Creative team struggles with dysfunction and unclear processes - Senior Digital Designer Mulberry Employee Review

1.0
14 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lovely colleagues across multiple departments, with many talented and hardworking people doing their best in challenging circumstances.

Cons

My feedback relates specifically to the creative operations, image, marketing, and accessories side of the business rather than the newer RTW creative organisation. The Creative team suffers from significant structural and operational dysfunction. Decision-making is highly centralised, but accountability, management responsibility, and process ownership are unclear and inconsistently enforced. Creative direction is often communicated in a highly subjective way, with limited strategic framework or documented rationale. This can make it difficult for teams to understand objectives, take ownership of their work, or make decisions independently. As a result, teams can become dependent on constant sign-off and iteration, reducing both efficiency and morale. There is a heavy reliance on informal communication and verbal feedback rather than documented processes or project management tools, which creates confusion, repeated rework, and unnecessary pressure on teams. Timelines and priorities frequently shift at short notice, often creating avoidable high-stress situations for downstream teams. There also appears to be a lack of clear distinction between art direction, design execution, and production responsibilities. Internal creative talent is at times underutilised in favour of external collaborators, which can negatively impact morale, team ownership, and confidence in internal capability. The working culture within Creative leadership can feel defensive and difficult to challenge constructively, making cross-functional collaboration and upward feedback harder than it should be. Several teams operate under sustained pressure due to a lack of operational clarity, accountability, and long-term planning.

Explore other reviews about Mulberry

5.0
24 Oct 2024
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Friendly people. Theres a lot of nice people

Cons

Senoir Management is a lil stuckup full of themselves

2.0
13 Oct 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

generally left alone by current management, nice coworkers mostly, mostly relaxed environment in our location. okay pay

Cons

lots of pressure from upper managers who don’t really understand how things work/ don’t work. Lack of consistent communication, then people treating you weird if you don’t know exactly what they’re talking about. US market seems to be neglected until very recently. In my time, things seemed to get better with things like stock and allocation, but in general, communication with the UK is left to very few of the top managers who just report that everything is fine. Crazy turnover. So many people have left due to high pressure, awful managers, awful HR, and then the company has the audacity to try to constantly discipline the people who remain and do their jobs well. One old manager tried to get me fired for something she could have just spoken to me about (which would have handled the issue). Lots of working behind people’s backs. So many store locations closed with little notice, some managers didn’t even know. Managers encouraged to keep things from their teams, etc. Teams are not allowed to grow or take much responsibility, but then expected to do things that would not be a part of their jobs… weird. Every year, there is some major change in management due to bad hires, then firings. Bad people brought in, then all the good people leave. Lots of people miserable in their jobs, but have to stay to pay their bills, so at least try to make it better

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