Bad culture, lack of diversity and inclusion at the senior levels - Data Scientist RVU Employee Review

2.0
17 Oct 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Great colleagues as they were willing to help and collaborate - Free breakfast offered in office - Data-driven mostly, good if you're starting out as you get to do and learn a lot

Cons

- Bad apples at the senior levels led to discrimination and bad culture, where women were discriminated against (many women leaders left the company in the recent year and gender pay gap 2021 was as big as 33%). - Poor compensation and unequal pay (Human resources justified paying premium for external hiring and refused to compensate internal employee who delivered significant contributions). Inconsistent performance review systems across different functions. Any promotion and salary adjustments have to be agreed by all senior leadership team members so any internal pay rises is difficult. Pay band is non-existent or not transparent so hard to understand if pay is fair. - Company strategies / big rocks moved too slowly or struggled to adapt in light of the energy crisis, now resulting in proposed redundancies 1 year after to cut costs. - Top down management with little justification given to the rest of the company. - Tech debts were given less prioritisation for quick wins/low hanging fruit. Poor long vision for delivering good stable platforms or products.

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RVU Response
3y
Thank you for taking the time to give this feedback. I’m upset that this has been your experience of RVU and disappointed we have clearly failed in our efforts to make your tenure with us a positive one. Whilst accepting your perspective, and recognising we have lots of progress to make, I would not agree that our leaders and culture are discriminatory towards women. We are fully committed to making progress in our diversity, equity and inclusion aims. It’s true our senior leadership does review pay as a group as we take the issue seriously. We want to ensure there is a consistent experience to reward which makes RVU an attractive place to work. So across performance reviews, promotions and salary increases we put an enormous amount of time into calibration, and are committed to transparency - publishing to the business how the % of female hires has been increasing, the % of female employees being promoted is proportional to male, and how % salary increases for female staff have equalled or exceed those of male colleagues over the last 2 years. We have a long way to go, but we are committed to the journey and must work harder to build trust in the business, something we have clearly not succeeded in to the degree we would like. RVU is a business which has delivered a lot this year and we regularly update our business on progress in monthly all-employee-meetings and other virtual and in-person events. We are now updating everyone on the KPIs of our strategy as we seek to be even more transparent on what is working at RVU and what isn’t. Our future in realising the advantage of our two largest brands and creating the best customer experience we can in over eight key product areas are key to this strategy which we’re really excited about building on as a team and for consumers.

Explore other reviews about RVU

2.0
24 Jun 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The office is nice, my team is pleasant.

Cons

They don't trust their employees - you're treated like a child with a million rules to follow and you need approval for absolutely everything. Office aircon doesn't work but they still want everyone to go to the office. Absolutely no company culture. The office is deathly silent and nobody bothers to get to know colleagues. Leadership don't bother to get to know the people who work for them and love the sound of their own voices. No chance of promotion even if you do the same work as people senior to you. Work is very very boring and repetitive. The HR team are useless and insert themselves into anything and everything unnecessarily.

2.0
19 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They're are a lot of great hard working people, who are friendly and easy to get a long with. Cardiff office does have a good atmosphere and is quite welcoming for. most people. London office is similar but doesn't quite match Cardiff's ideals of work/life balance. Lots of great benefits, especially for mental, physical wellbeing.

Cons

During my time at RVU, there were several instances of bullying among staff, particularly within the Cardiff marketing and data department. This contributed to a negative office environment, which was especially difficult for more introverted employees who may have struggled to speak up. Upper management often came across as cold, aggressive, and uncoordinated, with little sense of a clear or consistent direction for the company. Rather than investing time in creating work that was genuinely functional or forward-thinking, there was a strong emphasis on speed. Staff were frequently pressured to deliver high-quality work within unrealistic timeframes, often while workloads were poorly distributed and corners were being cut. This approach created a consistently stressful working environment. I observed a pattern in which employees were placed on Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs), roles were not replaced when staff left, and responsibilities were redistributed among existing team members, effectively increasing workloads whilst expecting polished work.

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