Pros
You’ll enter Stonebridge as a expert in your field and leave as a jack of all trades, firing staff and passing the workload on to other people is a standard.
Cons
Disgruntled – defined in the Oxford dictionary as ‘angry or dissatisfied’, I’m not a disgruntled ex-employee, I’m an incredibly happy one. Happy to be away from bullying, back stabbing and constant dread. I feel like I have to address the recent 5* post, boasting of Stonebridge’s brilliance and ethos of keeping the learning at the heart of the college. This review, clearly written by the CEO’s head honcho, couldn’t be further from the truth. For Stonebridge students, life is a constant cycle of sending emails and having these emails ignored, making phone calls but having no one at the other end of the line and sending letters which are never ‘received’. Stonebridge withhold refunds from students by deliberately ignoring their emails and letters until the day after their refund period is up. I’d say they do their upmost to deceive students, 50% of courses aren’t accredited, and the ones that are, aren’t recognised by decent employers. They push courses that give students no chance of bettering themselves in the future and it’s openly encouraged in the office to push loans because ‘these students won’t ever reach that salary anyway’. Learners are at the heart of everything? Learners are at the heart of the big wigs wallets. And for employees it’s no better. You’ll arrive to work and be met with unachievable deadlines and emails reminding you just how replicable you are. Redundancies are regular. They’ll tell you how great you are at your job and how secure your role is then proceed to get rid of 90% of the people around you. If you’re really lucky, they’ll tell you how you narrowly missed the redundancies yourself. Don’t be fooled if you’re one of the ‘lucky ones’ that gets to keep their position, your workload just tripled and there’s no one left to help you! Want a meeting with the CEO? He’ll be more than happy to arrange it and then make sure he’s in a different city on the day and his band of merry men will do the same. Want annual leave? Remember to add on an extra months’ notice for the length of time it’ll take them to decide whether you’re allowed it, and don’t even think about booking a doctor’s appointment during the hours of 9am and 5pm, you will come to the office and you will spread those germs (it’s either freezing of 100 degrees so you will be frequently ill). Going home sick is another no no, you’ll be sat at your desk an extra hour while someone in HR decides if you’re actually poorly enough to leave and she’ll dock you a days wages for the pleasure. And heaven forbid a relative dies… Basically, if you want to be paid on time (it’s manual, despite your payslip saying BACS) or indeed correctly, want a day of sick when you can’t leave the toilet, or want to be treated with any form of respect, stop what you’re doing immediately and do not respond to that job ad. Stonebridge will leave you questioning whether you do have the skills that you thought you had and maybe even if you’re in the right industry! Oh and they made their own apprentices redundant, which is possibly illegal… excellent service from an education and training provider!
