I made the mistake of working at Springer Nature for many years. When I first joined it was pretty good but things have gotten progressively worse and I felt like I had no choice but to leave. The management is truly awful, the company doesn’t care about the welfare of staff (they make this very obvious), profit comes first and staff are made to feel less than worthless. I’ve never experienced such low morale in a role before. When I raised this issue it was laughed off - the motto of Springer Nature might as well be ‘If You Don’t Like It, Leave’. There is no career progression, it is completely up to the employee to seek out other opportunities and hope that the new role might lead somewhere (they never do). What makes this worse is that the company goes to great lengths to promote itself as progressive, forward thinking and young, when this couldn’t be further from the truth. Pre-merger days saw flexible and sympathetic working arrangements that were then swiftly snatched away, causing numerous staff members with children to quit their jobs due to childcare arrangements. This has disproportionately affected female staff members which fits in well with the lad’s club vibe of the senior management dinosaurs.
Since the merger (more of a takeover) everything seems to have gone downhill. Quality of content is no longer a priority, nor is author service. Springer Nature just want to publish as much content as possible as quickly as possible to make as much money as possible (noticing a trend?). Nature staff have been forced onto Springer systems regardless of the fact that they simply do not work. The systems constantly lose content, as a result this causes incredible delays to the authors. Any complaints are dismissed. Senior management are more interested in getting their bonuses than offering anything close to a decent service or decent working conditions for staff members. Jobs have lost any creative aspects, there is no autonomy over work and talented members of staff are reduced to mindless, button pushing drones. The result is that confidence plummets, mental health is at risk and staff are off sick. The rate of staff turnover is alarming.
To top it all off, there are no recreational areas for staff, the canteen is too small to get a seat at lunch so you end up eating in the office. The company relies on the Nature brand and I can’t see it lasting at the current rate as quality is taking such a hit.
