HMS Viva Key Travel Has Hit Its Iceberg.. - Team Manager Key Travel Employee Review

1.0
Feb 25, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some Really Hard Working Staff Some fantastic client relationships (which are in extreme jeopardy) Some friendly colleagues to work alongside and keep morale going in the hardest of times.

Cons

A Definite Fear Culture - who is being made redundant next? Wave after wave of Staff Redundancies, Voluntary Redundancy, Satellite Office Closures and "Restructure" after "Restructure".. Even the new Managing Director left after only a few months, can't think why?! People are constantly thinking "Am I next?" No Connect With Senior Management - Albeit hardworking satellite offices have been closed due to "restructuring" little has been done to take into consideration of clients and staff, visits from Senior Management were rare unless you work in London or Manchester or unless it was for HR reasons. Ultimately if you were out of sight, you were out of mind. Lack Of Communication In All Forms Throughout The Business - Company was working on hearsay and rumour, a real lack of communication even when they promised to improve. Still to this day they are very incompetent in this matter. Company Values Are Not Acted Upon - Some of the original values of Compassion, Clarity Anticipation are laughable. None were relevant to the company or acted upon in times when they were really needed. Constantly Understaffed - A real concern, staff constantly having to be moved around teams to help, no continuity in job and added stress to all employees. Have currently moved to a "One Agent, One Call" setup which they hope will alleviate the issue when in fact it's adding fuel to the fire with a real lack of client training and has not been means tested. Extreme Workloads That Cause Stress - Adding on from the last point, staff members are at breaking point, crying at desks with next to no assistance from management, stress contributing to high levels of absence across the business which then adds another strain. When management are challenged it's either get used to it or look elsewhere. Considering Being A Homeworker For Key Travel? Don't Even Facilitate The Thought - They want to be thought of as a more inclusive and flexible employer.. They are far from it in my personal opinion. Being a homeworker you are effectively forgotten about with the real lack of communication with the company. Extreme concerns about inclusivity and systems working in the home. Amazingly there are still some homeworking staff who are without Telephony Systems since the new rollout in September of last year! This adds pressure to the rest of the workforce. Extremely Poor Technology - Telephony and Email Management Systems have been rolled out on next to no planning, more "let's try it and see" to the detriment of all involved be it staff or client. A real lack of Project Management and huge projects being rolled out in peak seasons which is absolutely ridiculous. Constantly having to "log IT tickets" to alert the IT Team of issues they are then either left for weeks on end or are "closed" citing "duplicate" or " we are aware of" reasons.. Lack Of Concern For Wellbeing For Staff - In this day and age mental health is extremely important and in my view should be invested in. At Key Travel, they claim to have invested in Mental Health Ambassadors however when approached with serious concerns, you are left high and dry with no comment. Benefits have either been withdrawn or extremely cut back. From Long Service Awards that have been heavily cut to where it is actually insulting. (An example of this was upon reaching your 10 year anniversary, in days of old you would have received £1000, now you receive £100..) to the complete withdrawal of Christmas Parties, where in their eyes, giving an extra few pounds to Quarterly Nights Out should suffice instead.. I could go on..

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Key Travel Response
6y
Thank you for your feedback we value all comments that give us an opportunity to improve how we do things. Our previous structure was complex and inconsistent across the business, which created silo’s in certain areas and a lack of collaboration throughout. As we move forward we need to remove these complexities and be more agile in the way we work and respond to our customers needs. All of our change briefings have been communicated via our UK MD or senior leadership team personally ensuring anyone impacted heard the message first hand. We moved to simplify our office footprint and enhance our homeworking offer, anyone who was affected by these changes was personally spoken to by the leadership team who travelled to the relevant offices regularly to help facilitate the move. We have worked hard on improving our communications, our recent change plans were communicated at all levels, ensuring everyone knew what was happening within the business. Our operating model was not sustainable in the ever-changing world, we need to adopt an approach that will give our customers the best service. We have launched CRM alongside heavy investment in other IT systems to help us achieve this. We have rolled out training to all agents and managers to ensure a smooth transition. Team Managers manage their team initially and have clear objectives around how to manage and support all of their teams whether office of home worker. As with any project we don’t always get things right first time, we took significant learnings from our first launch and have put those into place for our new CRM launch today. We are proud to have introduce Mental health first aiders in to the business last year, their role is purely to listen and assist, if needed, signposting employee’s to any external or internal help, in addition we also recently launched, our new health and wellbeing app helping employee’s look after not only their health and wellbeing but giving hints and tips on how to support other, we also introduced other new benefits this year. Our Christmas party in 2019 in Manchester had less than a 40% attendance, which suggests it didn’t work for the vast majority of our employee’s and so therefor we decided to make some changes. Each manager now has the autonomy and flexibility to celebrate how best suits their team and have the ability to combine with other to do something on a larger scale if they want to.

Explore other reviews about Key Travel

5.0
Apr 30, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Key Travel has a very cohesive executive team that is committed to ensuring all aspects of the company strive toward category leadership . And, employees are among the most dedicated and passionate I have seen in my work experience. Communication is honest, frequent, and has a single goal in mind of enhancing the customer experience. There is also considerable energy to enhancing and optimizing the employee experience as well, to ensure retention, job satisfaction, and recruiting success. Considerable investments have been made in 24/7 teams, technology, and multi-channel contact methods.

Cons

A very competitive space, so balancing growth and investment with often changing market and people conditions can be a challenge. This is apparent with all travel businesses, at this time of increasing complexity in the industry and around the world.

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Key Travel Response
1y
Hi there, thanks for your feedback. We agree our colleagues are excellent and at the heart of making Key a success. Our proprietary technology is built for this sector and award winning.
1.0
Apr 8, 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Wish I could come up with some but it’s frankly impossible.

Cons

Having been in this industry for a very long time, I’ve never come across an executive team that is more dishonest, untrustworthy and so blatantly obvious that they are all about their personal gains. It’s very disappointing because it could have been a great company that did great things. When I say ‘executive team’ I want to be clear that I’m speaking to the NA President and the Global CEO. They also brought their friends into the circle, but because of lack of space - and lack of giving a crap - I won’t mention them here. (You know who you are KB). This was seriously the most toxic and sexist environment I’ve ever worked in. That this type of behavior and overall working conditions can still exist in today’s environment - boggles my mind. A lot of very, very good and qualified people worked here who were run off because of the horrible working conditions. The two ‘new’ senior leaders completely changed the company - in a very negative way- very quickly and it’s a downright shame. Employees deserve much better. The customers deserve much better. It’s a sad outcome.

10
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