There are many, but to focus on a few:
- Terrible culture
People who pick their colleagues apart and displace blame onto others are rewarded to the extent that you feel you have to preemptively defend yourself in many day to day interactions. You find yourself approaching what should be a run-of-the-mill discussion armed with timestamped messages and emails to try to defend yourself. Managers will sit quietly going through your emails to try to prove that you’ve missed something in order to blame you for a deadline being missed.
Frequently, situations that could be swiftly resolved through open conversations with all parties involved are not addressed and needlessly prolonged, transforming them into nightmarish and adversarial experiences.
My former colleagues have expressed reluctance to address mistakes made by managers on the claims they were handling. They feared potential repercussions if they were to bring up these concerns to the team, as it could be used against them and result in punishment. Sometimes you go months without any work to do (which in practice is incredibly dull). Then, in certain months a huge amount of pressure is put on staff to meet arbitrary deadlines.
Management actively discourage after-hours socialising.
- Poor work-life balance
I was strongly encouraged to sacrifice annual leave for medical appointments even during periods when I was working huge amounts of overtime, 7 days a week. When I booked annual leave sometimes I would be informed at very short notice that I would not be allowed to take it for which my annual leave was not paid back. I was explicitly told that in order to be considered to for promotion I would need to visibly work overtime. The working is not flexible – both in hours and in location. They expect you to make up the time for doctor appointments even when you’re working huge amounts of overtime. They currently mandate an average of 2.5 days in the office a week, subject to change from October onwards. Any sick leave taken is subtracted from your remote working allowance. They’ve just upscaled to a bigger office so I imagine this will only get more demanding from this point on. I’ve run this review past multiple members of the current team at Ayming and all of them have strongly agreed with its content. Looking at other recent reviews, it appears that upper management have posted reviews to try to salvage the poor ratings. Ayming bears a significant responsibility for the alarmingly high staff turnover it experiences. This persistently high rate is a clear reflection of the company's shortcomings and issues within its operations.
