1. The senior managers are as bad as it gets. Clueless when it comes to building a media brand, and constantly changing their mind on what direction of GD should take. They don't see their staff as people, just names on an Excel sheet that can be deleted at a moment's notice.
2. The many, many redundancies. Every nine months or so, the company makes a whole host of people redundant. These people are often highly valued by their colleagues, who then have to work extra hard to make up for the shortfall in staff. Senior management will then hold a town hall in which they won't mentioned the redundancies, but will go on about how much investment they are putting into the company (i.e. gaslighting their staff).
3. Morale is rock bottom among those who are left. Many are actively and openly looking for other jobs. Those on the graduate scheme - most of them fantastic, bright young journalists - are now seeing the company for what it is and there is a great deal of disillusionment there too. I hope they don't think this is how all media companies are run.
4. Quality. There is a large number of very good journalists at GD, but they are wasted writing copy-and-paste churnalism news stories for the most part to meet the senior management's targets. The quality of GD output (and that of sister company New Statesmen Media Group) has plummeted in the past 18 months or so.
I know many people who have left GD in the past few years. Not one of them - not a solitary former employee - has a good word to say about the company's management, structure or direction. For the vast majority, it is simply the worst company they have worked for; a blip on their CV. If you are offered a job here, run a mile.
