Superficial values and in need of a business overhaul
Pros
- The offices are very modern and clean. - They are trying to build a nice culture, and this shows in the empathy of others. - Great genuine flexi working. Not like some where there's still an expectation to come to office, they genuinely mean it.
Cons
DCK rapidly need to accept the size & functionality of their company. Accept it is not that of an enterprise giant. A lot of the problems stem from this. This is not a negative thing and should be embraced in till they reach enterprise size. I titled my review "superficial" because this is ultimately what the company output has become. They have put in place processes, labels, values etc. That strongly mirror Tesco's- but they do not have the substance or resources to follow through on any of these. Therefore, creating empty promises as far as budgets, resources and timings go, and thus for, overworked staff and poor working standards. Your job will be what is says on paper- but the reality due to lack of innovation & resources means it materialises to be much different. There is a high staff turnover which was approached confidentially within a companywide huddle. The SLT looked outwards placing blame on bigger companies giving out attractive offers instead of looking inwards where the blame really lies. Ever since the pandemic, its well known that peoples view on work life balance has totally shifted. People are not moving purely for monetary reasons, its a personal unhappiness that they need to address. Continuing on from the pandemic at DCK, I was extremely alarmed to find out how may redundancies were made at the drop of a hat- all for them to be now trying to rehiring these positions again. This has no doubt lost them a lot of trust in long serving staff. And again, confirming how superficial the “people first” values really are. It is also clear that the “pet projects” being set up and pushed by members of the board need to either be properly consulted and invested in, or dropped completely. DCK in total have tried about 7 D2C brands. There’s a lot of ego involved in these brands and not very much investment. It is business 101 that new brands won’t break even for 24 months, if lucky. So why a company like DCK will not invest properly in its budgets is beyond me and tells me they are relying on their laurels of the B2B market. I have left DCK to join a start-up- where I have 30 times more budget a month than I did with the DCK Group. It was humiliating when I was interviewing and they asked my current budget. I also started to find out that DCK has a very bad rep within retail, another thing that left me feeling very sheepish about having it on my CV. From my time at DCK, the way it appears to me is to be able to get on and live comfortably within the business its to just go along with the status quo of the SLT. To not be innovative or disruptive in anyway. As long as you speak in long and complicated sentences to give the appearance of an important workload, the SLT aren’t in the slightest interest what it actually means. A very old school approach and will only continue contributing to the plateau of the business. That, and a lot of nepotism. And to me, this would explain, why after 20 years, DCK is NOT an enterprise giant in the industry. And never will be, if they do not accept the senior change that is needed
