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      Sage

      Engaged Employer

      Sage reviews

      3.5

      63% would recommend to a friend

      (5,261 total reviews)
      avatar

      Steve Hare

      70% approve of CEO

      60% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      3.9

      Diversity & inclusion

      3.7

      Compensation and benefits

      3.6

      Work/Life balance

      3.5

      Culture & values

      3.4

      Career opportunities

      3.2

      Senior management

      Sage has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 5,261 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Sage employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Informatique industry (3.7 stars).

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Reviews by job title

      5K reviews
      1.0
      May 13, 2018

      Failing to execute on its cloud strategy

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Nice offices. You get 5 paid days per year to do charity work - this is a genuine positive.

      Cons

      Sage has a strategy to move customers from its old, outdated on-premise software to new cloud products. It sounds great but the execution of this strategy is hopelessly poor. The engineering teams are spread much MUCH too thinly on projects that add no value and make no sense. And the company is horribly weighed down by its out of date legacy products and seems to have no clue how to change that. The execs have at least recognised this and have said we need to "ruthlessly prioritise". But there is no follow-through. We still spend most of our time on pointless projects. I've personally tried calling out some of these pointless projects only to be dismissed out of hand. The execs seem to have no insight whatsoever into what is valuable and what is just a waste of time. As a result, the cloud products are not making fast enough progress. And then there is the performance review system. As many other reviewers have said - there is a forced ranking in place where people are arbitrarily rated as "unsatisfactory" to hit some notional distribution curve. Those victims at the bottom are then managed out. It's basically a way of cutting headcount/costs without having to pay severance. Admittedly, some teams/people are certainly not performing well, but the arbitrary forced ranking just shows that the senior managers are not in touch with what is going on in their teams. If they were, they could target the poor performers. Appalling and almost unbelievable in this day and age, but I have seen it first hand. The reviewers here are telling the truth. Don't believe any denials from HR. (Can't believe I'm saying this about a company I've worked for for over 10 years). The result of all this? Sage is failing to deliver on its cloud strategy as is clearly demonstrated by the recent half-year results and profit warning. It's people are terribly demotivated, as demonstrated by the reviews on this site - compare Sage to it's competition. I honestly can't see how the company can turn itself around without a massive change in management, a crash in revenue growth while it sorts out its cloud products and then (just maybe) a return to sustainable growth.

      avatar
      Sage Response
      8y
      Thanks for your feedback. Our product roadmap is filled with exciting developments and we have a lot to be proud of. Earlier this month we announced how Sage Business Cloud Enterprise Management accelerates with Fast Start. Customers choosing Enterprise Management with Fast Start can be up and running within two months, helping to reduce initial costs through adopting a standard process and a pre-configured solution. They will also benefit from all the product features of Sage Enterprise Management core modules in less time – with the ability to add new modules as their business grows. We've also recently launched our new Pay Now invoicing - meaning no more chasing late payments with Sage Business Cloud Accounting which is powered by Stripe. Invoice Payment functionality is now available in Sage 50 CA and UK powered by PayPal and Sage 50cloud US powered by Stripe. Upcoming launches include Sage 50 DE and UK and Sage 200 UK powered by PayPal. Customers embraced the development with 200 customers and $775k of pending payment in just three days. We launched our new Sage Business Cloud Accounting mobile app and we’ve already clocked up over 6,000 downloads and earned an impressive AppStore rating of 4.9. It's also been a huge year for Sage Financials as we have partnered with many colleagues around the globe and across functions. This was something we wanted to accomplish in a very short timeframe, which meant an intense focus on a clear set of objectives to make it happen. In the first half of the year we have added product functionality, enhanced the user experience, streamlined business processes and provided tooling to ensure we could on-board customers in 5 days or less. Even working at pace, we had our customers at the heart of the mission. We tested every feature, process and message with customers and partners. We received rave reviews on the changes and planned changes for the second half of the year. And we are receiving awards for our success too, here's some of the latest: -2018 Medallia Expy Award for the category of 'Activate Every Employee' thanks to EVERY colleague's participation in CX programs like 'NPS Closed Loop', Sage Listens, and Magic Moments! - Sage Learning Services wins the 2018 Impact Award from CEdMA -Germany: Innovationspreis-IT - Sage Live won Best of Innovation Award IT 2018 in the category "Finance”. - Innovation of the Year, AccountingWeb, 2017 -Best Technology Company, National Centre for Diversity, 2018 Our performance management process is designed to increase the effectiveness of our colleagues and therefore organizational capability to deliver strong levels of performance. We are progressing on our journey in building a high performance culture to effectively manage, support, and develop our colleagues to become One Sage. Our colleague surveys do indicate that our colleagues want clearer parameters around performance expectations, and we are already making those changes based directly on that feedback. Thank you for taking the time to share your perspectives with us.
      1.0
      Jul 8, 2017

      Run away as fast as you can...

      Manager
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Great co-workers! You have air conditioning in the summer and heat when it's cold outside. Offices gave kitchens that have microwaves, refrigerators, free coffee, albeit it's terrible and sometimes ice!

      Cons

      Where do I start? Many people are scared that they'll be fired based on a "needs improvement" rating on their mid-year review... which in true Sage form, is based on a bell curve! What company rates their employees like that? Employees are just numbers like a herd of sheep...

      avatar
      Sage Response
      8y
      Thanks for your feedback. We have fantastic colleagues at Sage and the company is working towards a high-performance culture. There are so many exciting things happening at Sage - we have just launched our leadership development programme ‘Leading at Sage’ aims to develop the skills and behaviours of all 2,000 Sage Managers. Our ambition is to ensure that every day our managers challenge and support our colleagues to do their best. We want Managers to quickly identify and address low levels of performance and recognize and appreciate those that go ‘above and beyond’. Our performance management process identifies colleagues who are under performing and performance improvement plans are put in place to help get these colleagues back on track. If colleagues (including leaders) performance continues to be unacceptable they may be exited from the organisation. Our ambition is to build and provide the best technology and services for the world’s Business Builders. We have huge aspirations for our business – we want to be the worldwide market leader and we have a strategic plan to accelerate our revenue growth and improve our margins with our new generation cloud accounting products to meet this ambition. But we also need to create a high performing culture. Our performance management process is designed to increase the effectiveness of our colleagues and therefore the organisational capability to deliver strong levels of performance. It focuses on results and behaviours, allowing us to reward success and inspire our 13,500 colleagues in a consistent way. Thanks again for your feedback.
      1.0
      Jun 19, 2017

      Huge workloads, lack of leadership direction

      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.

      avatar
      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.
      Viewing 103 - 105 of 5,261 Reviews
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