. Everything you do has to be signed off by the CEO. Due to pressure on his time, this is a very slow process which leads to frustration. Often the direction will then be changed as it isn't exactly how the CEO would do it himself and you will be set back to square one.

Interactive Schools Response
2y
Thank you for taking the time to write a review and we appreciate the positive feedback you have made about the fantastic team and support you are able to provide to each other. We are sorry that you did not feel able to raise some of the issues you mention during your employment, we strive to offer our employees a challenging and rewarding environment where open and transparent communication is key. We have channels in place for employees to raise any concerns they may have during their employment with their Manager and we value feedback from our team. We wish you well in the future.
2.0
20 Apr 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Culture was good when I left. Not sure how it is now. Low level perks like free coffee, occasional pizzas etc Some opportunities to learn in a new industry (private school digital strategy)

Cons

Main thing is the CEO/owner. Puts lots of pressure on staff unnecessarily. Lots of what is communicated to clients is smoke and mirrors. Constantly changing the goal posts for projects then gets angry when deliverables aren't to his standards. Shouts at staff. Turnover rate of staff high due to all of this. Pay is below average. Pay increases are always dangled as a carrot but rarely given. Nature of work is very samey. You do very similar things on every project.

Interactive Schools Response
2y
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review we appreciate your feedback and are pleased to read the positive comments about your time with the Company. We are disappointed to read some of your other comments, and would have appreciated this feedback at the time, you can always raise issues with your Manager or our HR team. We encourage all our team to communicate openly so that we are all going in the same direction to achieve our goals.
1.0
10 Nov 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The design team get all the perks

Cons

You get to watch the design team get all the perks CEO once said he only hire’s ‘vulnerable people’ because they’re easier to manipulate High staff turnover because of underpayment and toxic culture Made the company watch a presentation about how hard done by the CEO is before firing members of staff under false pretenses with no HR present Hired based on lies about benefits and earnings CEO is Rude to clients and takes everything personally HR changed multiple times in a short amount of time Impossible expectations of workload and nothing was ever good enough, especially when you’d spent hours doing something just for the CEO to forget or change his mind Constant crying and shouting by management The CEO even threw a notebook at his own daughter so no one is safe

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Glassdoor has 10 Interactive Schools reviews submitted anonymously by Interactive Schools employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Interactive Schools is right for you.