forklift operator

NEPTUNE

My time at Neptune was the busiest I have ever been in my entire working career. Unlike in previous employments, where I would be doing a single role at a time, at Neptune I was expected to switch between three different roles, often multiple times per day. This made working there very stressful and tiring. But it wasn't just my work load - it was clear that most people had way too much work to do.

Apart from the work load: 

The company only provided statutory sick pay. This meant that the first three days of any sickness were unpaid and you only got about £100 a week after that. This led staff to come into the office and work through their illness and, inevitably, sometimes spread their illness to their colleagues.

The chairs provided were nice looking but very uncomfortable for me to sit on for more than short periods of time (certainly not for eight hours use per day). I was getting frequent back pain. When I asked for an actual operators chair I was told to provide a doctor's certificate. Eventually, after enduring many months of discomfort, I got a better chair - not a great chair by any means but better than the previous one.
 
The lighting was extremely dark in our area initially and with no access to natural light from my desk. The lighting got gradually better over the following two years until it was close to adequate.

For a role that requires deep thought, they put me in a very noisy part of the building - right next to the canteen and warehouse. Music was often played through speakers during the day and the staff were encouraged to conduct meetings in the canteen - this made it even noisier and more distracting. 

Air quality was poor initially as there were no windows to open in our area. Eventually (after a couple of years) we got two opening sky lights which also helped to improve the lighting a little. In my last year I was moved to a much better wing in terms of natural lighting but still right next to the canteen - so just as noisy. Staff would smoke in the car park outside and the smoke would find its way into the wing directly above through the open windows. Despite complaints, they were allowed to continue smoking there. I would have to close the windows as soon as I began to smell cigarette smoke. 

They often did restructuring work on the building and I would have to work in very noisy and dusty conditions for prolonged periods of time. It got so bad that I started having to wear ear defenders.

All monitors were fixed at the same height. I eventually, had an item attached to the monitor mount that raised the two monitors higher (still not height adjustable but at a better height than they were previously) many months after my initial complaint. That didn't last long though as, whenever I got moved to another desk, which happened quite frequently, I had to endure many more months of delay before the attachment could be moved to the monitor mounts at the new desk. I had to wait each time despite me telling them I was having neck pain.

The team was scheduled to move to a nicer wing and had been planning it for months. We were so happy to be finally moving to an area with natural light and that was in a quiet part of the building. We were informed the day before that another department would be moving there instead. My colleagues were still in the same place three years later. 

Rather than the computers being on the floor or on the desks, they were hung in enclosures below the desk top. In typical form over function, it looked nice but the computers could not be removed easily when they needed to be re-configured or fixed. It would take six people to lift the entire desk upper. These desks were solid wood and were sized for four workstations so they were very heavy on their own even before you took into account the weight of eight monitors complete with desk mounts etc.  An IT person would then have to crawl under the raised desk to remove the computer while the six people had to keep the desk upper high enough in the air.

Employee contracts stated a two month notice period was expected from the employees but made no mention of the employer notice period. After querying this with HR, I found that the notice the employer had to give to the employee was statutory notice only (as little as one week in some cases). I asked HR to either amend people's contracts to make it clearer or inform them that it was not reciprocal. Neither happened. 

In summary, Neptune is the worst company I've ever worked for in terms of the way they treat their staff, health and safety, work loads and the toxic work culture / practices. Working there is one of my biggest regrets.

•	Run the business in the managers absence
•	First aider and designated fire warden
•	Microsoft Excel intermediate course completed
•	Trusted key holder and cash handler
•	Using our in-house computer system, collate figures and export to Microsoft Excel creating a weekly sales report which is then forwarded to the head of retail development as well as various other areas within the business and the directors of the company
•	Keep the company website and other social networking sites up to date and process any orders/messages that come through these various outlets.
•	Play an active part in the marketing strategy for the factory outlet and drive new initiatives
•	Greet customers and respond to their enquiries by email, telephone and in person
•	Keep records of customer requirements and take responsibility for maintaining these records
•	Generate sales and deliver exceptional customer service to all
•	Process sales through the till and record this on the in house IT system, also maintain stock records using Sage and Empirica. 
•	Ensure that the factory outlet is kept presentable, clean and well stocked
•	Work as part of a team and individually to ensure the smooth running of the factory outlet
•	Put together and dismantle furniture and merchandise the stock to create a showroom that represents the Neptune brand.

You earn every penny......it's a them and us environment, not that good at seeing what really goes on on the shop floor, stupid meetings every month and nothing changes, the workers are not praised but the lazy ones get the pat on the back, the Bury st edmunds store is staffed by family friends....not on skill, the Manager is rubbish at her job and is only there because of her brother being the director, they think they know what goes on but although they watch the CCTV all day, they miss the chatting, the gathering of friends, the skiving that goes on under there noses....glad I walked, worst bunch of people I have ever worked with. Have never seen so many people abuse the go off sick for two days and come back on the third so they don't lose their pay, I even had to weed the car park, trim the clipped hedge and I was employed as a home specialist ...............crazy, never again, hope the girl that took my place doesn't mind cleaning for her wages

Over the last 5+ years of serving under Neptune, I have found that my experience with the company has deteriorated massively. Although on some days we can finish earlier than others, the hours tend to be very un-sociable and do not have a great deal of support when contacting our Supervisors/Peers.
The thing that keeps the company afloat are the drivers as we are the face of the company but feel we are no longer valued and respected as we should be. We are easily replaceable as full time workers. 

As a current member of the distribution team I have never worked for such a badly run department. Load runs are a joke, 4 hours driving ( traffic permitting ) to deliver 2-3 items then another 4 hours ( traffic permitting ) back to base! Stupid. No time for a break if you want to get home a reasonable time. Some vans have seen better days yet still in use. Now they are messing with our wage bonus incentives in this time of living crisis. Won’t be staying for long. Very low team morale, it’s like the owners want to bankrupt the company. 

The higher management was very poor. Micromanaged from my direct manager so much it pushed me out. The assistant manager role is not as described at all. You are given 0 responsibilities and trained in nothing when you join. Expected to sell high end items and given no product knowledge to do so from the company what so ever. If you have a problem like we did in store with your store leader, hr don’t care and will tell you to speak to you line manager about it. Awful company. Avoid at all costs. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The environment and freedom to manage myself.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Project management is stressful, but more stressful when others above do not understand the role.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Good, but the store staff and designers work hard and long hours with little reward, if any.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Pretty easy when you know what your doing.

great place, great atmosphere, beautiful location.
Management are professional and on point.
No stress, you get the full support of colleagues and line management. lots of laughs, can be stressful at times, but that is due to the phones, but as a team we all pulled together

- no autonomy/not heard 
- team morale low
- communication is incredibly bad
- workload and expectation vs reality is way off and not realistic 
- no work life balance
- toxic culture 
- expectations of role are not realistic and head office have no clue 
- people team/HR are pretty poor/lack experience 
- continued redundancies - no security
- leadership don’t know how to lead and inspire teams



I could go on and on - no respect, the attitude of the management team is they don’t care. No trust, no loyalty and people either walk out or they find a way to give you the push. A high turnover of agency staff. As a driver, I would drive anywhere upto 4 hours away whilst my drivers mate slept and the difference in pay worked out At 50p more. I heard great things about this company but in such a short space of time, I  learnt that this isn’t a great place to work. Avoid Avoid Avoid!!!!!!!!!

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