Mar 28, 2016
Reckitt reviews
3.7
69% would recommend to a friend
Kris Licht
73% approve of CEO
56% positive business outlook
Reckitt has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 4,287 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Reckitt employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Industrie manufacturière industry (3.5 stars).
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4K reviews
1.0
Sep 11, 2020
A Dilbertian Nightmare. Lots of Buzzwords, no substance.
Former employee, more than 3 years
Slough, Berkshire, South East England, England
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
You can move up the corporate ladder very quickly @ RB provided you follow a few rules. 1. Remind yourself every day that you're not working as a team member, you are working for yourself. Every morning look in the mirror and say "I am 'Jo Blogs', my boss is not my friend, my goal is to get promoted to my next position within 12 months" 2. Remember you boss is not your friend, nor are any of your colleagues. Your job is to get to that Job Title mentioned above 3. Once you know what you want your next job title to be; find out the manager, senior manager or VP that will likely help you obtain that role. Find out what their role is. What their favourite "shiny thing" is (more info on shiny things in the Cons section). 4. Ensure you prioritise your future boss or future sponsor's work above all else. Once you know their "shiny thing", help them get it 5. Find out what your current boss' "shiny thing" is. 6. Devise a way to get your boss' "shiny thing" with as little work as possible. This is your second highest priority. Remember your boss does your performance review. 7. Find the best agency to help you achieve your boss' "shiny thing", check to see if there is an overlap with your future boss' shiny thing. Remember your top priority is your future boss, not your current boss. You need projects to be able to cover as much ground as possible (see point 11). 8. Ignore all requests from people at your level. This is the lowest priority. The exception is if the request comes from someone who works under your future boss. Then you must do the work but ensure your future boss is aware that you have done the work. 9. Outsource, Outsource, Outsource, Outsource. In most departments @ RB, very few actually do any work. It is important that your agency does most of the work for you. Most agencies are aware of RB's culture and put that in the price of working with them. So even long after the agency has done a project for you, get in touch with them as much as possible if you ever need anything. Remember your goal is to do as little as possible but show off as much as possible. How can you attend all those visibility meetings if you are working too hard? 10. Parrot senior leaderships. So parroting refers to repeating what someone says. You parrot senior leadership by first understanding what the flavours of the month are currently then ensure that the work you do is - in some way - aligned with those flavours (e.g. data, social listening, connected innovation). 11. Projects can be multi faceted - 1 component for your boss, 1 component for your future boss, 1 component that is in line with whatever buzzword senior management is talking about at the time. 12. Monitor the RB job board religiously. But also consider the possibility that a job role could be created provided how much pull your future boss has. For example conversations like this aren't uncommon "So I heard you mention 'artificial intelligence', have you thought about an AI manager. You know I do a bit of AI myself". You don't actually need to know anything about it (remember point 9). 13. Don't ever talk badly about the company. Ever. People pick up on it very quickly and then pretend they don't like working there, but they are lying. People love it, particularly lifers. You can survive and move up very well. What's there to hate?
Cons
Where to begin. Company Leadership 1. Company leadership have a magpie problem (i.e. an affinity towards "shiny things"). Where they just jump from buzzword to buzzword depending on the flavour of the month. A few examples would be "market penetration", "connected devices", "social listening", "AI". While many of these topics were mentioned and pushed there was no substantial shift towards any of these things. 2. The constant and unnecessary organisation restructuring creates an uncertain environment every 3 years. 3. The blaming. Management would restructure in a certain way, it would fail, then management would say "..the system is broken because there is no accountability. We need to change again". But the system was introduced by management in the first place. 4. It is a boys club culture; if neither your boss nor yourself are in the club, good luck making any progress career wise or other within the organisation. The Company Culture. 1. They pride themselves on how badly they treat their suppliers, contractors and customers. It's all considered "the RB way". 2. A teamwork mentality is not fostered. In fact the CEO at the time liked the conflict between employees as he believed it would encourage hard work and getting more bang for the little buck the company provided. 3. A big principal of success at RB is that it's now how much work you do, it is how much you can show off. 4. It is important to attend all meetings regardless of how pointless they are. It provided opportunities for visibility but most meetings had very little substance. 5. People aren't encouraged to retrain, learn new concepts. Attempts to train marketing and insight people on tools like Google Analytics and Social Listening often failed. Career development 1. Unless you work in Sales or Marketing; there is very little career development. In Sales or Marketing, there is a clear path provided to climb up the ladder but it is built more on relationships than actual work. 2. Very easy for anyone to make sideways job changes regardless of skills, experience or expertise. It's quite east to say move from, say Marketing to something more technical like Artificial Intelligence. Innovation 1. Dunning Kruger Syndrome - this is a phenomenon extremely common @ RB. Because of the genuine lack of knowledge, particularly in the digital, technology and connected space; many at the organisation consider themselves experts in the field. This leads to obvious issues around the wrong people managing areas they know little about. 2. Very little actual innovation within the organisation. Due to the Dunning Kruger Sydnrome, most of the intelligence - particularly within the digital, technology and connected space - sits outside of the company within third parties. 3. The lack of innovation is a result of the type of employees who are suited to RB (sales, marketing, communicators) 4. Intelligent and experienced Data Analysts, Tech Enginners and IOT experts are often marginalised because they struggle with the "Sales and Marketing" culture of the organisation
1.0
May 5, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Met a few really great people, learned a lot in a short time - but the RB way
Cons
Managers are less than competent and can't lead their teams. Pay is low on the scale as RB tries to stay "lean." Company morale and culture is horrible and everyone for the most part is miserable in their roles and it shows. It may seem like butterflies and rainbows during your interview but that fades away quick! Not worth it. Total boys club too.
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