Overall, there is a seriously toxic workplace environment at Plural. Some parts of senior management are unapproachabe and at times straight-up unprofessional, with a complete lack of transparency (especially about the health of the company). People are pushed to make long hours even when there isn’t a strong need for it, and you will be penalised if you try to enforce any type of healthy work-life balance (an example: Being told that I 'wasn't flexible' after saying I had a hard stop on a Friday eve to attend a bucket list concert with my terminally ill dad, who had travelled from another country just for the occassion).
I also specifically want to respond to some of the points mentioned by Plural in a previous review:
- Long hours: The Working Pattern reset has never been implemented. I cannot name a single project in which it was actually adhered to, and I have encountered multiple employees within the firm that had no idea it even existed in the first place. Even worse, HR doesn't believe in it - When I specifically asked for the WPR policy to be applied as a reasonable adjustment following health problems, HR said that it was 'impossible to guarantee that would be possible'. The focus group has no way of actually implementing change, and initiatives that would have made a difference (such as a project traffic light system) have been shut down by senior management.
- Management: There are absolutely some great project managers within Plural, but that does not justify just how bad some of 'bad apples' within senior management are. Project Best Practice has brought some improvements to this by establishing a more clear project process, but 90% of the time these managers do not follow these guidelines, and there is no way for junior employees to address that without safeguarding for retaliation from said managers.
- Plural has not responded to this but there definitely needs to be more conversation around diversity/inclusion. People from a not-British background and women are definitely held to a different standard than their British/male counterparts.