Amazing compensation but not an inspirational place to work - Anonymous employee BAT Employee Review

2.0
Jan 21, 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Amazing compensation: Salary mostly above market norm + Generous private pension + Heavy bonus (even "on target" bonus is good, but mostly company delivers above target which is unmatched in other FMCG, to my knowledge) - Good people hired in general - Overall gives the sense of security (financially, integrity of business practices)

Cons

- Lack of development opportunities in the company - development shift focused to online training bits (not even proper materials to gain deep knowledge of certain topics) and rare opportunities for external trainings which are mostly not accessible by majority of employees - Career development has been diminishing over years and is very poor now ("do I know you?, do I like you?" is still the way to go to progress in your career) - Specific and limited skillset acquired in jobs, not easily transferrable to outside companies - Lack of diversity in senior management in many areas of business, it's very much a boy's club - BAT has become a money-making machine with not much focus on employee happiness & wellbeing - the working atmosphere is brutal and political, leadership is very remote and authoritative (in a bad way), some climbing over heads is seen. Overall not a happy place to work. - Reorganisations which became a normal practice over recent years are done in quite a brutal way - even though generous redundancy packages, the pressure on employees is high - too short time to decide, consultation process becomes a formality vs. genuine attempt to be fair in the process to everyone

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5.0
Oct 2, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Complete autonomy with schedule which provides for a nice balance between work and personal life - Impact people who are trying to grow their careers - Company car and free* gas is pretty nice

Cons

- Autonomy & freedom does leave time where you have to be self-motivated to keep going and push forward

1.0
Mar 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

401k, Good deal of vacation time.

Cons

I truly miss working for RJReynolds! Even though its a very large company it still had that small close knit company feel. Now that BAT has taken over it is absolutely MISERABLE working here now. The plant has not shut down on a weekend since they took over and doesn't look like it will anymore as long as BAT is in control. All this company cares about is production and getting tobacco out the door. Employees get promoted to positions they no experience in and have no business at all in working in the positions. The moral is the worst I have ever seen it, you can look at coworkers faces and tell they aren't happy working here anymore. The production employees are miserable due to this plant never shutting down and always running. Work/life balance is very bad. BAT has zero care for American holidays, they wont think twice to "voluntell" employees they need to work on the holiday. Employees are scared to speak up and say anything. Management is all yes people and will not stand up for their employees. I have watched everything get progressively worse and worse as BAT continues running this company. This used to be a company that people enjoyed working until retirement and now its a company that works the employees into the ground.

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