Pros
-Flexibility with working hours (as long as you’re willing to work the ever lengthening hours). -Free gym -Friendly staff
Cons
-No true transparency - We were asked to focus on decisions and allow Operational People Managers to manage the teams, run the business relationships and others would lead the Practice Groups. However, we now find ourselves supporting: the OPMs who have no technical knowledge, the Senior Investigators in their team, the Investigators themselves, rejoin our PGs, pick back up our business relationship engagement and still reach high targets. All to be told we’re achieving expectations in our end of year grading when we manage to do all these things. I really do mean WE, as the service has never asked more of its ombudsman and yet nor have we been treated so badly. -Changes made to grade/zone progression without staff being informed until the end of year just before appraisals (at the very least in my department) -There is no longer any zone progression promotions. Instead, you’ll now receive a yearly pay increase based on performance (0-6% based on performance - with 1.75% being the average for meeting expectations, which is where almost everyone will land) . It’s also unclear what the metrics are - it seems they want all the things we do, but will then put us down for not also exceeding our numbers target. This year will likely see less support given to investigators by Ombudsman in order for us to now exceed numbers (whilst still maintaining great quality) as we are also keen to progress in our careers. -It is really not diverse as you move up the ranks, clearly some sort of failing is occurring there.