onefinestay changed so drastically in the time that I worked there (especially in the tech department) and the cause for this was 100% the senior management. Some examples of how the C-Level executives work:
- Publicly release important private company data accidentally due to lack of knowledge of how systems work.
- Laying off a whole team who had been at the company for years a couple of weeks before Christmas because they dared to speak out and suggest change against what was being proposed in the roadmap.
- Another who was brought into the company to lead restructures and lay people off, who was then promoted to help the culture…not exactly setting the right tone for culture to keep on the same person who is associated with redundancies.
The senior management's solution to wanting to get rid of the London HO team completely is to bury their head in the sand, ignore their teams in HO and give them no work for months until they are forced to leave out of complete boredom. Oh and on top of this, hire the exact same teams in France and get them to do what should be the London team's jobs, behind their back, while not communicating any of this at all and ignoring numerous messages and evading questions. I have never worked with such an immature and cowardly bunch of executives - I can count less than a handful out of the eleven executives that actually care about their teams and are transparent, but these executives are pushed aside by the others and equally as ignored as the rest of us.
onefinestay used to have an amazing reputation for tech which was one of the reasons why I took a job there, along with the brilliant culture and perks. If you are considering taking a tech job within this company, do not, it is career suicide. The whole London tech department has jumped ship within a matter of months (some new people only lasting for three months), something none of us wanted to do. However with the clear favouritism being the Paris office and some clear, biased hatred towards anyone who doesn’t speak French, there is no future in this company for tech or product within London. The company itself are currently re-evaluating if they are a tech company, which in itself speaks volumes.
Everything that made onefinestay as a company unique and a wonderful place to work is completely gone. When a company gets acquired, you'd expect the benefits to go up, not having all benefits scrapped and alienating your employees. It won't be long before Accor realise that their little experiment has failed and then onefinestay will be gone. Not that it is onefinestay anymore, it's just another Travelkeys or Squarebreak site, considering that they are the people that are running this show.
If you are even thinking about taking a job in the London office, I strongly recommend that you do not - the environment and what remains of the culture are completely toxic.
