Serco Group Reviews

Pros

Good team to work with

Cons

I would like to stay contract is ending,

Pros

Very good working culture and environment, Multinational company, opportunity to be a part of the development of Dubai, particularly the Dubai Metro Project

Cons

There is no significant downside to working in Serceo. Even id there is, I am not well acquainted because I was there for a very short term.

Pros

Getting to work with some very driven and talented people it's what make's working at Serco good, it is surprising just how many fantastically skilled people work for the organisation, which creates a good opportunity to learn new skills from your colleagues. Staff are generally very helpful towards each other.

Cons

Impossible to make decisions, everything is by committee and even then decisions often cannot be made, some of the simplest management decisions I have come across have taken circa 4-5months to agree. Middle management are not empowered to make any decisions, they act mearley as a buffer between frontline staff and the Senior Team's, HR are completely process driven as opposed to people driven. Hours are very long, with very little work life balance, if you work a 10hr day, that's seen as not putting in the effort! Serco pride's itself on it's governing principles, and very much all PDP's and performance discussions revolve around these, which in-turn become very hard to achieve due to the level of beauracy and lack of decision making ability. Serco overall is 700 little companies, with little to no sharing of best practice, processes or skills, each contract just re-invents the wheel making the same old mistakes. Serco doesn't deliver on it's promises

Advice to Senior Management

Empower your management teams, give them autonomy to carry out their roles, look at proper career path's and encourage development. Review why so many managers go off with stress and challenge those that working long hours, support them by providing the right structure. Share knowledge between contracts, utilise shared service approach.

Pros

Pretty much all staff are highly skilled and intelligent.
There are varied opportunities across the company.
The working environment is generally quite flexible (home working etc).

Cons

Hugely bureaucratic. It takes ages to get a decision on anything.
Long hours are expected but not rewarded.
Pretty much everyone I know is underpaid, with virtually no opportunities for salary increases (pay rises have been capped at below the rate of inflation ever since I joined 3 years ago).
No career development or training to speak of.
Poor benefits, unless you are senior management.

Advice to Senior Management

Employees are fed up with the excuses over salaries. People are leaving in droves to command higher salaries elsewhere, leaving Serco over-reliant on expensive consultants. It's completely counter-productive. Introduce transparent pay grades and a decent incentive scheme, with salaries in line with what is offered in comparable companies.

Pros

The best part of working for serco is my colleagues, most are passionate about their roles, work against the odds to provide customers a good service and there is a good social scene. The pay is also above average.

Cons

The senior and middle management leadership is poor, they seem to have risen through the ranks on an old boys network. They do not have enough experience, make poor strategic decisions and seem afraid of communicating to their employees. They are also very defensive. The different serco contracts have little interaction which is a shame, as it could provide a varied career.

The IT systems and equipement is old, breaks frequently and makes the day more frustrating than it should be.

There is little training opportunities- it is always promoised but doesn't materilise often.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees, and take action on the feedback. Your employees are your best resource, help them develop their careers in return for them delivering your bottom line.

Pros

Good team spirit and a willingness to improve

Cons

Too mant reorganisations resulting in constatnt new initiatives

Advice to Senior Management

Follow through on initiatives or do not start them in the first place

Pros

Most of the customers are lovely although even they became fed up of the broken promises in the end. The staff in general are extremely nice, some very professional and you can learn alot from certain colleagues. My Manager in Derby was not always in the office but was trusting enough to let me manage my own work day, arrange meetings with colleagues when needed & use MSN to communicate with other staff at my office & other offices. There is a real sense of wanting to improve the customers experience among staff but this is often soured by lack of support from Senior Managers or staff being overworked. It does feel like some of the products the company develops are exciting and have the potential to really improve education and learning. Sadly the lack of of proper testing & implementation take the shine off of this and it is extremely embarrassing to be demo-ing software to customers which you know is full of bugs and sometimes unstable.

Cons

Serco Learning is very segmented from the rest of the Group until it comes to profit & loss. Every few months there used to be an Ask Chris Hyman initative which is supposed to bring all the parts of Serco together but this is lip service & in the 3 yrs I worked for Serco, Chris Hyman did not visit Learning once, dispite horrendous turnover of staff, (why don't people stay Chris?), issues with sick leave often due to stress (but perhaps not reported upwards as the HR Manager at Serco changed many times also & staff on sick leave sometimes did not return) & one office being closed, then relocating for a few months as the closure was clearly not thought through properly, only to move back to the original building after 6mths, wasting thousands of pounds, causing extreme stress to staff being made redundant and those left behind, along with a huge drop in moral and productivity.....shocking!. There seems to be a culture amongst the Directors & Senior Management Team of 'watching ones own back' rather than really sorting out the issues & at times it appeared that figure pointing was taking place & there was no real plan to combat the issues. Talented staff are sometimes overlooked or not supported enough to feel empowered to make the necessary changes across the company which is often working in silos & communication is poor. Certain areas are very overworked and under supported with staff not given enough training to be credible in their roles (implementation) and other areas such as Sales having training and better support due to the view that sales = money in. The company forgets that after sales, the other parts of the business (Support, Implementation etc) keep the customer satisfied and therefore likely to renew at end of contract period.

There is very little support or concern for remote staff working from home or out on the field and it is easy to become disenfrancished. It would help greatly if the MD did not change every year or so as this would provide some stability to staff and customers.

Staff who travel often do long days and cover many miles. There needs to be improved flexibility to enable these staff to work from home, recuperate if needed and some of their workload should be shared if travelling distance to reduce the stress.

I've read all the Marketing material about how passionate Chris Hyman and the Group Directors are about Serco & desperately wanted to believe it. I'd like to see this passion bubble through all the SMT down to the staff but come on Chris Hyman, I know you are a busy man but if you are this passionate then why didn't you visit Serco Learning even once?

Advice to Senior Management

Chris Hyman needs to visit Serco Learning to understand the issues from the staff. The MD & SMT should undertake a 'back to the floor' initiative to understand the issues from the ground up & what changes must be made. More support needs to be given to all staff whether working remotely or office based. The company needs a better work life balance culture and more emphasis on sorting out the issues. Communication between offices needs to be drastically improved using tools such as MSN, Skype, video conferencing, newsletters etc.

Pros

We really do make a difference to people's lives and we employ some truly fantastic and passionate people, particulary within the contract base. I have only ever experienced fair treatment and believe that, if you work hard, there are lots of opportunities.

Cons

The hours can be pretty hectic because there is always lots to do and sometimes, this can be really hard going but I have always found lots of people willing to help me out.

Advice to Senior Management

Judging by lots of the comments on this site, work needs to be done around employee engagement. I also think that some people have to work twice as hard to support people who don't pull their weight and this could be managed better.

Pros

On the Postal contract, one deals mostly with USPS management (your customer). The customer will support you, but no resources to advance.

Cons

There is virtually no support fom SERCO, as it comes to raises or bonuses or promotions or even approval for company provided professional development courses.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide management with proper training, define the proper organization structure, assign management with the responsibility and WITH THE AUTHORITY, do not give the excuse that it is the "Postal Management Fault" for the lack of opportunities.

Pros

The staff do have a good relationship with each other and a variety of backgrounds and culture does allow friendships to be made. The clients do also have a good working connection which is refreshing at times but can be a rarity. A good place to start while building up skills to progress yourself.

Cons

There has been a wave of changes which resulted in a lot of good people leaving and segration with departments. Management only look at figures rather than communicating with the team and unfairness in progression, whenever there is any. Career prospects are very limited and find that after time if you have not found something better then you can become trapped. Account managers and Project Managers not having a clue about basic project management and client relationships.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the staff instead of "taking on board". Stop highlighting problems and come up with solutions. Recognise talent and appriciate the sacrifices some do make.