Horrific Place to Work - Designer Contrado Imaging Employee Review

First of all, it’s disappointing to see the numerous reviews that have evidently been left by current staff- no doubt under orders from management. My experience with Contrado was horrendous- they handled the pandemic in a barbaric way. Forcing staff to come into work, despite being able to work from home, no regulations in place, and an unpaid leave policy if you ended up sick or had to isolate. In fact, I was told that if I had to isolate I would possibly be allowed to work from home, based on the ‘needs of the business’. For a short time in the early pandemic, we were allowed to work from home, after much persuasion. So clearly this was more than possible. We were pulled back in after a month or so- forcing office staff to work on the factory and threatening their jobs if they refused. They treat the pandemic as if it were a joke, the CEO emailed the entire company memes, described it as a ‘hype machine’ and asked us to design masks that said ‘corona survivor 2020’. They planned a ‘second wave’ campaign with ‘surfers’ to promote their masks, which thankfully was dropped- hopefully they realised how utterly disgusting the idea was. Hundreds of staff were squished alongside each other to produce fabric masks with no social distancing. The physical and mental impact inflicted on their workers is unforgivable. There was racism, disgusting comments on body image and the owner declared that ‘everyone is replaceable, customers aren’t’. If anyone got Covid, they were told not to tell other staff to avoid absences. I requested (again) to work from home one day as I felt unwell after my booster, I was ignored whilst another member of staff was allowed. My union said this was workplace bullying, the union that I felt I had to join because of how unsafe I felt in my job- and you should join one too if you plan to work here. It is also worth noting that each room has a google camera- with a built in microphone. No conversation is private- even which HR, which is incredibly illegal. However, HR would never help you- they’re there to enforce the rules of the owners. They pride themselves on sustainability, yet have skips full of wasted fabric sat outside in all weather ready for landfill. Their recycling programme is a lie- they have no way to recycle a tshirt into a new tshirt. This is a very niche service, which would need to be outsourced. Chris and Fran should hang their heads in shame, their values showed in their actions and I can confidently say they have no respect for employees. We’re just cogs in a machine. So why did I stay so long? The pandemic certainly didn’t help. But thankfully, I had an amazing supportive team, we were really able to bond over how hellish Contrado turned out to be. Each day we’d work to better ourselves and try not to think about the fact we were making horrible people richer. I’m sure this will receive some bs response with absolutely no accountability. As demonstrated on this forum, Contrado refuses to acknowledge their disgraceful mistreatment of staff. The mounting evidence is at this point is indisputable. Have some accountability. Please avoid, they really do not deserve any ones time or talent.