truck driver

driver

administrator

associate

hgv technician

Veolia

I left the interview with very positive feelings — and ultimately, I got the job. The SHEQ department had strong foundations, particularly thanks to the SHEQ Manager, who was clearly the right person for the role. They shared knowledge effectively across the team and maintained both quality and health & safety records to an exceptional standard. The facility itself was brand new and well-presented.

My career progressed quickly at VNS, and I was involved in all projects from a quality perspective. Unfortunately, the company began facing financial difficulties, largely due to a lack of proactive planning and delayed decision-making in previous years. Project Managers came and went, often leaving after only a few months due to the difficulty of managing stretched project timelines and internal inefficiencies. The consequences of earlier mismanagement were left for the wider team to absorb.

Cost-saving measures quickly escalated in questionable ways — from removing guest sweets in meeting rooms to taking away the canteen’s bean-to-cup coffee machine. Layoffs followed, and many senior managers began leaving voluntarily. The SHEQ department was significantly reduced, and upper management showed little understanding of the importance of quality functions.

Regrettably, it seemed that the cost-saving measures served more to protect the upper hierarchy than to stabilise the business. Following my departure, I observed a noticeable reshuffling on LinkedIn — leaders were promoted to managers, managers to directors, and directors to C-level roles. One might reasonably assume these came with generous remuneration. Meanwhile, frontline employees were promised raises that never materialised, replaced by repeated excuses.

At the time, it genuinely felt like a sinking ship — and it's surprising the company is still afloat. Job security was a constant concern among employees, and morale had suffered as a result.

Veolia water technologies 
Joined in Feb 2020.  To August 2020.
Was lured in to join from a safe secure better paid job, by the prospect of pay raises on completion of training modules and security, plus benefits of health care. Overtime only paid after 50hrs of work which is a joke. 2 planned jobs a day, 3rd jobs supposed to be paid at overtime rate but never was. Pay raises after training never came..... Was never issued all tools and equipment to do the job properly. Never had sim card for tabled so constantly had to tether to phone which ate the battery. Training was rushed and not concise. Was informed in the interview that I would only be doing service jobs for first 6months (probation period) then gradually start installs, and breakdowns.... But Was out on my own after a month. No feed back on performance at any point only at dismissal , limited support and well and truly thrown in at the deep end.  Worked all the way through the pandemic with no option of furlough. Limited ppe for first few weeks, then better after that but no alcohol sanitiser, only peroxide. I Was informed this was not effective by 2 separate customerd so I raised it as a safety concern as we had been encouraged to do, only to be sacked for having a bad attitude??????
Obviously due to the reduction in custoner jobs they needed to thin the ranks and that made me an easy target. Used and threw away. I gave it my all and was told by my manager my work was exemplary. 
HR team are obnoxious and rude treating you more like a naughty child than grown adult. Health and safety team preach the hse Bible but are cost motivated as peroxide sanitiser is cheaper than alcohol. With good reason, it's not effective against covid.... Rules when it suits.... A complete joke of a company to work for. Avoid. Do not waste your time. Life is too short. Low pay for position and the work done.
Masses of admin which is pushed on to the engineers. Serviceman is useless, the tablets are not suitable for job, they are fragile and unreliable. The phones are slow and cheap. Exspense are always questioned and rarely paid in full. 

Veolia has been a good place to work for if you like to get by without doing a lot for little above minimum pay.

Days are inconsistent intentionally where I work, sometimes we’ll have so much work come in that we can’t manage it well, and then other days we’ll get next to nothing and be expected to try to ‘find’ work to do.

The workplace environment has been stressful for me for multiple reasons, including the inconsistency of the workload - I like to be able to just get on with my work and keep busy, with more days quiet than busy at Veolia I find myself exhausted through boredom.

The pay is not good considering the hazards we’re expected to handle and work with and the attitude towards pay increases is to give us the absolute minimum, often being less than the cost of living increase. This comes in hand with the fact that we’re never given job opportunities and a majority of the workforce on the site have been in the same job position for 20+ years.

However if you’re comfortable with having no job opportunities in return for a more often than not slow paced job then working here might just be for you. 

The management here are pretty relaxed and won’t bother you unless given reason, you could say they take a hands-off approach as long as things are running consistently. They’re friendly enough and will listen to suggestions and requests and are supportive of staff needs including time off for family matters and personal health, including offering on site physiotherapy for those who need it and other medical health support where they can give it.

Experience:  
•	Supervise and assist in the day to day running of a small waste management transport chemist department. 
•	Diary planning and co-ordination between customers, sales representatives, chemists, drivers and disposal sites to coordinate smooth job completion.
•	Customer account management – including customer courtesy visits, issue resolution and dealing with new sales enquiries.
•	Securing and developing new business for the department by maintaining a good repor and high level of service to customers.
•	Closing sales on the telephone
•	Meeting KPI’s as part of a team 
Other responsibilities and achievements included…
•	Currently running a new sales trial from our depot in order to gain new business, involves telesales, researching new customers and securing new business at a lower level
•	All administration for the business which included quoting, pre-acceptance, invoicing, crediting and all other credit control duties such as accounts setup.
•	Creating and receipting Purchase Orders on SAP
•	Typing up chemical waste lists to ensure fast quotation and collection times.
•	Inputting technical information into systems to produce legal paperwork for waste collections
•	Receiving Samples from current reps and shipping these to the appropriate sites for analysing 
•	Administration of vehicle service sheets, repairs, tacho-graph reports, transport arrangements and hotel bookings for staff. 
•	Month end duties, running reports, balance-sheet enquiries and meeting our companies KPI targets.
•	Involvement in implementing new systems (SAP & WIMS) within the business by being a regional super user.
•	Staff council member for the midlands team

What is the best part of working at the company?
It's job and knock.

The other drivers are pretty friendly.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
You're paid very badly for 40 hours work. I think it's about 20p per hour less than working as a shop assistant for Aldi.

Some days you'll get to leave early, but overtime is calculated over the whole week, so leaving early one day means they can have you staying late for one or more other days that week with no extra pay.

The management are also desperate to run as few staff and vehicles as possible, so finish times are very variable, and you'll end up doing extra work for nothing.

The health and safety is really stifling as well. You have to wear awful Veolia boots, the 5 cameras on vehicles are checked religiously, and management will drive out to your round and sit in wait just to try to catch any mistakes. 

You are just a number.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The other drivers and loaders are pretty friendly, although quite often people drag their feet to avoid doing extra work.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
There is no typical day. You have either 5 or 10 rounds, but you will also be sent to do other people's rounds in the winter, or if they're off sick, or if a loader doesn't turn up (which happens a lot because they're paid even worse than drivers), or if a truck breaks down.

Finish times are engineered by management to stop overtime, but a single early finish is usually given per week so that several late finishes can be taken from you for no extra pay.

Our day begins with a briefing on what movements of wastes and recyclables will be expected around the site. Each month we are also trained on a specific area of Health & Safety regarding ourselves and in managing the public on the site.
Throughout the day one deals with the public asking for advice and assistance with their household recyclables some of which are potentially hazardous  to the environment and need to handled safely. We also advise the public how the waste is recycled promoting the company and local authorities policies on waste reduction and recycling. 
The management structure is very supportive and promotes regular training and supervision they also listen to our concerns and take action where necessary. 
The hardest part of the work is often the most rewarding when dealing with site users are aggressive or do not follow instructions for their safety on site this is challenging but rewarding when managed to achieve a positive outcome. 
The most enjoyable aspect of working here is that it is very much a team focussed approach that gets both physical results in terms of tonnage of recycled materials but also the appreciation of the public for the work we do. We also have the opportunity to support projects in the community through mentoring work placements or directly providing hands on support.

I worked in Veolia for around 6 months before I had to go as the place was so negative. There was a team of around 15 of us and nobody was positive at work. The environment was full of people just moaning and complaining and they had good reason to as the work load was far too heavy. 
The management didn’t seem to care as long as they didn’t have to answer for anything and the people they would delegate team leader roles too would get the position due sucking up rather than any real leadership or service skills. 
They had zero care for the customers, 90% of them were so angry and wanting to leave but they are all locked into contracts which in my opinion were barely legal which didn’t help us deliver a positive service experience. Not to mention other staff being dishonest to the customers leaving others to clean their mess up. Over all it was a horrible experience and one I really would never want to return to, it left me depressed in myself and my own abilities and I felt forced to either change to fit the work environment or get out.

Employed as an recycling operative there through an agency.  Much of the job involves removing metal and cardboard off fast moving conveyor belts. Whilst it only supposed to be recycling materials, people also put food waste, used babies nappies, radiators, car batteries, paint etc into recycling bins, so expect those on a daily basis.  Noise, smell and dust are part of the environment. Veolia do however provide puncture proof gloves and lower arm protective sleeves and earplugs.

Sadly the plant itself is badly designed and poorly maintained, so you will spend a fair bit of your shift shovelling out blockages, which can be heavy, sweaty work when it gets compacted under the belts and conveyors.

There is plenty of secure parking there and both thirty minute breaks are paid for, but it's a minimum wage environment with no chance of permanent employment or progression.  They will tell you it's long term work, but it is not. They are forever taking on and laying agency off to meet short term peaks in demand.  Okay there if you only want a few weeks money for holiday or Xmas, but don't plan on long term work, as it just don't happen. They struggle to get staff there and haven't taken on any permanent staff for years.

Head Office Review

-Serious biased towards french colleagues for career progression

-Poor prospects if you are wanting to change your role to work in a different area

- Some corrupt practices with recruitment/ HR

-Excessive spending in management for non essentials, money that could be paid as bonuses or better salaries  

-No bonus's available to many staff/ no goal or career progression planning 

- I worked in 4 teams while i was with the company,  one was extremely unpleasant environment with a lot of gossip, another however had a great team attitude and great training.

- lack of consistency and policy for different teams. I.e. one team would get a lot of team training whereas another wouldn't

- I wanted to move into a different department, there was a vacancy for a role on a much lower level and salary than mine but I wanted a career change. I was told by the manager recruiting 'you don't have the experience/' This put me off applying. Ironically I managed to get a similar but higher paid more senior job with another company and was later contacted by a recruiter trying to put me forward for an interview in that team in a more senior job!  I said no thanks

Not a great company to work for, the work itself is fine. The structure of the procedures is poor. The enforcement of procedures and policies is poor. They are anti Union and bias towards individuals that do not fit in to the role how they believe they should. The passion for there work is poor, ie: most of the staff do not understand how important the job actually is for the progress of mankind. Poor recycling procedures, poor procedures for dealing with customers that break the rules, poor procedures for dealing with fly tipping, poor care of the staff for the work they do, poor understanding of the staff for the environmental impact the job has. Management have no backbone and look after there own circle instead of standing by rules and procedures. A get the job done fast and go home culture as its the only perk. A don't give a dam about cross contamination attitude as long as it gets done fast. Poor organisation and maintenance of the vehicles, (bodge it attitude no workplace pride and cleanliness for the work environment or workplace, need I go on, absolutely no motivation to sort these issues out. The structure needs a shake up, a few people firing and some proper training given along with full gong over the procedures. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Truck driver 246 salaries reported	£17.44 per hour
Driver 149 salaries reported	£39,635 per year
Administrator 78 salaries reported	£27,132 per year
Associate 62 salaries reported	£14.10 per hour
Hgv technician 49 salaries reported	£22.09 per hour

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