Remote work but declining culture and poor progression opportunities - Anonymous employee Hippo Employee Review

When I joined Hippo, over 3 years ago, it was a nice place to work. Unfortunately that all slowly changed following huge growth and a change to the investors. Some of the biggest issues are: 1. Stalled pay - inflation payrises were paused for 2 years while Hippo continued to heavily recruit new staff 2. Poor development opportunities - Hippo sets out what appears to be a clear skills framework and way to reach Senior/Lead/Principal etc. Unfortunately in reality this isn't the case. In the last year, ratings were introduced ("exceeds", "achieves", "needs improvement" style ratings), and were applied to all staff with no explanation of how these were calculated, and no feedback on how to improve. Only staff rated "exceeds" can be promoted or get a pay increase. This lack of transparency makes it very easy for someone in a position to give out these ratings to do so with a bias 3. Micro management culture - When assigned to client work, this isn't usually an issue (client dependent), and staff were generally trusted to deliver. However, internal work, training, and time on the bench often felt heavily micromanaged. A good example was an announcement last Christmas stating that all staff on the bench over the festive period would be expected to attend two calls per day to ensure they were completing assigned tasks. This created a clear feeling of distrust 4. Lack of direction/structure - I can’t speak for the entire company, but the department I worked in often felt reactive rather than strategic. Leadership would suddenly demand that everyone obtain a particular certification ASAP, forcing people to juggle existing workloads to hit short deadlines, only for priorities to then change or the work to never actually be used. The constant urgency and context switching became exhausting and frustrating. Better long-term planning would make a huge difference 5. Expectation of working in personal time - The head of my department told me that training benefits me personally so I should be using my personal time to study for certifications. To be clear, these are certifications the same head of had requested we obtain, due to business need. This conversation came about when I said I didn't have time to juggle the client work, internal work and training simultaneously and needed help prioritising workload 6. Cliques - it was well known within the business that there is a small group of people at the top of one particular department who are close friends outside of work. Close enough to holiday together. In and of itself this isn't necessarily a problem, but unfortunately it is widely felt that not being in with this group is a hindrance to progression