Avoid at All Costs - Toxic Management and a Company in Decline - Graduate Quality Engineer Vitalograph Employee Review

The management culture is deeply toxic, controlling and demoralising. The weekly “check-ins,” where employees must repeatedly justify what they have completed and what they plan to do next, are little more than micromanagement exercises. If management genuinely has no understanding of what its own teams are doing, that reflects a failure of leadership, not a failure of employees to provide constant updates. The “Best Self” performance review system appears to be used as a convenient tool for deciding who stays and who receives a pay increase, regardless of workload or contribution. You can consistently do far more than others, yet one minor mistake can overshadow everything. Even something as trivial as parking in the wrong space can trigger a condescending email lecturing you about “integrity.” The level of scrutiny is absurd, while management seems unwilling to apply the same standards to itself. The company talks as though it belongs alongside highly successful industry leaders, despite repeatedly falling short of its own targets. Certifications and polished corporate language mean very little when the underlying products are cheaply made, generate recurring complaints and suffer from persistent quality issues. Instead of confronting those problems honestly, the company seems more focused on appearances, unrealistic comparisons and chasing profits. Innovation is supposedly encouraged, but management’s attitude exposes how little confidence it has in its own workforce. When an Excel macro tool is met with the question, “Will the team be able to complete this with their current skill level?”, it tells you everything you need to know about the internal culture, training and competence. The company is not progressing - it is actively moving backwards, while management appears either unwilling or unable to recognise that it is a major part of the problem.