Toxic and soul sucking - Anonymous employee VicRoads Employee Review

It is nearly impossible to produce your best work. Whether it is approval processes, red tape, or a conservative legal team, your work will be constantly critiqued and pulled apart. You never feel good enough or that your knowledge and professional opinions are valued. Multiple people in senior leadership positions are arrogant, one is misogynistic, e.g. referring to women in the office as “females” in a meeting. Senior leadership has stressed ‘collaboration’ and ‘networking’, yet will not say hello to you in the office, let alone make eye contact in the hallway. They have no interest in holding a conversation with you unless you are a senior. The move to create ‘neighbourhoods’ in the office was not to create more collaboration but for management to keep a closer eye on you and your movements. There is almost no one in the corporate office under the age of 30. If you make a mistake, they will hold it over your head. The middle management operates on fear. They micromanage and take any strategic thinking away from you because they are scared of senior leadership. This is not isolated to one area of the business. If you provide any feedback or push back, you are shunned and labelled as an issue. Your opinions are not heard or respected. If you become negative, upset, or angry at decisions made, they will not ask why. They will ask your peers but not come to you directly to know why you are frustrated. They don’t care why. There is a culture of ‘toxic positivity’ in which any sort of negativity is suppressed. Staff surveys clearly show people are unhappy, yet they cherry-pick and spin to make the place look positive. Staff turnover is too high to truly reflect the real VicRoads in these surveys. They celebrate ‘wins’, which are things that should have been delivered over two years ago.