vehicle technician

mechanic

technician

direct sales representative

customer service representative

Working at RAC has been a challenging and often disheartening experience, primarily due to a combination of demanding stakeholders and the uncomfortable work environment. While the company may offer attractive incentives and benefits on the surface, the daily grind here often feels like an uphill battle.

Stakeholder Pressures:
One of the primary reasons why RAC is a difficult place to work is the relentless pressure exerted by stakeholders. Whether it's shareholders, upper management, or even clients, the unceasing demand for recruitment needs, faster production, and immediate results has created an atmosphere of perpetual stress. Employees find themselves constantly on edge, racing against the clock to meet unrealistic deadlines and targets set by stakeholders who seem detached from the realities of day-to-day operations. This does not help when we are hugely understaffed and money is being spent on unnecessary facilities and departments instead of in house staff and support.

This incessant pressure has several detrimental effects on employees' well-being. It leads to burnout, anxiety, and a high turnover rate, as individuals struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance. The constant scrutiny and expectation of immediate results make for an environment that is more conducive to stress and anxiety than personal and professional growth.

Uncomfortable Work Conditions:
Another glaring issue at RAC is the uncomfortable work environment. The building itself seems designed to add to the stress of the employees. The workspace is cramped, poorly lit, and the ventilation is inadequate. The uncomfortable chairs and ergonomically deficient workstations take a toll on employees' physical health, leading to chronic discomfort, back problems, and other related issues, not to forget the toilets are one of the worst in any building I have worked in, human waste can be found unflushed and the smell once you enter the W/C is not great either. 

This lack of basic comfort makes focusing on tasks and maintaining productivity an uphill battle. It's not uncommon to see employees shivering in winter coats at their desks or drenched in sweat during the summer months.

working at RAC is an experience marred by the unrelenting pressure of demanding stakeholders and an uncomfortable physical environment. The company's relentless pursuit of profit and efficiency has created a toxic work culture that prioritizes short-term gains over the well-being of its employees. The uncomfortable conditions within the building only compound the stress, making it difficult for employees to thrive both professionally and personally. RAC needs to seriously reconsider its priorities and invest in its workforce and work environment if it hopes to retain and attract top talent in the long run.


Thomas Hobbes, born 1588, neatly sums up working at RAC: “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. Which aptly describes the human nature and culture of this once blue chip organisation. Sadly no more, today, it is the epitome of modern day slavery. Dysfunctional doesn’t come close to describe the atmosphere and flip flop indecision of the leadership within the company. Empathy and emotional quotient are alien concepts to people managers who think the way to achieve better results is to belittle and berate their colleagues and patronise them with offers of pizza for going above and beyond. Misogyny, nepotism and narcissism will stand you in good stead to work here. It’s not all bad, the Bristol office has gained local recognition; unfortunately, by recruitment agencies and General Practices, for a rapid high turnover of staff and poor mental health respectively. When you go for interview they will spin you a good yarn, reality, however, is somewhat different. You will be expected to hit the ground running faster than Usain Bolt, with no support, induction or basic IT infrastructure like laptop or phone. Profit is king in this venture capitalist culture. Customer and colleague experience are not bothered about, you are just a number to be ignored. 
Management haven’t had an original idea in years they just keep going round in the same old loop doing the same thing expecting a miracle to happen this time around. It’s impossible to achieve anything of note as everyone is too busy pursuing their own agenda and change is blocked at every conceivable angle due to lack of resources or the impossible number of un-prioritised competing projects. 
People leave this company in droves, it’s become a standing joke to see if new recruits make it through their first week. 
Senior leadership have no strategy other than to do whatever the CEO happens to want on any given day. It’s pointless starting anything or actually making an effort as priorities change so frequently that what you initiate this week will be off the agenda the following week. This is incredibly frustrating if you are conscientious and actually want to do a good job. Scandal and lack of integrity abound, things have gone on here that would make your toes curl. 
Well you’ve been warned, avoid this place like the plague if you know what’s good for you. 
On the other hand, there’s free parking (it wouldn’t be a surprise if they don’t start charging you for that soon) and the building has great architectural merit, shame they don’t actually own it anymore or maintain it to a very high standard - but that would cost money which is better off in the pockets of the investors.

My time at RAC was very short lived. And though it had its perks, the cracks began to show far too quickly.

The job is easy to get the hang of, fairly quickly. The problem however, is the repetitive nature of the work. Coupled together with the 8 hour long shifts, can make the job become almost unbearably dull, especially since peak hours are only between 10 and 2 (In my experience, this may be different for others) 

So for example, if you were to work a 11am - 7pm shift,  come 3pm on wards you'll barely receive any calls. Come 5pm you're basically down to a call every 30 minutes, if you're lucky. Leaving you with absolutely nothing to do. Since your job is take calls and nothing more.

More to the point, in my experience, they expect you to be a part of a machine at all times. If you deviate from this intention, for even a small moment, you will be hounded. It's as if they're constantly on watch with everything you do. 

There were instances where they asked why I was so long on the toilet, or asking me why I was 2 minutes over my lunch break. Though it always boiled down to a matter of time-keeping, it felt like I was committing a heinous crime every second I was away from my desk. 

And a warning to new comers, should you do one single thing out of line, there is a risk that you will be fired, your things picked from your desk, and then escorted out of the building within two minutes. 

Two. Literal. Minutes. 

To make things worse, the reason for my termination was given to me with absolutely no context/evidence, but they gave me no time to defend myself or provide said context. I was out of a job and out of the building before I had even registered what had happened. 

And to top it all off, they escorted me out of the back door, as if i were a danger to the rest of the company. This felt, to me, like such a disrespectful action against me as a person. I wasn't treated like a human being, I was treated like an object that had to be chucked outside. 

So my advice? The hours are certainly good, but you'd better not dare make a mistake, because it will cost you.

The perks, just weren't worth the risk that I took with them, and even if they allowed me back (Oh yeah, I'm no longer allowed to work for RAC), I would turn their offer down without hesitation.

You only have one chance to give a first impression, and they failed.

So I started here (not my first job in a call centre / on the phones) the training was shambles from the beginning, our trainer went off sick after the second day from mental health problems and we were left with just a random guy from the contact centre floor. He knew his stuff but clearer was NOT a trainer / had any training techniques and taught us how he personally used the system/spoke on the phone etc which are tailored to him - as everyone knows everyone has different working styles and some don’t suit others. He was also teaching old protocols which meant when we finally went out onto the phones we were doing the wrong stuff. After 9 days training (just how to use the system it’s self, no actually training on the company, products, selling techniques or anything actually relevant) we were put in the phones. There was 23 people in my training group and 2 trainers, when were all taking out first calls you can imagine the support from 2 seniors was far from enough. From then on it went downhill. No support no extra training on stuff we were struggling with, no feed back on calls that were failed, you were  virtually  ignored every day. The seating is hot desking meaning you’re sat next to someone new everyday and struggle to find a seat. The leadership is shambles, the job is awful and everything about the whole thing is beyond bad. I had time off sick, with a sick note from my doctor and was basically told in a meeting that I might not have a job by the end of the week because off the week off I had. 4 people then were fired from my training group and about 10 ish from the actually contact floor in the month that I was there. It’s like walking on egg shells and they’ll do all they can to push you out if your face doesn’t fit or youre not a robot. Couldn’t of ran out of the place faster and I’d rather be homeless than work there for another hour !!!!! They lie about the bonus and give any reason to take it off you if you’re lucky to get it in the first place!!!  STAY CLEAR !!! NOT WORTH THE DAMAGING MENTAL HEALTH, PANIC ATTACKS AND NON EXISTING LIFE !!!!!

Worst decision of my career to accept a role with the RAC. What you expect and what you get are poles apart. It is such a shame. There are some lovely people and thanks to them each day is (just about) bearable; but that’s not enough to balance out the infinite problems this company has. 

Massive staff turnover is a very clear indication that there’s something rotten at the core of this business.

Work life balance - just take the ‘life’ part out of the equation. You get no life working at the RAC. There’s an expectation that you will work 24/7. On your deathbed? They’d expect you to ‘work from home’. 

Strategy - what strategy? This is a company that doesn’t know its bum from its elbow as far as a strategic planning is concerned. Goalposts are moved on a daily basis. Senior management want cheap quick-fixes rather than actually spending any time or resources dealing with the root causes of problems. 

Leadership - laughable. There’s no trust at the RAC. Blame culture and backstabbing is rife, mainly caused by people being under excessive pressure. Too scared of losing their jobs to own up to errors, people have a tendency to point fingers at everyone else. 

They don’t properly invest in the important things, like systems, health and safety, people development. They say they do to maintain the public facing image of a well-run business but all they’re really doing is putting sticking plasters over things. They keep talking about all these so called improvements they’re making but actions speak louder than words and the actions they actually take are a clear sign they don’t care about anything other than making as much money for themselves as they can.

The RAC is a historic brand and while its all glossy on the outside, when you start scratching under the surface it’s not hard to see the long ignored issues, which are having seriously negative consequences for customers. The volume of complaints hitting the press is only the tip of the iceberg, what’s really going on makes me feel ashamed to work there.

The amount of good things about the job are shadowed by the amount of bad but I suppose the good parts are: not having to buy tools, van and fuel costs all provided, generally an easier types of jobs than in a garage (no big jobs removing engines etc, mostly lighter work). The job can pay well but only if you sacrifice your personal life and work excessively. Management are totally clueless when it comes to the job and couldn’t careless about their employees. We were recently given a very small pay rise followed by a cut in our bonus with less than 24 hours notice so they could make their money back. The company will constantly talk about what patrols can do to save time yet constantly waste time with the poor procedures they have in place. Towards the end of your shift 75% of the time you will be sent a job that will take you over your finish time and management will expect you to get home late because they couldn’t careless about your personal life. It can be embarrassing and demoralising to go out to people that have spent hundreds of pounds on cover and you arrive to them after a 10 hour wait and have to apologise on the companies behalf for taking their money to line the pockets of shareholders while not being able to provide the service they promised. Overall I would say I like the job I do but the company do their best to depress their employees and couldn’t care less about them so it makes it very hard to care about the job or want to stay. Best advise I can give is go and get a job at a dealer or a big brand you’ll make the same money, won’t have to put yourself in danger on fast roads and still have a personal life.

joke of a company, basic recovery salary is 22.5k for 40hrs but you can make the money up if you want to work overtime, shifts are 12hours a day, if you want holidays you need to book one year in advance and there’s no guarantee of getting it there’s always adjustments being made you know a month or two later also any additional days you might want to book off for family time though out the year forget it unless you can personally ask a work colleague to do you a favour and Cover your shift the rac won’t let you take it off. the jobs that you do are given to you buy undereducated teenagers that have had absolutely no training and have no idea of the vehicles they are sending and wouldn’t know the difference between an Austin mini or a Range Rover. They also have no idea of the road, traffic or transport industry and therefore will send you a job without any calculation or thinking so you could be sent 60-80 miles or more to move someone 2miles and then once you’re done you get sent 60-80miles back to where you came from to pick up a job which has been in the system for over 24hrs which you could of done before having to do a 120mile round trip. and then if you decide to question it..!! Well you better call the management but they only look out for themselves and never answer the phone as they know what’s coming and simply don’t want to hear it, they know it’s a mess so for them it’s just keep their heads down and keep getting paid while everything goes to Down the pan so that’s that, if you have a problem then you’re on your own no wonder we’re on watchdog every year poor customers that’s what I say absolutely shocking behaviour, I’m actively looking for a new job

I begin my shift at 18:00 these days as i have been on nights since 2006 oct and finish at 06:00 before that i was on days . I log onto the system and i dont have to wait long before i get my first customer , it could be a simple wheel change or chalenging key broken in lock, the work usually keeps going until about 00:00 when i have meal break , its not a set mealtime but it does have a window to comply with working time constraints ,after which i carry on working it may slow down in the very early hours like 3-5am. I work in a team of patrols and usually end up assisting one of the team during the night weather it be a quick tow or just help out , I feel really good after a nights work knowing ive helped all our customers and provided a high quality level of service , the worst part about my job is swithcing off at the end of my shift , especially if i have had an awkward job that had to be recovered as i continue to think about other possible solutions to the breakdown, i dont really see much of our management as all of my figures are respectable so they have no real need other than normal reviews too see me . all in all i am in no rush to leave my current employment but should a trainee train drivers job be offered to me i would leave with the right notice period as the rac have been a great place to work for

You'll never get a permanent contract (unless someone retires after many years of service), risk of being dismissed despite having a legitimate reason ( I witnessed 6 dismissals in 5 months), no notification prior to being dismissed, favouritism to older staff, you'll hear a description of your manager but you will never meet him/her and you'll end up playing Guess Who between calls, managers will be too busy for you and will use older staff to act as team managers despite having no people skills, no one will explain your targets until probably after 2 months into your job but by that time you'll be put under the radar, there's a divide between temporary staff and permanent staff clearly visible in the work seating area, after you leave the work place for good you'll still be contacted by RAC HR asking if you can work some shifts (why?), their so called state of the art map system is no more than a baby drawing spaghetti on Microsoft paint and you'll be forced to use more well known map search engines during your call, no progression at all, they don't have enough patrol vans to cater to all the customers so they turn to contractors who never show up and all you will be getting is complaints, you will feel ostracised by the older staff and managers because you're not a permanent staff you're just a number unfortunately.

When you start you get put on a 3 month probationary contact with a temping agency, and given two weeks training. 

IF you make it through the training and probation ( My class had 17 people in it and only 7 got through) then you are offered another 6 month probation period actually working for the RAC. This means that they can literally fire you whenever you like without explanation. 

If you are starting university and they say that they can accommodate your uni hours, don't believe them. Everybody who they had told that going to uni wouldn't be an issue, was fired when they chose to put university first. 

If you have a medical issues, they may offer you support, but only expect it to last a week before you are fired for it. Everybody who had a medical condition (especially depression) was fired midway through their shift. (notably not at the start or end. Actually half way through). 

If you have to take time off for family reasons, then you can guarantee you won't have a job to come back too. 

The money's good so if you can turn up do your job, not talk to anybody and keep your head down then go for it. But you probably still won't last very long. The work place is full of gossip, if you have an issue or complaint then you are known to be the trouble maker, no matter how valid your complaint and issue may be. 

Management are young, inexperienced and way too big for their boots. Especially those who are promoted early.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Vehicle technician 1531 salaries reported	£43,016 per year
Mechanic 997 salaries reported	£41,415 per year
Technician 918 salaries reported	£38,150 per year
Direct sales representative 1 salary reported	£50,000 per year
Customer service representative 4 salaries reported	£24,125 per year

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