Payroll and pensions mishandled. Thousands wrongly deducted from my salary took months to recover. Pension contributions underpaid by more than 20% despite being taken from my payslip. A whistle-blower later revealed similar pension problems affecting others. One colleague’s salary sacrifice deductions were not reaching their destination for over six months, from my understanding.
Security and compliance failures. A very cavalier attitude to storing and sharing of classified information. The owner shared images of potentially highly classifies Royal Navy equipment internally, only removing them after MoD involvement. The Cyber Essentials self-certification was taken from an individual with integrity who said "no" to one who would say what needed to be said on the forms to gain the certification, when it became clear the business could not operate in a compliant way.
Protected underperformers. A favoured (by the owner) contractor repeatedly delayed projects by doing critical server software work on-site at demos, preventing full testing beforehand. Customers noticed and called this out on.
Broken promises. Contractually promised pay reviews were ignored; no pay rises or bonuses despite high inflation and repeated requests. Commitments to staff frequently reversed or dropped.
Leadership avoidance. Serious payroll and pension issues ignored for months. The common pattern was; delay, deny, and hope problems disappear. The normal excuse was, "I thought someone else was handling this," which after many many months of nagging and is unacceptable.
Recruitment. Twice I witnesses someone be recruited to replace an existing staff member, without the original member of staff knowing they were being replaced. One of those existing staff was using his whole roof at home so the business could have equipment on it for long term testing; using his home, electricity and internet. All for no reward or compensation, which made it an even more bitter pill to be blindsided.