A two-tier den of hypocrisy - Recensione dipendente - Director presso Which?

1,0
2 giu 2023
Consiglia
Gradimento del CEO
Pronostico commerciale

Vantaggi

Nice office building, albeit leased.

Svantaggi

A common thread in many reviews of working at Which? is how employees are treated by what is referred to as the 'Leadership Team' and it is a valid criticism. A small coterie of senior people desperately cling on to their jobs because they know that they would never secure a role at a similar level elsewhere. As a result, the organisation is bereft of ideas and suffering a painful decline in relevancy. The lack of diversity is shocking, with an overwhelming number of white upper-middle class employees despite the CEO promising to change this over three years ago. This is probably because average salaries for people not in the 'leadership team' are so low that people working here need to be subsidised by their wealthy families in order to survive. Career advancement is non-existent because of the stagnation at the top, and when mid-tier vacancies arise, internal applicants are rarely successful in applying because they haven't received the professional development that is needed to step up. Anyone complaining about this, or any other negative aspect of working there will quickly find themselves the target of an HR department that does nothing to protect the rights of the worker and everything to remove anyone deemed 'undesirable'.

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Risposta di Which?
2y
Thank you for taking the time to write your review. Over recent years we have reviewed our working environment, and invested in creating an office arrangement that is flexible / inclusive and works for us when we come together for moments that matter. We have found that our hybrid approach to working allows us to lease floors in our building to other organisations. This means we can continue to fund our charitable and advocacy activities and remain committed to being a consumer champion. We have invested heavily and are proud of our EDI activity, and are also extremely proud of our inclusive culture. Our committment to EDI is a top priority at Which?, and we continue to work to progress our EDI strategy here, including our recent launch of our Ethnicity Equity Action plan to address underrepresentation, the work we are undertaking to review our policies to make them more inclusive and human centric, our networks and committees, recruitment initiatives, investment in apprentices / interns and all of our 'lets talk events' with external speakers. We are sorry to hear that you didn't feel like there were many development opportunities available for you during your time here, but we are proud of the vast range of employee development opportunities available. This could be from our learn and grow offering to the volume of secondment opportunities that we support throughout the business. Which? is a living wage employer, meaning that we are committed to paying our staff in accordance with the cost of living. We also review our salary benchmarking annually, to make sure that we keep up to date with the external market. As we are a not for profit organisation, we benchmark against other commercial and charitable organisations in a similar sectors. We are concerned about your comments for the People team and would like to discuss this further, we take all comments about Which? very seriously and would be happy to discuss directly. Please contact us at people@which.co.uk if you wish to do so.

Esplora altre recensioni su Which?

3,0
27 giu 2013
Collaboratore esterno anonimo
Consiglia
Gradimento del CEO
Pronostico commerciale

Vantaggi

Friendly and has it's heart in the right place. Feels good, man!

Svantaggi

For a rather small company it has a lot of inertia. Autocratic leadership out of depth in the digital age of publishing.

2
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Risposta di Which?
6y
Thanks very much for your feedback on having worked for Which?. There are some really positive comments in there that are very encouraging to read. Our 'great pedigree' has been nurtured over many years (more than 60 now!) and we're still continuing to evolve. That leads onto your less positive comments. After a recent very detailed strategy review, Which? now certainly has a new and dynamic future to look forward to - and that applies to our many thousands of members and supporters, as well as our staff.
2,0
18 feb 2026
Consiglia
Gradimento del CEO
Pronostico commerciale

Vantaggi

The mission is meaningful and the work can be interesting on paper. Some colleagues are talented and genuinely care about consumer outcomes. Great brand recognition can help on a CV.

Svantaggi

In my experience, the culture in my area was damaging and the organisation did not feel like a supportive place to develop. • Micromanagement: Day-to-day work was heavily controlled with excessive checking and a lack of trust, which made it difficult to work autonomously or confidently. • Views disregarded: I regularly felt that my professional judgement and contributions were dismissed rather than debated, even when I came prepared with evidence and options. • Blocked opportunities: Development opportunities and higher-profile work were repeatedly directed to more senior colleagues, with limited transparency on reasoning and little meaningful support to build the skills required to progress. • Bullying and harassment: I experienced behaviour that I would describe as bullying, including undermining communication and an intimidating tone. This created stress and made the team environment feel unsafe. • Poor handling of concerns: When issues were raised, the response felt performative rather than practical, with insufficient action to address conduct or improve ways of working. Overall, it was an environment where you are expected to deliver without being trusted and where challenge is not welcomed unless it aligns with pre-set views.

1
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Risposta di Which?
3mo
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience of working at Which? We’re sorry to hear that you felt unsupported and unsafe. It's not the experience we want for anyone working here. We always continuously strive to review our development pathways, management practices and processes for addressing workplace concerns to ensure they are fair, transparent, and effective. We encourage current employees to raise issues through available channels so they can be reviewed and addressed. We take all feedback very seriously and would be happy to discuss your personal experience in more detail so we can address. You can do so by contacting people@which.co.uk anonymously
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