This is an honest and true review knowing that this reflects what many employees think about this company.
There is no appreciation of employees whatsoever. You’re supposed to do your work, that’s it. Training and development doesn’t happen, especially not in a strategic and structured way (think PDP, goal setting...). Allegedly, you can attend external trainings after one year of service (this rule reflects the high turnover, see below), but you can be lucky, if you are ever allowed to attend anything! Even though they have capable people to promote, they prefer to hire external staff. It feels like many senior managers feel threatened by their own people, hence, development is not desired. Employee satisfaction is generally the lowest priority in this company. There are no efforts being made (except for pseudo-employee surveys to keep people sidelined) to improve staff happiness. This is highly visible in staff turnover, but for some reason, management doesn’t seem to care. This company does not like innovation and doesn’t ask for suggestions or new ideas (or ignores them). Example: the intranet and an HR management system (to book annual leave) was only introduced a couple of months ago.
Employees are not being trusted at all. This is why there are no flexible working hours (even though it would make sense due to the international nature of the clients!) or even home office (technically, managers are allowed to do it, but it is generally frowned upon). Even if people work dozens of hours of unpaid overtime, it is still not possible to leave earlier for, ie, a doctor’s appointment (example: despite working 12+ hours on a show, people were asked to make up for 2 hours of watching a football match at the World Cup everyone was permitted to).
The company culture is generally very hierarchical and extremely conservative. Some of the senior management have been working there for a long time, which, apparently, gives them the freedom to do as they please without having to fear any consequences (example: someone was being bullied by a director; when she complained with HR, she got fired). Senior management is very manipulative and only interested in what benefits them.
In general, the work environment feels very toxic. There is no honesty and no clear communication between teams (which is also not desired for some reason). Rules apply differently to different teams, i.e. some teams are allowed to shorten the lunch break to leave earlier, some aren’t. 60-70% of employees are German, so you hear a lot of German being spoken everywhere, which is very exclusive of everyone else.
Lastly, if you have to commute by car, be prepared for a lot of hassle and to pay extra for parking, as the parking situation is terrible (don’t rely on the wait list, it’s a joke, because anyone ranked higher than you will get a space before you).
