Lendscape Reviews

Some of the worst management I've ever come across. I speak for my direct team only, but I experienced distrust and micromanagement from the beginning. I couldn't work from home without receiving numerous phone calls from my boss checking that I was actually working, and I was genuinely really nervous the time I had to phone my boss because I was ill. This was in contrast to other teams, where people frequently worked from home once a week, or to fit around their personal lives. It was drilled into our team by the manager that we had to follow different rules to everyone else in order to appear the most 'professional'. I would often receive texts and emails at absurd times of night, e.g. texts at 11pm on a Friday night asking me to do something work-related (bear in mind my job was by no means senior enough to demand this). It was the kind of place where those who worked the longest hours were considered the most productive, which is unsurprisingly far from the truth. Complete lack of flexibility - think contractual working hours which are overriden by 'unwritten' working hours, amounting to more work but no more pay. The kind of place where you feel uncomfortable leaving on time, let alone asking to leave early to attend a doctors appointment. There was no system for booking holiday and managers would reject requests for holiday without giving a reason. It's generally an Old Boys club - if you're young or female (or worse, both) your voice will not be heard. Change, in my experience, was incredibly rare if not non-existent. The vast majority of employees have been at the company for 10+ years and don't care for more recent, younger employees' opinions. Complaints were regularly thrown about in management meetings (from what I heard) but were never acted upon or properly addressed. It's the most old-fashioned company I've worked for. For a software company, the software was was outdated and no one had bothered to upgrade it. And just a lack of motivation in the office was a massive deterrent, probably caused in part by conflict between teams which was never resolved. Turnover in my team was also very high - three people left within three months this year.

Things can take a lot longer than necessary to get done, which at times can be frustrating. Focus needs to be on the right areas, especially some systems and ways of working which are out-dated. There are certainly challenges in how hard it can be to continue growth; from a commercial, cultural, technology and customer focus perspective, and this is at times apparent at HPD. The company would certainly benefit from having more experienced, diverse professionals join the middle management and senior management layers who have a fresh perspective on how opportunities could be better approached. Investment in building strong teams in the right areas of the business is key to allowing HPD to fulfil its ambitions. Having said this, there has been a lot of work over the last 18 months or so to set a fresh strategic direction and a better, more collaborative working environment, and these changes are evident every day. It will still take some time, but HPD is on a clear path to embedding a strong and positive working culture to support its growth strategy.