Good Supply Partner, Poor Employer
Pros
The business as a whole and the products that are supplied are great for customers and working with the account base I had was a real privilege. As a combined offering and a single source solution for workplace products how it was showcased, ordered and delivered to end customers was amazing. I would also like to shout out the peers that I worked with who were all great people and really supported each other to succeed within the role. The business could be a great place to work but the cons for me outweighed the pros as below
Cons
A toxic work environment from middle management and very limited support for the employee from the HR team. I made 2 complaints about unfair treatment (one as I resigned) and nothing was ever done about it. The HR function is not there to help Discrimination on pay scales where the same roles were paid vastly different salaries and there was little consistency or accountability. Within the team I worked in I was aware of a £10k pay difference for the exact same roles at the lower and upper end of the scale. This was raised with HR but again nothing was ever done about it Inconsistency of management approach within the same team and if your face doesn't fit or you challenge the norm you are made to feel like a problem rather than helping to improve things within the organisation. In the end the approach mounted to a bullying esk culture within my team. I felt very unsupported by my line manager and ideas that the team put forward were taken as their own initiative to the senior management team, at times it felt like they wanted me to fail and "push" me out of the business, again when raised with HR nothing was ever done. Inconsistency on communications and targets - this was completely fluid and you never knew where you were month on month regarding meeting your targets and potential commission. It was almost hidden from you until the last minute and despite knowing you were on track through self management there always seemed to be something that meant you missed, unless you were part of the "the club". It was never transparent and even mid way through the year you weren't clear on targets as they kept changing. The approach to annual price reviews and how you supported your accounts was very old school and managed by a very tedious process through excel. There were and are much better ways of managing price increases but the method used in Lyreco was very 1990s. The final straw was that my confidential leaving feedback was immediately shared with my line manager who then bullishly fronted me about it on my last day as I handed back my equipment in a 1-on-1 scenario despite me stating the main reason for leaving was down to their poor behaviour. I was glad to leave despite not having secured a new role elsewhere.
