BT Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

The culture is very friendly with focus on work life balance, working from home or flexi time is very common unless you are in operations role
The company is very diverse in terms of job roles and projects
Communication from senior management is often frequent and through many channels

Cons

Although generally good people, tends to be issues around professionalism and people not at the too of the skill set
There is a bit of a union mindset and majority of employees have worked at BT for 20+ years so there is a certain amount of tribalism in company

Advice to Senior Management

There is a lot of focus around quality of delivery which is great, but we often have head count challenges that make hitting these standards difficult

Pros

There are flexible working hours. The work is interesting and the company is very supportive. Colleagues are friendly and the working environment is pleasant.

Cons

Salary could be better compared to some communications businesses. There isn't as much praise for good or excellent work as there could be.

Advice to Senior Management

The communication between the management and the rest of the work force isn't as comprehensive as it could be. Having said that, the management is extremely competent.

Pros

It is a big company.
Multi group you can work for.
real time system development
some projects related to gov

Cons

its too big, you may lose you self in bt.
some weird ppl.
some projects were really boring and no fun.

Advice to Senior Management

to fire some weird ppl.
to improve the salary
generally, the new employees are expecting to solve the problems themselves. no good idea.

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

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

- 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

Large company with opportunities to move around the company into different roles and specialisms. Good colleagues to work with and generally a very good team spirit.

Cons

The continuing focus on performance management is time consuming, distracting and demotivating. Every quarter we have to satisfy a quota of people to categorise as Development Needed. Great performance can be quickly negated by a minor mistake which makes people fearful of risk taking.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat people with more respect and you will encourage more ideas and better performance. Recognise that the continued cost cutting has been very effective but now in danger of going too far.

Pros

Leading player in a dynamic industry
Broad range of opportunities within multiple business units
People are genuinely nice
Job security
Work life balance - 9 to 5, even for managers
Very well located for those working in BT Centre

Cons

No causality between great performance and promotion
Bonus and Salary increaces are unclear, to say the least
Resistance to change is huge, it creates frustrations when trying to improve things

Advice to Senior Management

Often, Executive leadership wastes too much time focusing on details and misses the big picture

Pros

a. Work Life balance - 9 to 5 with ample vacations
b. Some decent projects - very very rare

Cons

a. No growth - forget about salary hikes, promotions or doing anything substantial
b. Poor management - More interested in recruiting rather than your growth
c. Very poor projects - Big chunk of people completely against change, very difficult to get things done. End up just making ppt and no results coming out of them

Advice to Senior Management

If you are really interested in keeping talent in the company, then invest in their growth. Make sure that they get real roles and have the power to take decisions and make changes

Pros

work life balance
people & leaders
friendly environment
well established structure, processes, and systems
availability of diverse range of roles

Cons

limited business growth potential
limited advancement opportunities
extensive stakeholder management requirements
very difficult and slow environment to get things done

Advice to Senior Management

need better performance and talent management to eliminate mediocracy, promote meritocracy, and encourage fresh leadership
bolder, less conservative moves required to fuel business growth