Pros
I joined ED&F in November 2016, up until then and for the previous 4-5 years ED&F Man were heavily reliant on contractors, this combined with little direction from management had led to a very segmented IT department. Barriers were evident between all areas of IT, Projects, Infrastructure and Service Desk were isolated with little or no communication between them. This meant delivery to the business was poor and ‘IT’ had got a very bad name. From December 2016 massive changes have been made from CTO to Service Desk. Gone is the dependency on contractors, any that had potential were offered permanent roles, all other positions were filled by new, motivated and highly experienced professionals. The new ‘team’ is just that, for the first time in years ED&F have a IT team that communicates, listens to what the business actually needs and delivers both BAU and Projects efficiently and on time. We also regularly meet for organised social events that ED&F fund or we may simply have drinks after work, again something that just didn’t happed previously. The office has a completely different atmosphere, many people have commented on how nice and refreshing it is, the business units are far more engaging, working with us to rebuild the reputation. A lot of hard work is being done but at the same time people are enjoying their jobs and having fun with it, well, most of the time ;-) Anyone looking to work in a friendly, evolving and challenging global IT team for a very reputable company can’t go far wrong here.
Cons
Head office is located in central London which naturally has a cost associated to it, travel can be difficult at times however flexible working is encouraged here.
