Toxic culture with unmerit-based promotions and micromanagement - Anonymous employee Cambridge Forums Employee Review

I've been here long enough to see the patterns clearly, and they're worth naming. The "anonymous" feedback surveys aren't anonymous, and what you say can be used against you. Leadership asks for honesty to fix the culture, then does nothing meaningful with what comes back. The result is a workforce that's been asked to speak up and given every reason not to. Promotions go to people leadership likes or who fit their "vision," not to performers. A clear underperformer got moved up. That's not a culture of merit; it's a culture of favor. Internal hiring follows no consistent rule. They decide who interviews and who doesn't, then justify it after the fact. They'll pass over capable internal candidates and hire externally, then call it a standards decision. It isn't. It's a failure to develop their own people. The current restructuring makes this worse. They're folding one department into another and reassigning people to work they were never hired to do. The FCR team, already stretched and vocal about it, is being handed more—for the same or less pay than people in the same role at the sister company. The workload was the complaint. The response was more workload. One manager captures the whole problem. Things improved while she was gone and deteriorated when she returned. She isn't equipped for the role, and instead of advocating for her team, she executes whatever leadership hands down. Everyone sees it. No one understands why she's still there. Upper management is the common thread. They inherited something one person built and are steadily degrading it—reshuffling roles and titles, then presenting it as a response to feedback. But the feedback was specific: unrealistic workloads, processes that need simplifying, and pay that reflects the actual demands of the job. None of that has been addressed.