Pros
I've found there are a lot of pros to working at Lane4:
- Flexibility in terms of where, when and how I work;
- Generally high quality management and leadership throughout the organisation;
- People are genuinely caring, both about other employees and about making a difference to organisational performance or people's working lives;
- Pay and benefits for consultants is good, especially considering that the organisation isn't London-based;
- The people are fantastic and there's a great sense of humility despite the elite performance/Olympic side of the organisation;
- It's generally a really fun place to work;
- Great new office that caters to different people's preferences;
- A coaching approach runs deep in the DNA of the business and the culture;
- The Managing Director, Adrian Moorhouse, is seemingly universally liked and really cares about the organisation so doesn't just want to 'sell out'.
Cons
No organisation is perfect and I believe there are the following cons:
- Maidenhead isn't where most people want to end up;
- People sometimes don't feel able to say they're 'stressed' out of fear of being seen as lacking 'personal resilience';
- There are one or two senior leaders who can be quite intimidating and demonstrate some level of intolerance for others and their ideas which inevitably doesn't bring the best out of people;
- Certain individuals and teams end up working quite long hours, perhaps partially due to their desire to do a great job;
- For an organisation that places such a high premium on high performance, I would say that the only thing that motivates high performers is opportunities for progression as the bonus structure is average at best.
