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Nottingham Building Society

Engaged employer

Toxic Atmosphere with a Blame Culture - Manager Nottingham Building Society Employee Review

1.0
12 Jul 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

None that I could see.

Cons

I should preface by stating I genuinely have no axe to grind with The Nottingham. I work for a truly progressive, forward thinking, friendly company. Working where I do now feels more like a community than a workplace and it has shown me the real difference compared to working at The Nottingham. There is no malice in what I am writing below but I want to and will tell the truth. In terms of work and conditions at the society the performance review process is a bad joke that is designed to ensure it is not worth the paper it's written on run by corrupt managers that are only interested in furthering their own careers and are happy to step on yours to do it. There are some brilliant people in the IT department that are very knowledgeable and care about providing the Society with high quality, secure systems. There are lots of people in the department that have been brought in from non-IT parts of the Society that are equally as good but unfortunately there are some of those that are clearly coasting and resting on the belief that they can't be fired, or simply say the right things and try to charm their way through their work life to have a job they simply do not deserve. These people are dangerous and I witnessed on more than one occasion where they put systems and customer data at risk. I wouldn't have an account with them. The department and the Society tries to pretend that they are progressive but nothing can be further from the truth with infrastructure from 2005 and processes and practices from 1985, working at The Nottingham is a frustrating mix of management not understanding modern technology and therefore unwilling to spend budgets where it's really needed to make the Society actually progressive. For instance, they were unable to cope with the current pandemic and couldn't support staff working from home. This is a very traditional building society - the archetypal financial dinosaur - and the development team tries to run itself as if it were a software house but has none of the ethics, practices or knowledge to pull this off successfully. In terms of working for a development department I have never known such a backward thinking, toxic place to work. Working for The Nottingham will mean you will be held back in your career, there is not one team lead or manager (especially IT and IT Development) that actually cares about anything except how to shift the blame when things go wrong, and trust me, they will, they only care about themselves and they will use you as a human shield to divert blame.

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Nottingham Building Society Response
5y
Response from our Head of Technology and Change – Mike Dugand I’m saddened to hear the experience you describe with us wasn’t good for you. We ask our team for feedback regularly with our annual ‘Your Voice Matters’ survey, interim pulse surveys, through our People Forum and exit interviews. These are all in place for our team to share their concerns as they arise so I am disappointed we couldn’t solve this for you while you were still with us and I agree - we have many brilliant people. As a heavily regulated industry, we have a number of mechanisms in place to ensure systems and customer data are never at risk and we are tested and audited on this regularly. I have checked through reports of risk events similar to one that you mention and have been unable to qualify the comment that customer data was put at risk so it’s a shame these weren’t flagged for us to investigate at the time. We successfully mobilised 90% of our head office functions to work from home within the first month of lockdown, with no reported events there either so we actually recognise this as a positive achievement. In terms of not investing in systems, as a mutual we are owned by our members and are focused on delivering member benefit and invest in technology to enable us to do this, such as our significant investment is Salesforce. We are proud to be amongst the first mutual organisations to partner with them in addition to our other Tier 1 technology providers and recently completed a successful migration to new data centre facilities also. We know we still have work to do in growing our technological capabilities but we are satisfied we are on the right path to do that and are always looking to grow our team with talented individuals who can help with this. We look to our team members and leadership teams to help us shape and build our culture with regular feedback and the power to speak up. I’m glad you are happy in your new role and appreciate you taking the time to provide feedback about your time with us. Rest assured we will take this on board to ensure this experience is the exception.

Explore other reviews about Nottingham Building Society

2.0
31 May 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

• Strong purpose and a member‑focused ethos. • Many colleagues are committed and care about doing the right thing. • Flexible working is generally supported. • Some teams offer interesting work and opportunities to get involved in meaningful projects.

Cons

• Visibility and opportunities often feel concentrated around a small group of individuals, which creates a perception of favouritism and bias. • Development opportunities such as conferences, external events and sector engagement are not communicated transparently or consistently across teams. • Independence of certain functions can feel blurred due to how some individuals are positioned internally and externally. • Communication around progression, recognition and expectations can be inconsistent. • Senior roles carry significant responsibility, but support and recognition don’t always match the level of accountability required. • Decision‑making can feel political at times, which affects morale.

5.0
6 Feb 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Throughout my joining journey, the Talent Acquisition Partner and wider HR team were a great support - providing prompt and helpful responses to any queries, a real insight to the culture within Nottingham Building Society. Upon joining, my kit was quickly sorted with no issue and I was gifted a welcome pack of 'merch' - a nice perk when joining any company. The joining journey was one of the smoothest I have encountered in my 15 year career within Financial Services. Senior leadership had also taken the time to set up 1-2-1 intros with stakeholders across the organisation which were loaded into my diary the first time I logged on - a great help in building my network across the firm!

Cons

No negatives at all so far.

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