AND Digital Reviews

2.8

38% would recommend to a friend

(794 total reviews)
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Paramjit Uppal

38% approve of CEO

31% positive business outlook

AND Digital has an employee rating of 2.8 out of 5 stars, based on 794 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The AND Digital employee rating is 27% below average for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

794 reviews
1.0
22 Mar 2023

Lost its soul

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good stepping stone to better compensating consultancies.

Cons

The business is currently looking at a wave of redundancies, cutting numbers short of 20 redundancies per business unit to avoid collective consultation, but ultimately resulting in around 240 job losses. Toward the end of 2022, AND removed their training benefits and drastically reduced social activities and other discretionary spend. A cost of living payment was offered for those on lower salaries, but has now been rescinded. Salary benchmarking has been completed, with only those at higher levels seeing any increase and I’m not sure if these changes will be applied in light of the news on redundancies. The people proposition is no more and compensation and benefits are falling behind. Instead, people are being made redundant with bare minimum packages and at best, this wave of redundancies will bring AND into balance with further improvement needed. The business grew beyond its means and everyone is paying for it. Good people are being made to leave and good people are deciding to leave of their own accord. This is only bound to unsettle clients and further perpetuate problems.

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AND Digital Response
3y
Thanks for your review. We're truly heartbroken to be in the situation we are and for the impact it is having on our people. In the light of the economic slowdown and the effect it’s having on the tech sector, it’s with a heavy heart that, for the first time in our history, we’ll be going through a consultation process to make a number of redundancies from around half our Clubs (our local business units) and our supporting teams in the UK. Given the autonomous nature of our clubs, and in line with UK legislation, each club is an independent ‘establishment’. While clubs that are impacted are looking to reduce their costs by the equivalent of around 15-19 ANDis, those that are performing and forecasting well aren't impacted. As you mention, many of the great parts of what it’s like to be ANDi have been on pause over the last few months as we’ve tried to save everything we can without impacting roles. We hoped these small savings would get us through but the impact of the economic slowdown and the effect it’s having on the tech sector, has been greater than we anticipated. Though painful in the short term, taking this tough decision will enable us to return the full ANDi experience in line with our people value proposition as soon as possible. To minimise the amount of redundancies we need to make, we’ve had to make the difficult decision not to increase salaries at this point, based on the benchmarking that you mention. This will be disappointing to lots of ANDis, but we had to weigh up the impact on our business, and ultimately made the decision to keep as many ANDis as possible. The main problem has been our growth rate. In the last year AND grew by 55% and we had expected to achieve a similar trajectory in 2023. We have been successful in engaging with new clients and continue to deliver with our existing clients, but the pace of growth has been much slower than we anticipated. As we now expect growth this year to be in the 20-25% range, we have taken the decision to rebalance for this lower growth environment, which should set us up well for the future. We are truly sorry for the distress that this will cause to our departing ANDis, but we will do everything within our power to support those affected during the process and to set them up with the greatest chance of success in securing their next best opportunity. We remain grateful to all of our ANDis for their brilliant work.
1.0
19 Aug 2023

They killed it

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Back before we entered The Bad Times, there was a hell of a lot of talent in this company. Lots of really skilled and friendly people to learn from.

Cons

The culture's died a death. Management did not seem to understand what they were doing when they carried out layoffs in such bad faith, needlessly skirting round collective consultation by pretending every office is totally independent. People saw this for the lie it was and felt burned by it. The exodus of skilled engineers has been astonishingly fast. They've played fast and loose with their people, at a company that used to sing its "people first" creds from the rooftops, and there's no easy route back from that. It's a huge fall from grace, and it feels like the only way is down. The way they respond to recent Glassdoor reviews epitomises what it's like these days, not even trying to respond to the writers or the substance of their points, instead just turning direct to the reader, in a sad attempt to convince outsiders it's not so bad. Inane (and somewhat insulting) "fact checks" that miss the point, branding and PR over substance. RIP, AND, you were good while it lasted.

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AND Digital Response
2y
I'm sorry to read this and it certainly has been a tough time, culminating in the redundancy process earlier in the year. Responding to reviews like this is not the best part of my role but I do believe it's important to correct inaccuracies for the readers, as they can reflect badly on AND. If an ANDi's experience has sadly been far below what we'd hope and aim for, that doesn't reflect everyone's experience. (btw, I'm not in PR or marketing.) Going through a redundancy process is always horrible. Treating distinct parts of a business as 'independent establishments', like we did with the clubs, is quite common and had the advantage of better-performing clubs not having ANDis at risk of redundancies. It was difficult time but one that was necessary to go through and effective in getting us to a more stable and sustainable footing. We're seeing a more positive environment now. I'm sorry to hear your views and best wishes for the future.
2.0
6 Apr 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The cultural interview they perform ensures everyone you work with at AND are genuinely nice people. There is a strong social culture and the clubhouses are nice environments.

Cons

They preach a 'people first' company identity but several times actions taken by the senior leadership have directly contradicted this. Over-hiring in pursuit of ambitious BHAGs has directly led to several of my co-workers to be made redundant. This could have been avoided if AND's business model didn't simply only exist on constant growth. Whilst the company ambition could be praised, it backfiring and directly leading to 240 people being made redundant is unfair and their foolishness has directly affected people's lives. I do not expect this to be the last round of redundancies and due to them circumventing the group consultation process, they are legally allowed to start making more people redundant 90 days from when they are finalised. As a result I am very concerned for my own job now too. Additionally, the CEO choosing to end partnerships with a prominent LGBT charity with no justifiable reason caused outrage amongst the workforce. Even after several-hundreds of staff signed a petition to have this reinstated, they refused to do so. AND preaches about giving everyone 'a seat at the table' and whilst a couple of years ago they definitely did, that is now no longer the case.

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AND Digital Response
3y
We're so sorry to be having to go through a redundancy process - it's the last thing we wanted to do and we certainly don't want to be doing it again. For those reading this, the process has affected about half our UK clubs, with those affected clubs each needing to reduce their costs by the equivalent of 15-19 roles. It's been a really difficult thing to go through - especially those that have been at risk of course, but also for ANDis who are saying 'good-bye' to colleagues and friends. The whole purpose of the process has been to get on a more stable footing and to bring back the full ANDi experience. Also, just for clarity, our UK board received a proposal to become affiliated with a LGBT charity, rather than ending an existing partnership.
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