My time at Citco was frustrating and lacked any meaningful challenges, making it one of the least fulfilling experiences in my career so far.
The company is comically outdated, from sluggish systems, to a culture that feels stuck in the past. Navigating convoluted processes with unnecessarily complex tools becomes a time-consuming ordeal every single day, turning what could be a simple task into a needless fifteen-step process.
My workday was either completely dead or insanely busy, there was zero balance. You know how your day was going to go the moment you logged on, 5 minutes after your manager finds out. The goalposts would change on a daily basis and what was "absolutely crucial" yesterday, could be an afterthought the next day. The introduction of "new" systems appeared to hinder efficiency, deliberately adding unnecessary steps. No attempts were made to streamline or improve these tools and updates would be issued erratically and usually with very poor communication. The absence of training compounded the issue, with new staff expected to train the ones who come in after them, despite not having a full understanding of the processes themselves. Multi-team calls often devolved into reactive planning, discussing spreadsheets line by line for updates on cases that could be going on for weeks. Those cases would have the same "no update" response daily, where there was no sense of urgency to try and get to the next stage. Some managers seemed to attend these calls merely for appearances, contributing little substance. The poor communication across the company often came to light during these calls, leaving employees frequently without explanations for missed SLAs, along with unrealistic deadlines that were often created as if someone was throwing a dart at a calendar. Awkward disagreements, better suited for private discussions, were magnified during calls, exacerbating the issue.
The office culture was the worst part of my experience. With the exception of a few people, most people generally kept to themselves and had no interest in engaging. At no point was any of this addressed. I recall after just starting, observing my team on a daily basis sit in total silence, offering absolutely no assistance/advice to anyone new. If you're going to have people come into the office twice a week, at least try to not make it feel totally pointless. It felt like I was there to tick a box. The Dublin office felt soulless, with zero efforts made to create any type of synergy with other teams, let alone your own team, which made you feel like the person sitting next to you worked for an entirely different company. Additionally, managers often discouraged staff from booking available seating in other sections, forcing teams to be in on separate days, undermining the purpose of returning to the office to boost "team spirit.". My line manager was lovely and possibly one of the very few positives of working on my team, however some of the management created incredibly toxic environments, so much in fact that people are openly warned about these managers upon joining the company. It happened to me and I watched it happen to others when they were barely in the door. While ultimately it was true, I feel everyone should be able to make their own assessments of people. Some of the managers in this company seriously need to go back and get lessons in people management as it's very clear they take their consistent bad moods out on the staff, creating an incredibly negative atmosphere.
This turned out to be an overwhelmingly negative experience, one of those instances where I regret not heeding the company's negative reputation – which, I can affirm, is accurate for Citco. A significant shift in their values is urgently needed for them to be seen as a decent workplace. Numerous competitors provide far more, making it hard to justify Citco's minimal efforts towards employee satisfaction. I therefore would not recommend working in Citco until these fundamental issues are addressed.
