An honest assessment of my time at Think Money (Gregory Pennington)
Pros
Some of the staff are nice, and do not deserve to work in this prison. Some people think the building is pleasant, but it is plastic and fake like the company
Cons
Wow, where do I start, apologies in advance for the massive essay your about to read. When I started I was given 3 weeks of training, this was the least painful experience I had during my time at think money to be honest... The training gave us knowledge about products and different debt solutions but the training should have taught us on the structure of the calls, not enough time was spent on the rigid lengthy call structure you have to follow. You have exams on what you have learnt every other day and you have to achieve 90% on each of them. You’ve given me the job, but yet you’re still testing my ability to do it?! This continues after training when you are doing practice calls with the learning and development team (HAMZA!!!!!) . You have to pass 8 out of 10 calls, if not they start questioning your abilities, (months after ive already been given the job). A lot of people in my training group were let go at this stage and rather than working with the staff they actually employed , and showed no remorse with continuing with working with present staff and preferred to get rid of you and then hire someone else and they would be put through this torturous procedure. In my experience, 5 out of 12 people finally got through to the actual day to day job and selected into a team. I was one of the unfortunate few that actually got through the vigorous training/ post-employment assessment process. Into the actual job itself, you were expected to start 5 minutes before your shift which is fair enough, but if you took 57/58 mins on your lunch break (they give you a full hour) you got told off for taking a long lunch!!! Also, you have to stay back at the end of your shift almost daily, anything from 30-60mins is the norm, this is unpaid, no time back in lieu, no appreciation, nobody argues this, it’s been brainwashed into all the unfortunate staff who don’t know any better.( My heart bleeds for them all). Even after all this unpaid overtime, you take a bathroom break for approximately 4 minutes and get called into your line manager’s office, SERIOUSLY! Are you taking the piss? (Excuse the pun). Wages are average and absolutely no benefits, the lowest pension scale out there they give you. Another ‘benefit’ they offered were tickets to events at MEN arena; however NO DISCOUNT, 100% full price, yeah great benefit that honestly, wow. They used to have an offsite car park and it was a 30 minute walk away, if the normal car park was full which it was EVERY SINGLE DAY, you would have to wait for a crappy bus called the ‘Wa Wa’ to come and pick you up and take you to work, (I THOUGHT MY CAR WAS MEANT TO DO THAT), In more recent times you can get a space but you have to pull over and ask for one. There is an unfair 2 tiered parking space system, if you have been there for over 2 years, you get your own spot, new staff don’t, how is this fair? If you’re thinking about getting public transport to this place? THINK AGAIN, in the middle of nowhere. There is another ‘Wa Wa’ bus that takes you to the tram stop every half hour, but considering they expect you to be at your desk before shift and stay an hour later at the end of your shift, some days you would have to arrive to work an hour early to wait for the Wa Wa!! There is no clear pay progression system in place, no annual pay increments in line with inflation, so essentially you could be earning less each year. No matter how you try and gloss this job up, you can’t polish a turd; it is essentially a sales role and always will be. New regulations have come in by FCA/CONC to give fair and true advice to the customer, but if ever there is a way to manipulate what the customer has said to introduce them to a Gregory Pennington product then you would be urged to do this even if it’s the wrong solution for the customer. The CEO is a horrible arrogant little man with small man syndrome, everybody soils themselves when he walks in, you open the door for him, and he wouldn’t even look at you and instead insult you on your attire! The company has 6 values, one of them being trust, despite trust being at the forefront of the company’s core values, they do not trust their staff enough to send emails to their customers, any emails you need to send have to go through your line manager first. The company sells products to people who are financially unstable, mainly debt management plans that they can get for free through step change or other providers. They make money out of the poor and enjoy doing it. To sum up, if you enjoy selling things to people who are up to their eyeballs in debt and don’t have much to live off and enjoy being treated with no respect, enjoy your every movement being watched and your toilet breaks timed, your pension being virtually diddly squat and feel like your sat in a prison environment until you finally admit to yourself you need to get out of this hellhole, (it took me a while to learn this), then this is the place for you… if not then DO NOT TOUCH THIS PLACE WITH A BARGEPOLE. This company will stress you out and make you extremely depressed! Also, please ignore all the 5 star reviews, they are all fake and trying to boost their average rating, which in reality will be 1 star. I would give it 0 but it wouldn’t let me. In all my months working there, I didn’t speak to anyone who had a good word to say about it, the current staff will agree with everything I have said in this review; however they are too scared to say anything and too scared to leave for fear of change. My advice to current staff is to LEAVE!!! The normal working life isn’t like this, come and explore. The grass is greener believe me.
