Canon reviews

I have worked for over twenty years and for most of that time it was a great company to work for, not perfect but I was proud to be associated with the company. Over the last couple of years things have really gone downhill. We are in a tough marketplace with many of the core markets in decline however this does not excuse the attitude or decisions of the current Management. There is a complete disengagement between senior management who’s only real strategy is to shout sell more, agree to unrealistic targets and treat everyone apart from salespeople like dirt. Staff do multiple roles for no extra pay but this is just expected because as an organisation we appear completely inept at recruiting anybody in under 6 months lead time, due to a combination of terrible pay and processes. Good employees are just seen as an inconvenient cost base to be reduced or exploited (60-70 hour weeks are not uncommon). If you are useless and incompetent this seems to be tolerated as well and you get to leave on time because you are not trusted to have anything delegated to you. Quite simply the good people just keep getting dumped on until one day they inevitably break. Systems are terrible, unfit for purpose and every time something new is bought in, somehow it is even worse and more unreliable than its predecessor. Again management don’t care, the response is just work harder and longer to make up for somebody else’s incompetence or the Company not spending enough money in the first place to scope and develop a system properly. Our unpaid overtime is the solution as far as they are concerned. Human Resources are a complete joke to deal with partly I am sure because they are overloaded but they rarely keep their deadlines, are no support on anything including some serious mental health issues my colleagues have experienced and are borderline negligent. All they seem to do is put up barriers to get anything done or agreed because they have the power to do this. As for the decision to relocate to Stockley Park this is just another great example of the disengaged alternate reality of senior management decision making. I get why the Reigate office is closing as it’s a nice expensive luxury, but to move two hours drive away in rush hour to Heathrow makes no sense unless it’s a cynical move to deliberately push out all the existing staff to change the culture or get everyone out of the expensive DB pension scheme. Pretty much the whole of the current head office which remain in Reigate leave in the next 3 months and with painfully slow recruitment I genuinely cannot see how the company will be able to operate going forward as there are probably some 50-100 roles which need to be filled, to replace long term skilled staff who have spent years learning all the nuances of such a complex organisation and processes. My heart goes out to the poor souls who will be left behind to deal with the mess caused by others strategic mistakes. Canon Europe are nothing more than the ultimate middle men between Canon Inc and the NSO’s. All they seem to do is waste everyone’s time with incessant information requests and meetings which achieve nothing. Not the fault of the individuals most of the time, it’s the organisational structure. Pay is another sore point as time and time again management do not listen because they have probably been bullied into headcount reduction or cost savings in their budgets. The average salary is probably 15-20% below market rate in my area although in the companies defence the benefits package is very good still with a very good pension, holiday allowance and the staff shop. Finally career progression is possible but not easy with the fortunate few having to jump through hoops to get anywhere and not be paid anything like market rate. However quite why anyone would want to be promoted in this mess of an organisation now is beyond me.