Has to be said.... - Anonymous employee Orange Bus Employee Review

1.0
9 Nov 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Coming from an in-house more corporate place to work it was great to start with, and like others have said the staff are really nice and the office is good. I liked the staff engagement stuff, and there was fruit delivery and beers supplied by the company which was great. Colleagues were self-organised in arranging social stuff and doing things for charity which was also good to see.

Cons

It was great to start with and I was hoping to stay here for a long time but my job was so frantic and it was more reactive over proactive when it came to getting stuff done. Even things as simple as trying to book a space to do work was near on impossible!! And it has to be said that the "positive" reviews straight after a neutral/not so good one is an OBVIOUS tactic from certain senior individuals!! I was going to rate 2/3* but after reading these attempts to wash out peoples opinions I can't get behind that!! These so called genuine very positive reviews/opinions are a false economy and they themselves should be “taken with a (large) pinch of salt”. I have heard through current colleagues/friends at OB that the company has plans in place for change but in my case this was too late and there was no continuation/follow through after staff engagement things happened early in the year. (maybe there was but there wasnt any clear communication?) The final straw for me was being kept very very busy in my role to the point where I had too much on and decided I had to leave, for my mental health and for my career. I couldnt switch off when I got home as I numerously had to work late/at home and it was affecting my home life. The salary wasnt reflective of the amount of work i had put on me. But thankfully I now work for a better salary with a better workload and healthy work/life balance, which in reflection to my time at OB, put things into perspective for me of how unhealthy the workload was. And also the turnover of people meant I was either picking up someone elses work or having to keep onboarding someone new. And now I've heard (and read!!) senior team are trying to silence their staff to not write negative things about OB on glassdoor which is a PUBLIC SPACE and personally I think is complete cheek to do. So I decided to share my HONEST experience. I didnt have much interaction with senior team or the CEO, the only time you would hear/see him would be him raising his voice at someone which is obviously not nice to witness, or the demand to have radio 6 on!? Overall I was quite sad to leave OB because it was sold to me as a real door opener for my career in terms of the projects i could work on and the "perks" didnt play up to scratch to my expectations.

Explore other reviews about Orange Bus

1.0
16 Nov 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Beers on a friday (if you have time to have one)/ Fruit delivered weekly/Good office space in Newcastle

Cons

Unfortunately Orange Bus has become a toxic place to work. A rift has formed between the senior leadership team and the rest of the work force. The CEO of the company thinks it is acceptable to shout, scream and bully staff. This can be for a variety of reasons - the wrong radio station being on, things being out of place, people asking questions that he doesn't like or if someone has made a mistake or produces a piece of work he doesn't like. This means that no matter how many plans are put in place, the staff feel like they cannot talk up because they will be shouted at and made to feel uncomfortable. He even said that anyone that writes a negative glassdoor review about orange bus can f off in a company wide meeting. Conditions have reached an awful low and I have began to dread walking into work. Morale is low and I know a number of people are looking to leave the company. Staff are put under immense amounts of pressure after projects are over promised and inevitabley under delivered. Then when staff inevitably fail on projects they are shouted at! Obviously this isn't going to make staff happy about their work environment.

20
2.0
30 Jul 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Most of the rank and file staff are great people.

Cons

Since being bought out by Capita, Orange Bus has truly lost its way. It's no longer quite sure what it should be, and has neither the management experience or senior staff competency to execute its work. Chaos and incompetency abound. Extremely Newcastle focused anyone in the distant offices is pretty much left to fend for themselves and management are completely absent from those locations. Having recently gone through a 2nd round of redundancies, and with no prospect of a full pipeline of work, Orange Bus fails to demand enough interest in the marketplace to justify the hype it gives itself. If you are an early-mid 20s university graduate with little experience and happy to join a similar group then you'll probably fit right in - anyone else, steer clear. This is an immature small agency trying to play in a bigger arena and failing spectacularly. There are better companies out there who will treat you better, Capita has no soul, and the senior management of Orange Bus have drunk the Capita kool-aid.

14
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