The company culture and ethos is rotten
Incredibly uncompetitive salary and benefits package compared to other employers in the sector
Very difficult to meet performance targets
Awful office locations for employees to get to
Massive shortage of car parking spaces
Little or no staff areas to eat lunch or take a break
Unsupportive management
Penalised for asking too many questions
Inflexible working policy
I worked for Synertec for almost a year and I can honestly say that I have never worked for such a dreadful company.
Ethos & Culture: Quite sad really. Staff members birthdays, marriages and childbirths would pass unmarked. Cards or flowers were never sent around. Even after nearly a year of working there I couldn’t define the company’s culture, it’s just non-existent.
Benefits: I was sent a letter outlining my benefits package at Synertec during my first few months. The letter detailed only one benefit, private medical cover. The letter advised that I would be eligible to join the scheme in September 2022, 11 months after joining the company. This is not really an acceptable benefits package compared to other employers.
Training: At the interview I was advised that full training would be provided and delivered over a 2-3 month period. My training went on for nearly 5 months and I calculated that I had spent about a month and a half sitting around waiting for training to be delivered or feedback to be provided. After 3 months of joining Synertec I had my first meeting with my line manager, they had welcomed me to the company and were overall very positive. 2 days later I received another call from them and they advised that I was taking too long to train and would have to improve or else they would sack me. These two conversations were completely bizarre and I think it’s very poor management to blame employees for slow training and not even meet with them until the 3rd month of employment.
Office locations: As Synertec put a hybrid working policy in place, we returned to the offices in March for 3 days a week. The offices are mostly based on industrial estates. There is very limited parking at the offices and public transport is poor. The interior of the offices is pretty dull and uninspiring. Staff break areas and places to eat lunch are also pretty non existent. I would often see staff sat in their cars eating lunch as there wasn’t anywhere nearby to go and Synertec didn’t provide adequate break areas for the number of staff.
Hybrid working policy: Post Covid 19, Synertec put in place a hybrid working policy. At home Monday & Friday and in the office on the days in-between. Whilst on paper this seems okay, there was no room for flexibility, despite being able to carry out the job remotely. I had asked to work from home on an office day so that I could travel from home to attend a family members funeral and was told this wouldn’t be possible. Having to go to the office added an extra 2 hours to my journey which was an already difficult time for me.
Management: From the few meetings I had with my manager I was generally told that I asked too many question and they were not confident in my ability to do the job. From the conversations I had with other employees, this was not uncommon.
Salary: The framework for increasing your salary from the basic £22,500 per annum to higher increments was based on the type of tasks you had completed. If the specific tasks outlined in the framework were not available to complete, through no fault of your own, then you wouldn’t get a pay rise.
Other employees: perhaps the only redeeming feature of Synertec are your colleagues. They were individually very pleasant people. I learnt that by month 6 that 50% of my intake had already left the business. A staff turnover of 50% in the first 6 months is shocking and Synertec really need to take steps to understand why staff are leaving.
After about 9 months I received a new job offer which I accepted. I handed in my notice and arranged a meeting with my manager. They were not remotely interested in why I was leaving or if I had any feedback for Synertec. They only asked if I was going to work for a competitor. I had even less contact with HR. Synertec don’t seem to have interest in why staff leave or if they are unhappy. I thought this was quite sad.
Overall I would say that Synertec is a 3rd rate employer and there are so many other fantastic opportunities out there.
