Honestly, a lot!
The Business is designed around senior leadership. If you aren’t in that bracket, and 95% of staff aren’t, then you are in for a tough time. Promotion opportunities are so limited that they are almost non existent. This is likely to be an issue for ambitious younger employees but the lack of headroom is no issue for those within the upper echelons of the organisation. They have already got to where they want to be, why should they care about you? (They really don’t, that’s the answer, although you won’t get that level of honesty). It’s also tough to actually do your job. There are so many layers of middle management in the organisation that the process is slow and cumbersome. Getting anything accomplished doesn’t feel like a success because it’s so attritional. Middle management layers are much more concerned about how a failure, or potential failure, will impact upon them that they limit opportunities for others to succeed. There are also colleagues within the business who are almost impossible to work with and make your job harder than it needs to be. Finally, they don’t actually pay very well compared to other organisations in the same space. Bonuses and salaries are far lower here than almost anywhere else where you will do a comparable job.
