There is no HR or legal department at this company and there is also a huge turnover of junior staff. These are massive red flags.
Men and women are not paid equally for the same roles at this company.
If you are a junior member of staff, you will be vastly underpaid for the amount of work you do. They could afford to pay more, but it’s important that the Directors maintain the lifestyle that they have become accustomed to.
Your contracted working hours may be 9:30am to 6pm with an hour for lunch but in your contract it will say something along the lines of ‘you will work as many hours as it takes to get the job done.’
This means huge amounts of unpaid overtime - working through lunch, working until 7pm, 8pm, 9pm, 10pm and beyond. This means working weekends and during the Christmas holidays. This is the norm during busy periods, which seem to be constant now.
(In the past, many people have been signed off sick for 2 weeks at a time due to burnout from extreme stress and work overload.)
Higher ups will say that no one works overtime or logs in to work from home. This is simply not true. However, to contradict this you’ll also be told that ‘you should expect to work after office hours due to the nature of market research.’
You will be asked to access your work email from your personal mobile phone.
You can try to claim time in lieu, but it’s granted at the discretion of the Director on your project. And since in lieu means a slight deduction on overall profit, Directors will simply deny you any time in lieu. Almost similar to the way a dragon jealously hoards its gold.
Junior staff will complete the majority of work on projects whilst higher ups will often be out of office, on annual leave at very short notice, working from home or simply unable to answer an email or phone call. However you are expected to answer every email / query they send your way.
Last year, the company offered people the chance to work in the San Francisco office for 3 months. This was an amazing opportunity for younger employees especially.
When the first 2 people were sent over, the company hadn’t purchased the correct US work visas for them. This resulted in an employee being deported from the US straight away and being permanently banned from using the general US visa.
The other person who got through without being caught was told to ‘lay low’ by one of the owners. In a country where law officials are armed. The company put their futures at risk. Other people who were meant to go in a few months had their plans scuppered.
The general consensus is that the correct visas weren’t bought to save the company a few precious pounds. Considering that RP is a multimillion global company, the whole debacle was outrageous. They awarded the employee the worst travel story at the office Christmas party though, so that makes everything okay.
The company will promise promotions, but often you will be leap frogged or overlooked depending on whether or not Directors / higher ups like you.
There is a group of people who started out as graduates at the company that RP seen particularly desperate to hang onto - they receive a lot of perks, higher pay, more promotions, trips abroad - because they ‘deserve it.’ This has been noticed by many junior staff. A fair few of these people come from a background of private education. RP likes to recruit from these types of educational backgrounds, despite the fact the work you'll be doing will not be what was advertised to you - you will feel overqualified.
If you start here as a graduate, successfully work your way up and are liked by the owners and Directors you will most likely be given preferential treatment - small mistakes will be quietly ignored / overlooked. Most are not so lucky.
If a higher up has an issue, rather than discussing it with you like an adult, they’ll either run straight to your line manager or they’ll hang onto their grievance until appraisal time. This can seriously damage your chance of a pay rise and promotion and ruin your reputation. Which is most likely what they’re aiming for.
Of course, should you improve in time for them and far exceed their expectations, will they give you positive feedback in your next appraisal? Don’t count on it.
Some senior staff members think it’s acceptable to fabricate feedback about employees received from outside the company and other senior staff members think it’s reasonable to stand over people and berate them in front of their teams. Because this will obviously yield positive results.
Management can be very poor in this company, but there are a few people who are very good managers and do their best, despite the lack of training and resources - as this would cost the company extra money to provide.
After working at RP for several years - you are allowed to ask for a sabbatical of 3 months, a wonderful opportunity for travel or study. They are removing this perk from new contracts, one of the few perks RP had.
When leaving the company, its announced via office email - your name will most likely be spelt incorrectly by one of the owners. Either this is quite an amusing form of passive-aggression or laziness to double check the spelling. RP takes people leaving very personally for some reason.
The London office building has seen better days. It took years for the heating and AC to be fixed and there are often foul, unexplained smells. The company won’t move though as that would cost money and the current office is close to where the owners live.
One of the owners of the company has a dog who is frequently in office. This dog isn’t friendly and bit a former employee on several occasions. The dog also isn't house-trained. Some treat this animal like the second coming. It’s really not.
