Pros
Genuinely great people across the business at staff level, real talent in most departments. The pay wascompetitive for the location when you start out, and there is opportunity for progression if you are in the right place at the right time. For someone early in their career, it gives you solid foundations and exposure to the industry. Advice to Staff Use this place. Come in, learn your trade, and take advantage of the fact that the pressure here is manageable compared to more competitive environments. Get your experience, build your foundations, and when you know you are good enough, leave. Do not wait for the business to reward your loyalty. The evidence suggests it will not.
Cons
Where to start. Over 11 plus years this business cycled through leader after leader, strategy after strategy, with no real sustained success to show for it. The higher ups are disconnected from reality, rarely consulting the people doing the actual work, yet somehow convinced they have the answers. There is a very clear inner circle culture. If you are in the right group you will be looked after, taken to expensive dinners, leaders invited on resort trips, and shielded from the consequences everyone else faces. Some individuals have done very well out of playing that game, advancing and benefitting in ways that came directly at the expense of others around them. If you are not willing to play along, expect to be managed out, underpaid, or made redundant in the name of cost cutting. The brand is treated almost as a privilege. There is a genuine belief internally that working here is something you should feel fortunate for, that the name alone is compensation in itself. As a result the pay and commission structure has always lagged behind competitors and that gap has never been closed. If you are comfortable, not in a rush, and happy to coast within a recognisable name then you might settle in fine here for a while. But if you want to earn serious money and have no interest in corporate ladder climbing and politics, this place is not for you. That cost cutting has now gone to an extreme. Good, experienced, long serving staff have been made redundant and work outsourced overseas to save money. Staff were fed misleading information throughout the process to soften the blow. It was poorly handled and showed exactly how much loyalty means to this business when the numbers get tight. The real tragedy is that the business does have something. There is a USP sitting there that could genuinely compete if it were invested in properly. People have been saying that for well over a decade. They hold onto that hope and stay longer than they should. Do not make that mistake.