BT Reviews

Pros

BT people are in general good to work with and are now the only thing which are of any merit which remains. It is a great shame as BT was a great place to work only 5 or so years ago.

Cons

Huge bureacracy which is now getting stupid. Processes on processes, complexity on complexity.
Senior management and HR are just worried about getting rid of people - 99% of the time that is ALL they focus on. BT has sailed very close to the wind in terms of moving people on under poor performance. The targets for this are artificial and it is very easy to find yourself in the GS (generally satisfactory) marking category - the wolves are then out to exit you at all costs. Yes, BT does have some wasters, but many of these people get away from the exit process - mainly because they run it !!!

Advice to Senior Management

Cut process by 300%
Cut people who run processes/assurance and do not have a "proper" job
Drive clear responsibilities for P&L, delivery, design, testing etc. That means ONE person per project or contract.
Learn to trust people again
Ditch the American import managers - overpaid and over here

Pros

Fulfilling work, lots of variety, directors recognise the pressure from loss of excess staff and have really embraced using skills from the resource pool when needed.

Cons

Overly pressured to deliver, corporate rewards have dried up, hard times with no bonus being paid out this past year, messages from CEO are nearly non-existant, Mike Rake even less visible. Compared to previous leaders, I really don't know what these guys are actually doing.

Advice to Senior Management

Appreciate what you're doing re: keeping as many staff as possible, but need to be careful that you're not too insular; would appreciate seeing and hearing more from you than once per quarter at the shareholder results webinars!

Pros

The salary and benefits are great!

Cons

There is no feeling of satisfaction. No real work gets done, few learning opportunities, lots of politics and weak management

Advice to Senior Management

Pick worthwhile projects to do, and give your wholesome support to engineers doing those activities. Communicate more.

Pros

Well paid for Northern Ireland market with good benefits package and SMART working arrangements. Flexibility to work from home. Close to City Centre.

Cons

Some teams have people woth long service but lacking in capability. Some employees with long service work long hours just to look good but are not actually productive. Not able to give feedback on colleagues or managers, which can lead to promotion of someone who steals others work to look good at the top. There are definitely some senior managers in positions which they cannot perform and this frustrates their teams.

Having a lunchbreak is almost frowned upon in some departments.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to views of individuals on a more regular basis. Look closer at policies and procedures for cost savings.

Pros

Flexible working opportunities are great, although some managers do not advocate it. Pay is good although women are still behind their male counterparts, but progress is being made. You also get the opportunity to work on some interesting projects and are always learning new skills

Cons

Performance management is becomming a big stick to beat people with and is carried out in a harsh and systematic way. Workloads are huge and demands put upon you each day are just not manageable, yet they are trying to promote a good work/life balance - it's just senior manager paying lip service to the new "buzz word"

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on the root cause of problems and try to change one thing, rather than using a scatter-gun approach then walking away and expecting someone else to deal

Pros

Extremely flexible place to work. My manager is outstanding and really motivates me to reach for higher goals. Some of the smartest people I've ever known work here. Very well-known company that opens doors all over the country. We don't do redundancies (yet), so it's a very secure place to work. Amazing technologies being developed that (hopefully) will make the company a ton of money!

Cons

Can be very bureaucratic and slow to respond. Sometimes feels like it exists only to employ as many people as possible for as long as possible. Quite a lot of dead weight; analogue people in a digital age. Very poor stock price lately! :-)

Advice to Senior Management

Focus and execute. Seems like we're trying to do too much and not doing any one of them very well.

Pros

Flexibility and willingness to win deals. Aggressive. We're good at our core competencies.

Cons

sometimes lacking in direction. We try to do too much and lose focus. Very political environment and it's difficult to navigate the many layers of BT.

Advice to Senior Management

focus, focus, focus. Also better feedback and direction to sales prior to the "problems". And there are too many of you!

Pros

Global company with lots of opporunities to grow in different roles.

Cons

No Payrise, No Bonusses, HR is always trying to get the best for the least, management focuss on short term results only

Advice to Senior Management

do not only look at short term results but also at long term. Do use the knowledge and skills of your people and do not let the good ones leave just because you ant to save cost.

Pros

great team and great managers. good benefits package. good work-life balance. at the forefront of implementing new inovations

Cons

not lots of chances to change job. promotions do NOT come with pay-raises. Women are paid less than men.
BT is still only about UK and sometimes I feel as if BT Americas is not part of that organization

Advice to Senior Management

keep up the good work!

Pros

experiance in working on interesting and cutting edge projects like so of the early web development good work collegues

Cons

vast amounts of polatics 0 pay rises, no carrear progression

Advice to Senior Management

stop fiddling the PRP and treating teh staff liek idiots all ytou will do is be left with the drones and no one who can make a diference