Pros
(Media arts lab office as this is separate to OMD EMEA) Free drinks any time, free lunch once per week, company parties downstairs in the office (this has all of course stopped since the office closed due to covid). Overall OMD leadership seems great (Guy Marks and team) with weekly communication to all employees through a video call, however the disparity between this and the Apple team is significant (we are a separate entity with a separate office). The greatest pro is your day to day colleagues (managers & below only), where this is purely due to us all having a common bond with how bad the working conditions are which binds us together.
Cons
You are expected to be always on 24/7 (not exaggerating), where we regularly work a 60-70 hour work week which extends further during Apple launch periods. You will be contacted to work weekdays as contracted, however also evenings, nights (our latest was 9am until 8:30am the next day), on your annual leave, bank holidays including Christmas etc. The work culture of the Apple team is also incredibly toxic unfortunately, where this stems from senior leadership from within the OMD Apple team with cascading stress and a blame culture. Simple tasks are over complicated to the extent where something which would take 1 hour max now will take several hours minimum with multiple revisions in-between. Leadership is also very bloated, with title inflation and each layer "overseeing" tasks rather than directly getting involved. As a result of a lack of staff executing tasks, significant workloads, long hours & a toxic work culture, it is no surprise that the turnover rate is so high. There has been a real drive recently with diversity and inclusion training, however we have directly heard of several people ridiculed for their religious backgrounds and their names made fun of. Lastly we have had several colleagues who are brilliant top performers, however have been told their performance is average and that more is expected of them for promotion. They of course leave due to this and the list of issues above, where their replacements are nowhere near as talented as they were. This is a real shame as Apple are actually brilliant to work with, where the issues here are all preventable.