The worst experience I’ve ever had - Graduate Sales Executive Edmundson Electrical Employee Review

Your review makes disappointing reading. Not just because of the negative commentary, which contains factually incorrect statements, but because of the manner in which you have chosen to voice your opinion on a very public platform after you have left our employment, yet not electing to raise whatever concerns you had during your employment. We recruit more than a hundred graduates a year and are proud to offer so many opportunities for people who want a career in sales. I can assure you our Company culture is one of support, friendship and encouragement but we also challenge our graduates. It is, after all, a two-way relationship. There is a structured training programme in place, and I am certain that the Manager who you reported to, who is an experienced Manager and an advocate of training and development, would have made every effort to follow it. It is not 'sink or swim' with us - especially for graduates who are new to the business and still very inexperienced. You were with us for only five months and these initial few months are very much about getting settled in and learning about how we do things. Very few graduates join us with any knowledge of our industry, and we don't expect them to have any. That's the whole point about the training programme. We invest time and money in our graduates. We don't set them up to fail after only a few weeks. Our systems are not outdated, neither are they inefficient or ineffective. There are some aspects that may appear old fashioned to a new employee; yet they are robust, efficient and designed to our own specifications. If they were so poor then we would not be the market leading, successful and profitable business we are today. I don't recognise your comment about everyone being out for themselves. The staff in our businesses, including where you were based, work as teams. They have to in order to achieve their objectives. Nobody in our Company can succeed on their own - least of all the Managers. The comment about commission and bonuses unfortunately shows a lack of understanding of the way our profit share scheme works. There is no 'fighting' for it. Profit share is earned purely on the basis of the actual operational performance of each branch and profit share is paid to employees of the branch according to a set of rules and under close scrutiny. The manager does not decide who gets what, so the impression you give of how bonuses are earned and paid is wrong and misleading. You are correct that we have no HR department, however that does not mean we have no processes for dealing with personnel matters and grievances. The Company has a clear complaints and grievance policy which is set out in the Company's Handbook of Employment which you would have received when you started with us. In addition, as a graduate trainee, you could have also contacted either your Regional Director or me to raise your concerns, yet during your time with us I don't believe we received a complaint or grievance from you and the monthly reports you completed with your Manager, and which I also got copies of, gave no indication at all that you were unhappy or had concerns that you wanted to raise. Quite the contrary in fact. Finally on the subject of career progression I don't recognise your comment about a lack of career progression. At your assessment day and when you were recruited you would have been told what a career path for a graduate generally looks like. We are a meritocracy and how you develop your career with us is entirely down to the individual. We hope that our graduates will develop the necessary skills to get them into management positions after a few years in sales. We have many former graduates who started on our scheme and developed within a few years to become Profit Centre Managers today. The whole aim of the graduate scheme is to create a path for graduates to progress in their careers. If this wasn't the case then we would not invest so much in so many new graduates every year, which we have been doing successfully for more than 15 years.