Reviews by job title

5 reviews
1.0
10 Dec 2025

Look elsewhere, no point

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some staff you work with are great, free fruit, ok quality coffee machine

Cons

Narcissistic managers, bullying and belittling common. Unpaid overtime is expected and unvalued due to unrealistic timelines. No real career peogression unless you work endless overtime to hit targets. Team targets not being hit despite poor budget used to avoid giving prormotions. Management doesn't embody culture goals.

1.0
23 Jun 2015

Hire & Fire

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The best part about URBIS is the fact that I no longer have the misfortune and misguided loyalty to still be working there. Some of the people were good to work with, but they left too.

Cons

In economic downturn URBIS thinks it can mistreat employees and that they will tolerate the abuse and bullying rather than take their chances on the market. Management forces employees to compete against each other as if they are gladiators. The result is that the alpha bullies win and the more talented or quiet achievers are crushed. The vicious dross is left behind. This place is so bad that there are immature graduates managing projects and inexperienced thirty-something’s promoted to Management and Associate Director levels. Management hide behind emails, charge their time to your job without doing any work, constantly make you feel insecure because you haven't reached the billability target and expect you to do project work and business development in your own personal time. Leadership tends to be by people who were in the right place at the right time, those left behind after the talented staff quit. You bust your gut for nothing and you won't see any reward in terms of recognition, security or promotion. May as well be in an 18th century coal mine for all the appreciation and job satisfaction at URBIS. It's a bizarre world at URBIS. Bad people with personality disorders are promoted to management roles and inflict their insanity on everyone they can. Their mission is to make your life as chaotic and stressful as possible. Short sighted retrenchment of talented staff (disposable factory workers) over the past few years has led to skills shortages. Only those that suck up to Management and back-stab their colleagues get promoted to Associate Directors positions. Biggest problem is that they hired a lot of people a few years ago as part of their world domination plan, but can’t find enough work. So there is a ridiculous amount of pressure on employees who have no control over it to keep their utilization up. This of course leads to fabricating timesheets to keep the bean counters/managers happy. These same managers are being paid ludicrously high wages to peddle corporate nonsense and keep the pressure on technical and design staff to keep billing. All they seem to do is to go through redundancies while keeping their bloated management structure. Thus people with a strategic brain and some vision don't last long, it goes against the task-orientated, plodder's culture. Bullying and disrespectful behavior is the norm. It’s also worth noting that since the acquisition of TRACT, URBIS has demonstrated a complete inability to maintain a previously well established client base.

1.0
29 Jul 2025

Look for a job somewhere else

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people at Urbis are intelligent, capable, and passionate about their work. However, recent cultural shifts have made the environment increasingly competitive in an unhealthy way. Collaboration has taken a back seat to individual ambition, and it often feels like a ‘dog-eat-dog’ atmosphere.

Cons

I’ve been with Urbis for a few years, and unfortunately, the culture has noticeably declined over the past couple of years. The focus seems to have shifted heavily toward shareholder profits, often at the expense of staff wellbeing and led to Urbis taking on unethical work. This has created a high-stress environment where genuine care for employees feels like an afterthought. Bullying and poor behaviour often go unaddressed, and pay remains well below market despite the increasing demands. Bonuses and salary increases are minimal, and while promotions are often discussed, they rarely come through. Redundancies are sometimes hinted at, adding to the overall insecurity. A department was also forced to go part time to save the company money. I’d recommend looking at companies that genuinely value and invest in their people.

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