BT Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

Challenges abound.
Varied Environment
Travel Opportunity
Since its based mostly in UK, travel is limited to UK alone.
Also, due to recent economic downturn BT is cutting 10000 jobs and therefore job security is low.
If you are interested in the Telecom domain then BT is the best company to work for as they have been the pioneers in telecom development since quite some time. Latest technologies BT is working are Web21 SDK, Mashups, Grid Computing. You name it, they have it.

Cons

Low Salary
Low Job Security.
Beuracratic work culture. Still something of an old worls organization with rigid chain of commands and setup. Most would find the environment stifling.
Also there is very less work life balance, if you are in a critical project (like those related to openreach)

Advice to Senior Management

Increase the pay

Pros

Work/life balance - beats most other companies hands down in home/remote working.
Good culture of ‘measurement by outcome’ rather than ‘presenteeism’
Reasonable benefits package/holiday entitlement.
"Great place to hide" for slackers (although that to me is a downside).
'Job for life' for some - judging by the large number of long-serving staffers - with changes to the pension and poor recent performance, we can expect this to change.

Cons

1. Culture
It is a very large company and comes with all the trappings of a former state-run industry. Imagine the Civil Service still running a telecoms company and that's BT - lots of departments contributing to the workstack of other departments. Lean machine it ain't.
A lot of employees have only ever worked for BT, or similar large businesses and in spite of a global presence, too few have worked in international markets. This leads to a rather blinkered view and an inability to challenge themselves.
2. Commercial
It's the most wasteful company I have worked in - cost of failure is unacceptably high, few question the return on expenditure, spiralling Travel and Subsistence costs, lack of financial control at every turn. Not to mention employees without a role who are paid for months on end to do nothing whilst they try to find another position in the company.
3. Team working
Whilst not a hugely political company, too many people are in it for themselves – in spite of efforts, the customer is NOT (yet) at the heart of what BT does. I feel that this is an ownership problem – we are all responsible for the relationship with the customer and it only takes one link in the chain to let us down. Sadly there are too many links who have ‘other priorities’.
Don’t think it’s all downsides – this is a good company which employs some really good people and has some cutting edge technology – it just needs to try harder with its people and processes.

Advice to Senior Management

do everything with the customer in mind

Pros

Fantastic opportunities - you are limited only by your own talent, ambition, creativity and drive.
Resource - BT has access to world-class expertise in every imaginable technical and commercial discipline. If you can harness this, you can achieve incredible feats.

Cons

Relatively political environment - it employs more people than many countries have in their adult population; and those countries have coups, civil wars, political and religious factions and wildly diverse views of what is 'fact'; BT has all these same problems, which are a function of large groups of people and nothing to do with specific employers.
Slow decision-making - an excessive interest in securing consensus, combined with risk aversion, can make forward momentum very hard to achieve. That said, with enough will-power, absolutely anything can be achieved.

Advice to Senior Management

Communication - keep it at the top of the agenda, all day, every day. 103,000 people can't be managed, only led - and the only feasible way to lead them is to keep them informed and engaged, then let them do what they do best.

Pros

Great people. Good place for personal growth.

Cons

Too much politics. Too many Managers complicating simple processes

Advice to Senior Management

Half should leave. Too many sales managers who contribute very little. I wouldn't take many of theminto a meeting as their face-to-face skills are poor and their product knowledge is dreadful

Pros

It's a big company so there are endless opportunities to move around into different lines of business and to go for promotions, which from personel experience I can say are very fair for everyone. I started in BT back in 2006 and made sure I showed promise and a willingness to be keen. Within 6 months I moved onto a more technical team and within another 2 months I was given the chance to learn the ropes of being a manger. Which I did and I was acting manager for my group while our boss was on holiday.
Another good reason is that you feel like your doing something worth while. It's a good feeling when you help people and they are greatful for it. Also its like a family here. Everyone says hello to everyone and all BT people are more than willing to help, even if it means it puts them out and then they have to work harder to catch up!
And then there are all the benefits/discounts from other companies that BT people get.
So all in all, pretty much the best firm I've worked for!

Cons

It can be too big and you feel like a number, so not much reconigntion in the form of bonus/money.

Advice to Senior Management

They do ring-fence themselves off from the rest of the BT population somehow. I don't think it's on purpose, its just a really big company and I imagine that it's hard to listen. One thing I would say is give more power back to the level 1 managers as they are the ones who deal with the engineers who keep the maintance contracts going.

Pros

BT is a diverse and innovative organisation. Company values are observed in general, standards and ethics are high, work life balance is very good. The sky is the limit in terms of career progression.In senior roles you are measured on your output, not your input. The organisations embracement of agile working makes Bt a great place to work.

Cons

Complexity of the business can sometimes be frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep looking up and out.

Pros

Supports a diverse workplace, helps to provide a work life balance, supports maternity and paternity leave, very supportive in times of personal issues. Encourages people to move forward and take ownership, provides training and development to support this cause. Encourages a customer centric approach, has really good people working in the organisation, has a brand to be proud of. Is winning in international market places, has a very strong corporate social responsibility agenda. Pay and bonus is linked to documented objectives and reviewed monthly.

Cons

Very large organisation means that things can't happen as fast as one would like as there are multiple stakeholders involved in decision making. Too many mandatory on line training requirements; e.g. health and safety, legal and compliance which have little relevance to the people needing to complete them.

Advice to Senior Management

Some processes used by front end employees need to become more flexible. Legal and compliance teams are slowing the organisation’s progress down. More training needed at the sales front end.

Pros

If you want a secure job with good benefits that isn't very demanding, and don't place a priority on advancing your career this is the place for you.

Cons

A huge amount of historical dead weight, and slowness. Not a lot of future growth opportunities for the company and individuals. BT's process and organizational problems detract from the impact of one's work.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to focus less on people not having the "right mindset", it is an issue, but more importantly is evolving the company's processes and organizational structure towards best practices. Spend the money to get SMEs in to help. This cannot come from within. Don't reject re-organization as irrelevant because it has been done poorly so many times. Find an expert and do it right.

Pros

Flexibility in where I work using a phone and a web connected pc; numerous opportunities for development, bt offers many training courses for personal development., cutting edge technology in use , adopted quickly and available to play with; cpntinual transformation providing scope for re skilling and working in a differnt area. Flexibility in where I work using a phone and a web connected pc; numerous opportunities for development, bt offers many training courses for personal development., cutting edge technology in use , adopted quickly and available to play with; cpntinual transformation providing scope for re skilling and working in a differnt area

Cons

Pay and contact with others on a daily basis

Advice to Senior Management

Pay linked to real performance rather than leadership capabilities

Pros

Good opportunities to advance yourself - take as many professional courses and qualifications you can within your role. BT is good at supporting people in this (if the individual is a positive contributor) for the good of the company as well as the individual.
Work/life balance is fully dependent on your own line manager - some support it, some are stuck in the dark ages.

Cons

The higher you get, the more political it gets with power games and ridiculous posturing.
There's lots of dead wood in the company and people who believe it owes them a pension. Unfortunately its the bright people who go elsewhere - leaving lots of the dead wood to complain further about the pressure of their work.

Advice to Senior Management

Be firmer with managing poor performance - manage out those who under achieve instead of piling more pressure onto those who do.
Value the positive and enthusiastic people more, leverage their talents before they succumb to the posturing of those who are unlikely to progress any further.