Ventajas
- Great flexible working options - four days from home per week/fortnight. - I had an incredible manager - one of the best of my career - but I think I was just got very lucky in that regard as other people seemed to have judgmental or unsupportive managers. - The office in Bristol is very modern and well-equipped, though I think badly designed/thought-out in practical terms for everyday use. - The general prestige of being part of a relatively significant international law firm, though this is a superficial 'benefit' at best.
Desventajas
- Senior management (including just above my line manager) were at best indifferent and at worst actively ignorant towards the possibility of anyone wanting to progress beyond an entry-level role. - Expectations (i.e. KPIs) were borderline unachievable - even experienced people struggled and (understandably) mostly failed in marginal terms to meet their role requirements. The way in which supervision happens in the claims handling department is extremely hit-or-miss - you can do virtually everything right and still be perceived to have done something wrong when you are very clearly still learning. - Oftentimes you have legally-qualified people employed as Claims Handlers who falsely believe themselves to be superior to everyone else - despite no longer being employed as solicitors at all - including via giving overly harsh and judgmental supervisory comments on your work that are effectively brushed aside by most of management. I got the impression that this was because the roles themselves are difficult to hire for, mainly due to the lackluster pay and high levels of experience they required, meaning certain people are valued more than others and their poor behaviour is therefore tolerated. - Given the above, the relentless focus on targets and the at times overwhelming weight of meeting unrealistic targets not only seriously impacted my mental health at times, but was categorically not worth the amount I was paid. I think the pay should have been at least £3000 greater, even for an entry-level role, given the expected standard. - Though there is a lot of lip-service paid to diversity and inclusion, I found that a key element of this aspect of the firm, the staff networks, are basically run on the goodwill of a few very passionate people, with the firm being at various times indifferent or superficially supportive of them. - I felt very much and very clearly like a small wheel in a very large and callous machine - your output is what matters, not you as a person, let alone your wellbeing. - A lot of noise is made in the way the firm markets itself about being non-hierarchical, yet I found that hierarchy clearly dominates the firm. Despite being a very open and gregarious person by nature, I would never have dreamt of just approaching even an Associate, let alone a Partner (for example) if they were ever in the office (which they rarely were). I've found at other firms that this old-fashioned and quite backward hierarchical thinking is replaced by openness and a willingness of even senior management to care about junior members of staff, which unfortunately I very much did not feel is a priority for RPC.