Control Risks reviews

3.6

72% would recommend to a friend

(610 total reviews)
avatar

Nick Allan

77% approve of CEO

51% positive business outlook

Control Risks has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 610 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Control Risks employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Administración y consultoría industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

610 reviews
1.0
Feb 3, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Good benefits, including private healthcare - Everyone is a similar age, so colleagues can become great friends. - You will have an immense appreciation for the job you get after you leave.

Cons

Working in threat intelligence there feels like you're back at secondary school. Firstly, all of your work gets marked out of 10 in an opaque contradictory process. Second, the "management" choose a select few to join their clique and put on the non-transparent path to promotion. The management have no experience in managing people and are out of their depth. They are haemorrhaging employees - 11 have left in the last year in a team of about 26. The "Researcher" position is constantly advertised on LinkedIn as they are desperate to backfill for the people they've lost. Sometimes they held sessions to chat about how things were going and areas for improvement. You quickly realised that anyone who provided constructive feedback would be punished with bad scores or mean comments being made about them amongst management. I still cannot believe some of the comments I heard from them about junior colleagues. The only way to survive is to keep your head down, stay "in" with the cliquey management and definitely don't be honest if anyone asks you for feedback on how you find the process. Aside from the toxic environment, the work is interesting for the first few months and most of the people are great. After a while, you hit a ceiling for the OSINT/ intelligence skills you can gain and then the only direction is to take on more responsibility in admin, recruitment or training new starters. The work is dogged in technicalities with every meeting introducing new guidance that will be scrapped the next week. Also, the salary is not enough to survive comfortably in London - salt in the wound when the management bragged about how much money threat intel brings into the firm.

2.0
Oct 19, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Usually has decent working hours, small team so there is a decent variety of work, opportunity to take part in each stage of the project life cycle.

Cons

Poor management, lack of real expertise, sales focus, not family friendly, inconsistent goals that change with changes in leadership, poor staff retention, brain drain. I did not feel I learned that much from the people I worked with, there was very much a "work it out for yourself" mentality.

1.0
Jul 26, 2023

The Epitome of Toxicity

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Decent view if you snag one of the few seats in the corner of the office

Cons

There is, unfortunately, a long list and not enough space. But I will highlight just one - perhaps the most destructive one. As has been highlighted by many comments here, the biggest con is the company's toxic culture. Toxicity in all forms you can imagine from the top-down. This alone should already make you think twice about this company. A clear in-group and out-group sustains this toxicity. From the moment you step in, you'll understand the "acts" that go on. To avoid running afoul of the in-group, you'll have to participate in gossip and take great care never to offend its top leadership, even if not doing so goes against your core values and ideals. You'll almost have to become a lesser person to fit into the petty culture created by this in-group because all their members have extremely sensitive egos. It's tiring if you just want to come into a company to make a living, but its core members much prefer power plays and creating unnecessary conflicts just so that they have something to gossip about. And here, bonding = gossiping. Even if you are a lowly new-joiner and this is your first job, just know you won't be spared. People like to talk about people here – far too much. If you're a certain demographic and have good wits about you, tokenism and opportunities by demographic - 'nuff said. This is a British company. Simply because there might be others of your demographic in the company, please do not be deceived. Be smart - if they're still there, they're aligned to some existing key officer. If you've studied history, you'd know overseas empires have always been able to sustain dominance over the long term with the help of "local" supporters to quash critique from the ground. Sure, the possibility of being thrown under the bus even by someone to whom you might have had some affinity exists in every company. It is just uncomfortably high here. TL;DR. Even if you think you're someone who thrives in "toxic" environments, don't underestimate this one.

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