There have been a lot of points of frustration recently. Firstly, it’s frustrating that you don’t get a 100% of your bonus even if you perform very well purely because Sage doesn’t meet its internal targets which aren’t revealed to us. Secondly, the work can be tough and demanding which in the past was rewarded by great flexibility. Finally, I find the attitude of the senior leadership really inappropriate. The CEO recently said that we should be careful what we put in our glassdoor reviews as our customers read them while adding he’s ‘not trying to censor anything’. Well, I’d be careful with how you phrase these kinds of statements because to me it was clearly to discourage people from posting their honest opinions. But this attitude is best demonstrated by the recent announcement of the ‘return to office 3 days a week’ policy. When it was first announced, the senior leader on the call clearly got irritated by people asking questions and expressing legitimate concerns. Instead of trying to be more compassionate, the tone was aggressive and he clearly decided to double down on the rhetoric with phrases along the lines of ‘the decision has been made’. If you’re openly saying you’re not interested in feedback, it comes across as though you don’t respect your colleagues. We’ve also been discouraged from discussing this in an open manner in general. In the official email, we were made to feel as though we should be grateful that we’re not going back to the office 5 days a week but only 3. Some people will inevitably have to quit as they live too far and this happened very suddenly but perhaps this was the intent behind this all along. I can’t think of any better reason when the current hybrid model works very well, we don’t have enough space in offices and many teams are based in several countries. This means that some people will literally be coming to the office to spend the whole day on teams calls with their colleagues abroad.
