In the section of the business that I worked in, the pay was blow average and benefits were non existent. One year the Christmas party was moved to a Wednesday night and staff were told they would receive a disciplinary if they came in hungover essentially making the Christmas party a useless en devour. This was only one year to be fair but it was a sign of the changes the business was going through.
In the office, you generally found that most of the management team were in place to justify what they were being paid through being with the company for years, rather than actually having a skill in management. Some were fantastic but they were few and far between. The very good managers got passed around team to team to clean up the messes that other, skill lacking managers had made.
You generally found that if you were under performing, you needed to explain yourself and work it out. It was never a matter of the company working with you to solve the issue, you had to sort it yourself or you were out essentially. I did under perform for a while with Capita, however, without passing the buck, by this point I felt unmotivated and like I was in a dead end job. I spent a lot of time with the company as it was an easy job that paid the bills and I didn't really need to think about too much, when it got to a point where the manager became confrontational, the job just wasn't worth my time.
By the time I left, the company was losing contracts rapidly and redundancies were looming. Staff were told they wouldn't get pay rises, which was one of the few pluses of the job, only to be told a week later that the company had an made a massive profit that has broken the record the previous financial year. The communication to staff actually had the phrase "We were lucky to have jobs" (in the recession).
Basically, it's an alright job if you don't mind just being steady eddy turning up for a job and doing enough to get by but you'll only get noticed for a senior role if you're opinionated and confrontational about it.
