Huge workloads, lack of leadership direction - Anonymous employee Sage Employee Review

1.0
Jun 19, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great people (while they last) - A good opportunity to learn how not to treat people and how not to manage organisational change

Cons

- Huge and unrealistic workloads, but when you ask for help no-one in a management role is willing to facilitate solutions. - The lack of planning or thought before knee-jerk reactions means endless re-work, crazy deadlines and work that is just wasted. - It's not clear if the leaders are making the structures up on the spot but it seems that way. Decisions are constantly changed, the people responsible are shuffled endlessly and nothing is shared other than the highest level strategy - Employees are made promises that are not delivered on - The culture within the HR Function is toxic, with scape-goating & misleading behaviours causing a number of great employees to leave.

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Sage Response
8y
Thanks for your review. It is disappointing to hear that you had a negative view of Sage but we appreciate all colleague feedback - past and present. We agree Sage has some awesome colleagues across the 23 countries we operate in. Our colleagues are critical to our success hence some of the fantastic initiatives including the mentoring programme, the Leadership @Sage programme, investment in our office locations across the globe, our first ever global intranet, Sage Save & Share Plan - allowing all colleagues to own part of Sage, the summer parties - thanking colleagues for their hard efforts and Sage Foundation, allowing all colleagues 5 days volunteering for a charity of their choice - this is just a snapshot of what we've been doing. As a former employee I am sure you will be aware that we have been working hard to transform the business, and that the purpose of the transformation is to make us a stronger business which will allow us to operate more effectively and deliver more value for our customers. Our future focus is very exciting and we are confident that our partnerships we are growing will continue to help us deliver long term benefits; but we are aware that moving through a change programme can be difficult at times. We believe in our brand and that our CEO and Leadership team have built a winning strategy that will continue to deliver positive results for our business and make us stand out against our competition. We encourage all colleagues to talk with their manager and share feedback and thoughts, plus we ask all current colleagues contribute to the anonymous colleague survey which is launched tomorrow - 5 July. Thanks again for your feedback and we wish you well with your career.

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5.0
Jun 5, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

They will work with you and teach you everything you need to know and help you as long as you help yourself and meet kpi but they help you meet it

Cons

No cons to add at this time

2.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

was hired as remote and get to have that honored, but have been openly told no career progression because of remote status. decent pay

Cons

Leadership instability: Seven manager changes during my relatively short tenure. Unrealistic targets: A sales quota set at 1,100% growth (not a typo). Slow product development: Getting anything actioned on the product side takes far too long. Product management turnover: Three product manager changes, resulting in no meaningful deliverables in over three years. Misaligned hiring priorities: Greater emphasis on DEI optics than on hiring people positioned to drive growth. Internal vs. customer focus: More energy spent on internal events than on product enhancements. Lack of accountability (the biggest issue): No one takes ownership. Responsibility gets passed around constantly — for example, client cancellations going unprocessed because they impact someone's numbers. Managers have openly encouraged pushing the work onto someone else rather than handling it.

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Sage Response
1d
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We’re sorry to hear about the challenges you’ve described around leadership continuity, targets, growth, and ways of working. We recognise the impact that stability, clear accountability, and achievable goals can have on the day-to-day experience of our colleagues, particularly within sales and customer-facing roles. We shall share your feedback with leaders for their visibility as we continue to evolve how we support our teams to truly thrive at work. If you have any additional insights to share, please leave us more feedback via our internal Always Listening forum or through your manager. Thank you again for sharing your perspective.
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