BT Reviews

Pros

Good infrastructure support in all levels

Cons

slow process for the projects

Advice to Senior Management

cost control in all the test porjects

Pros

BT was a great place for Research until recently. It's still fairly good (there are opportunities for EU & UK collaboration, papers, patents, membership of professional organisations etc.) but focus is now very much on short-term value to the operational parts of the business (generally as defined on their terms, not ours). Research has lost 50% of its people over the last 2 years, & this (painful) process was managed reasonably well, suggesting that management do care about how they treat people, & there were no (official) compulsory redundancies. Overall package is good for people such as me who have been here a while, although it seems much harder now for graduates to reach the higher levels. Final salary scheme was closed to new members several years ago.

East Anglia's a really nice place to live.

Cons

Many others have commented on Performance Management, & it sucks. I've no idea whether there's a hidden agenda to force people out, but the approach seems to be to focus on perceived weakness & to treat strengths as merely 'business as usual'. There's lots of management-speak about 'raising the bar', and the performance 'deal', but from where I sit. it seems that a quota of people seem to need to be seen to be failing (management deny this, of course). It alienates people & leaves them little option but to compete with their peers (which isn't what's needed in a research organisation, in my opinion). Line managers may not like implementing this, but they have no choice. As someone who neither wants nor is likely to get further promotion, it's not so bad, but I can't imagine many younger graduates staying for long unless they are generic, suited, powerpointed high-flyers, or value the location & stability over career progression.

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, you're not doing a bad job. Not everyone is a competitive pole-climber, so please give some credit to those of us who don't want to stab others in the back. There are plenty of people who really want to do a good job & not fight each other for the credit.

Pros

Structured, organised teams - everyone knows exactly what they're supposed to do.

Cons

Bureaucracy - sometimes it can take ages to get approval for some things.

Advice to Senior Management

Review managers' performances more often - anonymous audits would be good.

Pros

Work/life balance - flexible working (can manage office/home working as I wish), hours are good
Generous holidays - 27.5 days
Good People
Most people generally want to do a good job for their customer

Cons

Performance Management - absolutely no correlation between performance and quarterly ratings. No explanation of how it is handled, has effect of de-motivating people, based on loyalties rather than evidence.
Pay Rises - practically non-existent.
Promotion - ditto. Have to move jobs to fight for extra pay
Too much knowledge stored locally so when someone leaves it goes with them
Quite disorganised at times - too much time taken up justifying every action, seeking approval from hierarchy, going down one route only to have senior management change their minds

Advice to Senior Management

You spend a lot of money recruiting graduates and other talent pools but don't look after them. You need to reward people fairly to keep the best people

Pros

Home working available. Good resources

Cons

Poor career opportunities. Poor people management systems.

Pros

Was a family and a great place to work, while Infonet. Executives and Management was outstanding and knew all the employees. There were hard times, but employees were respected.

Cons

British Telecom purchased company and jobs were outsourced to India. Bottom line is their only concern and how the profit goals are met, does not matter. Executives could be standing 'shoulder to shoulder' and not say 'Good morning'.

Advice to Senior Management

Too gready and not accountable for their responsibilities. Every year a new CEO is put in and the real issues the little people know about are never addressed. But, top levels always get their bonus whether their goals or met or not.

Pros

- Job security is high.
- Very supportive of work life balance (at least on the surface)
- Flexible working hours
- Agile working
- Loads of company benefits and perks including share options at preferential rates
- BT name is superb on CV. Projects you work on are huge. Experience gained is relevant to many industries
- Redundancy does not occur which means you can up-skill to move to a new role if you are under-performing
- Great place to work for a family man/woman as the company is very family-friendly
- Diversity and multi-cultural
- Sliding rule bonus scheme based on performance 5-20% of basic salary

Cons

- Very difficult to gain promotion
- Promotion typically comes by moving to another role outside your unit
- Appraisal is heavily driven by your visibility to Senior Management and feedback from clients and Assigment manager.
- Salary no way competitive. Make sure you get the highest possible when joining cos yearly salary increase is almost non-existent
- Promotion is faster if you join through the graduate or the MBA programme as the company will nurture/mentor you to be a future company leader.
- Lack of clear strategy to motivate staff. Staff are generally motivated because of the love for the job
- Clash between old guard and new about the direction to take company
- You will be re-interviewed yearly for your current role as part of ongoing head count challenges

Advice to Senior Management

Try creating time to sit with the junior and middle management staff to understand the everyday problems they face. This will help define the strategy to motivate staff and boost moral.

Pros

Work/life balance is excellent
Some great people there
Extremely ethical

Cons

Too much process
Performance Management leaves a lot to be desired
Headline salary for pay band effectively unachievable
Siloed approach to business - jack of one trade

Advice to Senior Management

The company is in transition and Ian Livingstone is doing a very good job. The problem is all of the processes in design precluding effective working. I spend more time worrying how to justify my performance rather than worrying about my customer.

Pros

Pay Is quite competitive thats about it really

Cons

judged now on stats performance league tables etc not to mention vehicle tracking and low moral amongst staff

Advice to Senior Management

too many changes and staff reductions

Pros

Having vast number of databases running of different platforms and utilizing all the advanced database products.

Cons

Not much growth in career.