When I started, the business was led by the founder, who genuinely seemed to care about the employees.
When the company was sold to Private Equity, things quickly went down hill:
- Salaries stay the same for years, with any increases well below inflation (cutting pay).
- My age was referenced on several occasions regarding why I wouldn't be eligible for promotion for many years.
- Over 100 employees were made redundant in 2025 to cut costs, but targets were still pushed beyond any reasonable level without additional resources to achieve them.
- Personal responsibilities far outweighed the compensation received, and then the final straw was being forced to relocate the office to almost 100 miles away, to the most expensive city in the country, with no fair salary adjustment (despite 100x increase in travel costs).
Any occasion where these issues were raised, the blame was returned back to the sender, and nobody from the head office appeared to care. They post on LinkedIn and Instagram/TikTok about how great they are as an employer, but the needs of employees are not met, and they only talk about the experiences of employees in Germany. It makes the whole thing seem very performative.