Control Risks reviews about "senior management"

*Homogeneous senior management (British, male, ex-government or journalist background) who promote and pay them selves bonuses at the expense of staff who add real value. Definitely a club mentality that exists. *If you are not a "native English speaker" (not Caucasian), you do not have any future here. Your work will always be inferior. Don't expect any significant promotions. *Poor financial management. The company ran it's finance to the ground from haphazard spending as well as poor account management. It's account receivables (primarily law firms) is astounding and probably not recoverable. The firm still refuses to acknowledge that working with law firms who don't pay on time is a bad way of doing business! *Ones dimensional way of thinking about its strategy. (Hire more people to increase revenue, we are control risks - clients should come to us for our reputation). The company operates in a highly competitive and niche market where smaller and cheaper companies who utilize technology and more efficient operations are gaining market share and working on tight margins. The company is delusional in thinking it's name has any brand equity amongst clients. *Mercurial company policies which protects unfair practices by senior management and is subject to change at the management as discretion. *Questionable values (ethics). The company recently hired a non executive director to provide strategic input and moral stewardship to the company. The said executive was once questioned by US government agencies during her tenure at a multinational bank about being implicated in facilitating money laundering for south American drug cartels. See "Dirty Money" on Netflix for more details. Again excellent choice for a moral steward and certainly reflects the company's values.

As a business it sells a brand that clients can trust when they most need support - CR claims they will give you experienced consultants, some of the best on the market. In real life that's far from true and as a manager I had to deliver on that brand promise, while extracting maximum leverage from people with zero experience, because we did not want to pay for the real deal. We tried so hard but always had a weird feeling that it was more about putting on a show than actually giving clients access to real experts. It worked out most of the time, but if clients really knew what happens in the "kitchen", many would walk away or ask to pay half the price. On a similar note the company's use of the word "expert" is abusive. They take someone with superficial knowledge and good presentation skills and here you go he is a "Control Risks expert" on something. The company maybe has 100 real experts globally. Out of 2,000 employees. You won't see them often because most of them want to leave anyways. The company has a really strong culture and it prides itself of being unique, doing things right, honest, etc...Actually that is only the case when it serves senior management. I've seen some very unethical career and pay management decisions that were not only condoned but supported by the top brass. It's generally around the idea of "give them the absolute least possible we can, they'll leave, we will find new bodies to suck their life out. " So if you ever want to be failry rewarded for your work and committement: Walk Away! Control Risks will give you experience but never a fair deal. Unless you are a white british ex military or, more recently part of the happy few high power female group crushing every body else in the name of "diversity" (it's not).

Extremely toxic culture, backstabbing, very high turnover as a result especially in the IT. Incapable, uneducated senior management with an attitude of know it all. Unstable, you can get fired in one day because your manager had a fight with you. Sheep culture. Promotion based on gender, extreme feminists at top levels.

Toxic work culture (burnout culture): employees were expected to begin and end work outside of conventional working hours, were commended for doing so, and were neglected if they were unable or unwilling. Despite the sensitive nature of the work, management ignored efforts from human resources to offer mental health interventions. Given that the project operated according to regulated peer-to-peer feedback and scoring systems, the culture revolved around constant criticism among fellow team members. Exclusive and cliquey team management: the original team members are now senior management, and they are gatekeepers of responsibility and respect on the team. Their "inner circle" is exclusive and it has caused many employees to feel ignored and outcast, with their own learning, development, and progression curbed as a result. The senior management is receptive to feedback, but if not agreed with, the feedback will not be incorporated into team changes. There were issues with a lack of respect and empathy on the team, causing team members to feel degraded and excluded. The team has lost many members since the project's founding, many of whom have left after being there for under a year. Resistant to organisational and cultural change: there were recurrent issues with the structure of the project, resulting from its nascence. However, suggestions to adapt the project and the team organisation were not taken seriously when emerging from lower and middle management. The scoring system was by far the most toxic addition to the team's management culture, encouraging an ethos of competition and exclusion. Talented, smart, and highly qualified individuals on the team, but management and organisation of the project does not incorporate their value. Many team members are unhappy but feel they will be rewarded for their toil. Many have found this not to be the case unless they were able to work themselves sick or gain the social approval of upper management. Limited learning and personal initiative: the work is interesting, but could be done by someone with very few qualifications. Does not require the amount of previous experience and skill that is asked in the job posting. Efforts to engage more with the organisation and management of the project were prevented by upper management. After being on the team for over a year, I did not find that I left the job with a proportionate amount of new knowledge. Underpay: I believe the employees on this team were underpaid for this work, despite the high profitability of the project itself.

Nothing that comes to mind.

Senior management is still peppered with the "old boys" of the company's dying past as the private sector version of an officer's club. Though they will fall in numbers as the years pass, the few that remain are in senior roles where they appear immovable. Their disconnect from the more dynamic, ambitious, overworked and underpaid, and less clubbable employees is frustrating at best. While the pay is slightly below market, it is tolerable. What is less tolerable is that the pay is not commensurate with the workload or the toll that the work takes since it is highly stressful. This will not likely be resolved any time soon. The final con is the sheer level of bureaucracy and administration. Even the most determined and well meaning employee, a zealot, a fanatic, would give up at the futility of achieving even the smallest amount of change. On the plus side, they know it and hopefully they will do something about it.

The company promotes itself internally as putting its people first and ensuring a good work-life balance. However, in reality the company is obsessed first and foremost with its budgets and finances and as a result, many teams have limited resources and employees often have to work long hours and weekends to ensure projects and tasks are complete. Personal development opportunities are also often sidelined to ensure work is completed. While in a busy corporate environment it is expected to put in longer hours from time to time, this has largely become the norm at Control Risks. On top of this, the company has a reputation for paying well below market rates. Collectively, these challenges are reflected by a relatively high turnover of staff, especially at junior levels. The company, however, does not care about this high turnover of junior resources as it knows it operates within a highly competitive market where it will be able to quickly rehire new people. In addition, there is a lack of creativity and dynamism at senior management levels with most senior leaders have been with the company for at least 7-10 years, if not longer. Supposedly 'new appointments' are often just internal reshuffles. As a result, the company's culture and attitude towards its people does not change. With Control Risks having a presence in a large number of countries and regions across the world this is often promoted as meaning there are lots of travel opportunities. However, these are often limited to particular people.

Senior management are primarily white and male. The company is very good at making it look like they care - a big push on employee welfare awareness this year, yet it hasn't been put into action. A lot of decisions made behind closed doors, no transparency. People scratching each others' backs to get ahead.