Fitch Learning Reviews

CEO is extremely far removed from the business and reality in general. Very self centred and egocentric. Talks about himself more than the business. Doesn't sit in the heart of the business (UK) and is distant from the day to day happenings. This leads to top-down directives being unhelpful and misguided, typically applying further unnecessary pressure. Staff turnover is ridiculously high. Something in the arena of 50% per annum for the sales team. Probably closer to 30% business wide. Highly inefficient. Leads to lot of morale issues. Commission scheme is more of a risk mechanism for the business. Skewed heavily in their favour. Landing on 90% of target will result in you achieving 25% OTE. Targets are not usually issued until end of Q1 and are then a moving target throughout the year. Scheme is over complicated, very opaque to calculate and can be subject to management whims. Team turnover resulting in client reallocation again affects this even further and is a quarterly occurrence. Lack of clarity from senior management on how they wish to lead the business and achieve growth. There are persistent calls to expand the client base, however no investment in the team or marketing strategy - just focus on developing heir traditional qualification platform. Innovation is almost non-existent in the e-learning platform and bespoke classroom training. Clients cry out for this annually, yet there is never a response. Furthermore, the sales team has shrunk significantly over the last few years without any new investment - CEO has a very precise and naive vetting process. Strong focus on 'advisors' who will try to 'stop the bucket leaking' and no new business hunters. This leads to the revenues in the UK having either stayed static or declined over the last 4 years. Naturally, this feeds into the targets for the sales team which has been a 12% growth on prior year client spend. Given that most PY spends are in excess of 2M+. you're looking to find approx. 250k of new business with little support with the assumption of every other piece of last year's business repeating to hit target. Poor motivational approach from senior management. Very tight when it comes to staff events. CEO even complained at £60 of beer being spent across two social events in the office. Lack of progression in the sales team. There is the opportunity to work with larger clients, however once you manage them, there's no additional scope for growth. Very flat team with no innovation to grow.

Do not work for this company if: - you want to be part of a company that openly values your contribution, no matter how minimal - you are proud of the work you produce and never want to provide second-best - you want to be developed professionally - you are the kind of person who values respect and honesty There are many organisation that openly appreciate their employees, listen to their concerns and work with them to find a solutions. Fitch Learning UK, I'm sorry to say, is not one of these companies. There are few leaders in this organisation, but many bosses. The CEO (Andreas Karaiskos, not Paul Shaw as is stated in Glass Door's company profile) was hugely out of touch with massive projects being undertaken, going so far as to mention new products which were actually just a revamped version of what was already there, but not including these teams (presumably because he wasn't entirely aware of how they worked or what they did... or perhaps he didn't think they were good enough?). The people who were most intent on making a positive difference have left in droves. There was a very distinct lack of transparency across all channels, including replacing team members who left and new major product developments. Silence is the word and only a few key individuals really knew what was going on. In a company of 200 people, this does not work and builds resentment and distrust very quickly. There was a huge emphasis on combining job roles of the people remaining, rather than filling the gaps left by the people who left. Often times, a more junior replacement would be hired because they were cheaper, but there was also no budget to train them up. It then fell onto team members to do even though they were already short-staffed as the result of a backlog of employment gaps. Some teams were left without managers - the most senior of these teams would leave, leaving the most senior junior to pick up the slack which now consisted of 2x manager's work and with no communication on when or if there was a solution in place. There is an emphasis on sales at all costs - even if a product isn't ready. If you are the kind of person who wants to be proud of your work before handing it over, this is probably not the company for you. There is a collaborative effort globally to work together which is great, but these cultures are not managed well and junior managers are often left to fend for themselves in meetings or unexpected calls with global MD's or senior sales managers and at the time of employment there was nobody managing this process. It was a bullying free-for-all and decisions were made which only created more problems as experienced employees did not realise the impact it would have on project and pressures going forward. There was never any alignment between objectives across teams. By the time I left, the company had only just implemented a talent management system which was starkly one-sided and dealt more with how you can benefit the company rather than telling the company what you needed to be a better employee. There was no budget for training or even team building events. Indeed, no budget for decent content management systems and the whole company was working on a system which required a full time team just to keep it running as it was custom built and had major restrictions. I have seen reviews mentioning how they're ok with working longer hours without overtime, and if you're dedicated to a job or company, then good for you. The reality, however, is that these reviewers are probably at an entry level where they haven't realised their worth (or aren't in a position where working longer hours is the norm - such as development), and they are being taken advantage of. Working extra hours is part of being a dedicated employee, but do not disillusion yourself into thinking that you will be even be thanked for this in this organisation.