C Space Employee Reviews about "c space"

Pros

C Space is great for people looking for a challenging, dynamic and creative environment. The work is exciting, people are brilliant and you have an opportunity to make a difference for some of the world's biggest brands. While management has made mistakes in the past, the new leadership and direction are inspiring! C Space is not for everyone but it will be the career opportunity of a lifetime if you thrive in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment, are collaborative, ambitious and a big thinker. If you are honest with management about your aspirations, ask for and seek out opportunities and show great promise, rewards will follow. They are genuinely good people who care about their employees.

Cons

So many company evolutions that have not always been good for the business and its employees. The good news is that management has woken up and positive changes are happening fast. People here can be unforgiving if you do not pull your weight on a team, which can be a good or bad thing depending on which you are! I suspect that many of the people posting negative reviews are those people.

Pros

Fun teammates Young culture Industry exposure Emphasis on culture events A+ client list (big names) Love the customer centricity + interesting product Diversity and Inclusion initiatives Stable job Base PTO is 15 days vacation (though this is not much) + 2 personal days + 40h sick + 2 paid volunteer days + 2 floating holidays

Cons

This is NOT a place to stay for a long time. Leave within a few years or risk stalling your career and experiencing burnout. C Space does not value their talent. They hire bright (often straight out of undergrad) employees and pride themselves on having the best, but chance for upward mobility is slim if you are not a 'favorite' - despite great work/putting in long hours. The PTO is minimal considering the OT put in to get work done on time. Management is in denial about staffing well enough to fulfill timelines they promise (which leads to OT, stress, asking for coverage, etc). Note: some levels do not receive OT pay. Promotions are few, and promotion timelines are long. There is a quota for how many people can be at each level. Management knows most people leave after 2-3 years but writes off those who leave as 'not making the cut' when the attrition is actually due to no/low financial or title growth. The pay is low. When you are at a lower level, you will be expected to do 'upper tier' work as part of your normal duties but will not receive compensation or recognition. Moving up requires you to already be doing the job of the tier above you at highly proficient level. Keep in mind pay raise can only happen once a year and promotions usually only happen twice a year. Read: you will work at a level above what you are being paid to do for a year or years before getting rewarded. C Space does not invest in key backbone areas like technology and employee retention. The stress is high and work levels can be unhealthy. It can be hard to find time for lunch even though you're 'at the office' for 9 hours+ a day. You may find that OT is expected of you, and downtime during the workday is non-existent. Burnout is very real. Periodic/daily health issues went away after leaving. LOTS of talk about innovation - but impossible to sustain or truly act upon because the seasoned experts at various levels continually leave for greener pastures. Many buzzwords and initiatives that sound great but lots of 'talk'. Some teams can be toxic. Management plays favorites and moves goalposts. Taking risks/new ideas can be risky to voice if they don't align with viewpoints of higher-ups. Issues affecting growth aren't surfaced until performance reviews instead of being communicated in a timely fashion. Reviews might circumvent established processes. Markers of progress are often subjective - your review will reflect how much your higher ups want you to grow - or not grow. Onboarding is rushed. New employees aren't taught all the skills they need. Communication internally about onboarding has been spotty and incorrect info is taught.

Pros

I've worked with many organisations over my career with a specific focus on assessing their leadership and culture and C Space is the best place I've ever worked when it comes to both. C Space teaches and rewards leadership that is highly empathetic and caring but also focused on holding people accountable - a difficult balance to maintain but which is really powerful when put into practice. This results in a culture that is entrepreneurial, learning oriented and psychologically safe and is an amazing place for growth for folks who are willing to lean in, raise their hands, and do what scares them. Our clients are widespread and big names, which leads to interesting work across a wide array of challenges; increasingly, our work also leads up to the C Suite and links to long-term growth strategy which is truly exciting. C Space is also undergoing a long-term transformation to fundamentally change the work it does, transitioning from being a qualitative research agency to a mixed-methodology strategic insight consultancy. For folks who have been willing to lean into this change, the work is exciting and challenging but does require a certain level of comfort with uncertainty and the unknown. So if you're someone who considers yourself a change agent, is proactive and not afraid to carve your own path, and is excited about doing or trying new types of research or consultancy that you haven't done before, C Space is an amazing place to strive, fail, learn and grow. If the above doesn't apply to you, then C Space is likely not the best fit. When it comes to DEI, C Space is early in its journey but actively working to address the challenges it faces and a DEI lens has become a strong filter across all hiring, retention and employee performance conversations. So while there is still definitely a lot of progress to be made, its been great to have a clear leadership mandate from the top that makes me feel optimistic that the integration of DEI perspectives and principles into how the company runs and the work we deliver will only continue to grow over time.

Cons

The usual challenges of agency life - while C Space does try to be more thoughtful about work-life balance, the reality is that we are still an agency and the hours can be quite variable. While C Space rewards those who are entrepreneurial and willing to take risks, it can be a challenging place for people who want consistency, structure and clear processes. Being part of Omnicom, there are certain constraints (e.g. tech stack and tools) that aren't great but out of leadership's control although the company has made enormous progress in the adoption of Microsoft Teams as being a consistent global platform for collaboration.

Pros

C Space is a great place to start your career and grow your consultative skills! C Space stresses the importance of building great company culture. C Space helps you grow as a consultant through daily client interactions, building close relationships with consumers, and taking advantage of internal trainings.

Cons

If you have a particular preference towards the type of industry sector you want to be in, speak up! Make sure you tell the hiring team what industry you are passionate about to get matched with the best team!

Pros

A good company culture (with culture committee). Hard working, young, ambitious team. Good central London location. Plenty of chances to travels abroad.

Cons

Although I enjoyed my time at C Space I often felt the company did not have a clear direction. They are afraid to identify themselves as a 'research' agency, and as such have had several re-brands over the years trying to find the right wording. Hours can often also be long, and I felt underpaid for the amount of dedication and effort I put in over the years.

Pros

C Space is a place that really rewards an entrepreneurial mindset with near limitless opportunities to grow. Incredible client roster, with really interesting colleagues and really smart and nice colleagues.

Cons

Agency life anywhere is fast paced, and C Space is no different. Being owned by Omnicom has its own challenges (including outdated tech and red tape).

Pros

Free breakfast and free snacks during Friday at 4.

Cons

I am not surprised by the past reviews at all. Here is the reality of c space : -There is a lot of politics in such a small office. HR and management are like 2 fingers of the same hand, no separation between them at all. -the pay is terrible and progression decisions are random. -no project management skills at all: neither senior consultants and directors know how to manage projects, clients or people. Budgets are always wrong and resourcing is a complete mess.. Also in C Space lots of senior people think that being agile is saying 'yes' to all last minute work and have long nights in the office. It is just shocking. Thus Associate consultants and Consultants are swamped in work and quickly burn out. -The feedback is not objective or based on your actual work but only reflect feelings and impressions of others. you rarely receive it f2f, mainly on paper.. It makes the process completely dishonest and opaque. -you can't trust your co-workers. If you want to succeed in c space you need to fake it all the time. Don't be yourself, put on a fake smile and pretend everything is ok. If you dare tell a sc or director that things are wrong, you won't last long. -it feels like a playground: lots of gossip, ( I can only talk for clicky toxic team i was working with). Not a very human company. -quality of work is doubtful: c space always make me think about W1A... A lot of empty buzz words. too much work in short time = quick and dirty. Few people in c space really understand the business context of their clients. The reports produced aren't really impactful, nor innovative. -friday @4 is good for snacks.. Otherwise it is just a joke. Senior people flatter their ego (some call themselves creative gurus/geniuses) , while juniors stress on their long to do list to finish before the weekend. -big turnover.

Pros

Relatively flat org structure and roles that wear many hats means you will get a ton of exposure and experience under your belt. My 3+ years at C Space were probably some of the most valuable in my career in terms of learning and development. The more you are willing to dive in and try stuff you've never done before, the more you will learn.

Cons

C Space is a market research/insights agency. If you are being told anything else in your interview about strategy, CX, innovation, service design or the like, you will be disappointed in your day to day. The volume of work is unmanageable and you will burn out. Q4 is especially bad, and I regularly worked 60+ hour weeks. I saw co-workers putting in even more time - staying online until all hours to finish projects. Serious problem with toxic positivity. Their value of "tell it like it is" is a joke. If you're having a difficult time and share what you're really feeling and experiencing, you will not be taken seriously, told to "assume positive intent" and penalized when it comes to getting good projects and getting promoted. Their DEI efforts are largely lip service. They say a lot of nice things, but have no commitment to real behavior changes, and no clarity about the types of behaviors that won't be tolerated at work. They also have a cult-like culture and if you don't "fit in," you will be excluded. Co-workers formed real, actual cliques the likes of which I haven't seen since middle school.

Pros

Fun, young company with lots of growth opportunities. Great place to start your career.

Cons

The work is really interesting but impact can be difficult to come by. It's hard to say what clients actually do with the insights and recommendations C Space provides.

Pros

C Space offers wide access to market strategies for many different companies and industries giving employees unique insight into the Fortune 500 corporate space. The company is well set up to facilitate eventually switching offices internationally or working remotely full time depending on the team and role. The education reimbursement benefit is a helpful tool as well with minimal blockers to actually using it and being reimbursed. The facilities team in the Boston office keeps the place running really smoothly. The onboarding experience for new employees has been the best of my career. While on certain teams it seems that the work/life balance was less than ideal, my team had wonderfully clear expectations so while we certainly all worked 40 hour weeks, there was no expectation that we work 41.

Cons

Switching teams laterally within the company is a very opaque affair. What the company calls 'merit' raises (because not everyone receives them) are, in practice, laughably small cost of living adjustments. The promotion process is slow and catty. Assume upon accepting an offer at C Space, that the salary you come in at will be very close to the salary you leave at and that the role may change function but not title. There is a very distinct corporate culture at C Space that shouldn't be questioned openly. The company makes its money on qualitative not quantitative research which mostly amounts to copy and paste jobs from survey participants to client-facing decks; if one starts to introduce actual statistical manipulation outside of the tiny R&D team, the culture police will shut that down. I don't believe that's a malevolent function so much as the company predominantly hires business and liberal arts majors straight out of college not statistics people. At the end of the day, C Space is a consultancy that is a small part of massive international company and it feels that way. I would still recommend C Space as a short-term place to work if the subject matter is interesting and the commute reasonable, but I wouldn't recommend buckling in for the long haul of more than 2 years.