Phoenix Group Reviews

Pros

Great people at the Phoenix

Cons

Tough industry for med comm

Pros

Great people, interesting work, lots of opportunities

Cons

Some processes were quite slow and frustrating

Pros

Company provides Positive employee engagement

Cons

Building location is in a rural location

Pros

Good working hours and compensation. Nice co workers

Cons

Not many opportunities for promotion. Flat structure and senior management can be quite exclusive.

Pros

Good place to work, well paid, flexible working arrangements. Highly professional. Everyone is very busy, life is not boring!

Cons

No cons to reports on this page

Pros

Nice building and grounds. Free lunch

Cons

Company culture is old school so things take ages to get processed

Pros

Very good work life balance for the financial services industry Lots of opportunities to work in challenging areas Substantial investment in learning and development

Cons

A lot of overlap in the investment management space with multiple teams competing against each other Divisions of responsibilities not always clear with lots of empire building allowed to flourish A lot of focus on operational activities with the tail often wagging the dog

Advice to Management

Rather than just focusing on the results, think about the most efficient structure for the organisation so it can continue to prosper

Pros

Interesting variety of work. Challenging. Lots of bright, technically minded people. Good facilities particularly at Wythall site, with free canteen and good working environment (apart from when it rains and the roof leaks). People are generally friendly and help each other out. Company tries hard to push wellbeing messages, does a lot for charity, organises a range of good events for its staff and has a good... presence in the local community. Tries hard to communicate to its employees about what’s happening.

Cons

Flexible working is hit and miss and only realistically available if you happen to work in the right team. Some teams still have very inflexible attitudes and old fashioned traditional views of being at your desk between 9am and 5pm. Company talks a lot about diversity, but apart from one female at executive level, the vast majority of the senior management team are white men and most senior promotions continue to... go to men. Some fairly poor diversity and gender pay gap statistics were published in 2017 and then never really mentioned again. Recent merger with Standard Life has made these statistics even worse. To be fair though, this remains an issue across the whole finance sector and not just at Phoenix. Some questionable appointments of people to more senior roles, who are good at convincing others of their technical ability but have limited people skills and do not display a good set of behaviours. Random people are sent on leadership and development courses which don't always seem to have much benefit. Complex mergers and acquisitions bring lots of uncertainty and are not always dealt with very well, particularly from a people point of view. Company pushes a message of 'one big family' but different parts of the company with different cultures, and in different locations, don't always seem to integrate well.