Small vs large company
Discussion
wiggy001 said:
PorkInsider said:
In my first 20 years of work I didn’t work for any company smaller than 10,000 employees.
5 years ago I joined a small consultancy and was the 5th employee (2 founders plus 3 employees when I started) although there are now 20 of us in total.
I would not go back to big corporates now unless I was desperate.
I still work day-to-day with the biggest companies in the world in my current role but have none of the politics, bureaucracy, etc. We don’t even a set number of holidays as it would mean someone keeping track of them so we just take what we want as long as we can fit them in.
You do need to be prepared to pick up random tasks in small companies as there will often be no one whose role it is to do a particular thing, but that’s a good thing in my opinion.
Just do your best to make sure you will fit in as there’s nowhere to hide, or move sideways to, in a small outfit.
This was me. Did 6 years then 5 years at fair sized companies then joined a small consultancy (15 employees at the time, now around 45ish). After 9 years I've recently handed in my notice and will be returning to the big corp world.5 years ago I joined a small consultancy and was the 5th employee (2 founders plus 3 employees when I started) although there are now 20 of us in total.
I would not go back to big corporates now unless I was desperate.
I still work day-to-day with the biggest companies in the world in my current role but have none of the politics, bureaucracy, etc. We don’t even a set number of holidays as it would mean someone keeping track of them so we just take what we want as long as we can fit them in.
You do need to be prepared to pick up random tasks in small companies as there will often be no one whose role it is to do a particular thing, but that’s a good thing in my opinion.
Just do your best to make sure you will fit in as there’s nowhere to hide, or move sideways to, in a small outfit.
The pros of the small company (getting involved in everything, learning a lot, no politics etc) have been eroded over time by having to accept no payrises, no chance of promotion and being left to get on with things (good) with no support (not good) only criticism if things don't go right (very bad).
I've been lucky to have spent most of the past 5 years working for a good client - if I had been based in our office I would have walked a long time ago.
I now can't wait to get back to commuting into London and being part of a team that gets recognised and rewarded for good work.
I’ve been lucky in the respects that you’ve had negatives.
In my corporate days I was having to reconcile the lack of recognition and reward (promotions with relatively poor pay increases for several years) with the need to toe the management line and pass the crap downwards to my team.
Where I am now the pay rises, bonuses, and support from above have been beyond the expectations I had on joining the company.
Time will tell if that continues (I see no reason for it to change at the moment) but that goes for any role in any size of business.
Hope your return to the corporate world works out well.
It's difficult to make distinctions as so much relies on the role.
I have worked for the same Big Pharma company for the last 10 years (60,000 employees). For the first 8 years I worked in a small team as a lab scientist doing early phase drug discovery work. For the last 2 years I've been working in one of the large corporate functions doing regulatory affairs work, which has a completely different culture and set up to my previous science role. Whilst in the science role I would recommend working for a big company, now I'm in regulatory I wouldn't recommend working for a big company.
Look at the role rather than the size of the company.
I have worked for the same Big Pharma company for the last 10 years (60,000 employees). For the first 8 years I worked in a small team as a lab scientist doing early phase drug discovery work. For the last 2 years I've been working in one of the large corporate functions doing regulatory affairs work, which has a completely different culture and set up to my previous science role. Whilst in the science role I would recommend working for a big company, now I'm in regulatory I wouldn't recommend working for a big company.
Look at the role rather than the size of the company.
Wherever you work in Britain, it will be a bit sh*t.
- Big company = higher pay, but everyone spends all day trying to f*ck everyone over and become the big man.
- Medium company = same as above, but with lower pay.
- Small company = lowest pay and poorest skills (it's why the firm is small) that kill your personal development.
Yipper said:
Wherever you work in Britain, it will be a bit sh*t.
Where do you get this s- Big company = higher pay, but everyone spends all day trying to f*ck everyone over and become the big man.
- Medium company = same as above, but with lower pay.
- Small company = lowest pay and poorest skills (it's why the firm is small) that kill your personal development.
t ?For once how about you respond and justify some of your nonsense ?
RSK21 said:
Yipper said:
Wherever you work in Britain, it will be a bit sh*t.
Where do you get this s- Big company = higher pay, but everyone spends all day trying to f*ck everyone over and become the big man.
- Medium company = same as above, but with lower pay.
- Small company = lowest pay and poorest skills (it's why the firm is small) that kill your personal development.
t ?For once how about you respond and justify some of your nonsense ?
+Thank you for the replies all.
Yipper said:
Wherever you work in Britain, it will be a bit sh*t.
That is the biggest lot of s- Big company = higher pay, but everyone spends all day trying to f*ck everyone over and become the big man.
- Medium company = same as above, but with lower pay.
- Small company = lowest pay and poorest skills (it's why the firm is small) that kill your personal development.
t you have written here. Often the small companies pay higher salaries (in my experience) to make up for the lack of big benefits a big corp can offer.fbwinston said:
Remainer = big company
Brexitier = small company
Not at all, passionate Remainer here, left a 30k plus company last June to join one with 13 employees based in 6 different European countries.Brexitier = small company
- based on my unscientific straw poll.
Will obviously vary, but in my experience to date I should have done it years ago.
johnwilliams77 said:
Often the small companies pay higher salaries (in my experience) to make up for the lack of big benefits a big corp can offer.
Complete opposite in my experience, small companies can rarely afford to match the overall package (salary + pension + benefits) of a larger established business.Small companies and startups also have a significant amount of volatility, things can go tits up quickly if a client pulls out or the business plan goes awry.
As I mentioned earlier on this thread, I'd only be interested in working for a startup or small company as a shareholder or with significant employee share options, otherwise the risk and workload in many cases just isn't worth the hassle.
wiggy001 said:
I've been lucky to have spent most of the past 5 years working for a good client - if I had been based in our office I would have walked a long time ago.
You were placed with a client for 5 years? I hope you pulled out every possible move to try and cut out the middle man (your company) and return as a contractor?Our small company (30 employees) was bought out by a much, much larger company a year and a half ago, roughly.
Prior to the buy out it was probably the best job I've ever had - great pay, great people, good training, no worries about budget, plenty of scope for progression, great benefits, and a simple no bullst attitude. We were (and still are) bloody good at what we do.
Since the buyout and us being part of the bigger company the things that have remained are the great pay, great people, great benefits, and...that's about it. With the buyout has come a complete stop on progression or even taking on new staff, constant pay/overtime/bonus issues, no anwers to emails becuase there's 20 million people in the decision making process rather than 2, god awful 'all company meetings' online where the directors talk for about an hour about inane crap that 98% of us aren't in the least bit interested in, promises of new software/systems which keep on getting pushed back... you get the idea.
It still is a great job, and all the issues in main are annoying but not life changing (apart from the promotion side, been waiting ages for my promotion which might be happening in the next 6 months, but I don't honestly know). The guys at my place all stay for years, when at meetings at the HO going around the table the guys from my company reply 'I'm Bob, from Bob's company, been there 5 years, Dave, been there 8 years, Tom, been there 12 years' - there's a reason people stay but we've had more people leave (and not be replaced) in the last 18 months than the previous few years in total. I've been there nearly 4 years now.
Small company. Any day of the week.
Prior to the buy out it was probably the best job I've ever had - great pay, great people, good training, no worries about budget, plenty of scope for progression, great benefits, and a simple no bulls
t attitude. We were (and still are) bloody good at what we do.Since the buyout and us being part of the bigger company the things that have remained are the great pay, great people, great benefits, and...that's about it. With the buyout has come a complete stop on progression or even taking on new staff, constant pay/overtime/bonus issues, no anwers to emails becuase there's 20 million people in the decision making process rather than 2, god awful 'all company meetings' online where the directors talk for about an hour about inane crap that 98% of us aren't in the least bit interested in, promises of new software/systems which keep on getting pushed back... you get the idea.
It still is a great job, and all the issues in main are annoying but not life changing (apart from the promotion side, been waiting ages for my promotion which might be happening in the next 6 months, but I don't honestly know). The guys at my place all stay for years, when at meetings at the HO going around the table the guys from my company reply 'I'm Bob, from Bob's company, been there 5 years, Dave, been there 8 years, Tom, been there 12 years' - there's a reason people stay but we've had more people leave (and not be replaced) in the last 18 months than the previous few years in total. I've been there nearly 4 years now.
Small company. Any day of the week.
Edited by Tall_Paul on Saturday 13th January 20:35
I've always worked for multinationals, so big companies by and large. The smallest was De La Rue, then a bigger British institution that got bought out by a larger outfit. In my experience, the bigger the company is, the stter it is for the day to day stuff.
As per a few posts up, the decision making process for even the simplest things can take an age, there is a policy for this, a policy for that, a policy for everything - even walking up the stairs. We get regular briefings by webcast from the board, I could write one myself because they're all the same. Thanks for your hard work, we know its tough and we appreciate your efforts. Still a challenging market, need to deliver on our promises, keep your nose to the grindstone, don't have an accident, on yes there's a spending freeze. Oh yes, remember to live the values. Of course, no matter who you work for or how they dress it up, these are:
Make lots of money for the shareholders
Don't break the law
Be good to the environment
Don't have an accident
When we were bought out, one remark that struck home was "It's no wonder we were kicking XXX arses in the market for the last 20 years if this is the sort of st they had to put up with". And as one of my colleagues quipped recently, we make the hard things look easy but the easy things almost impossible.
I've never worked for a small company (say < 100 employees) but certainly in the multinational world, smaller is better. The only downside is that if your company is small and competent, its only a matter of time before you get bought out. Then, see para #2.
tter it is for the day to day stuff.As per a few posts up, the decision making process for even the simplest things can take an age, there is a policy for this, a policy for that, a policy for everything - even walking up the stairs. We get regular briefings by webcast from the board, I could write one myself because they're all the same. Thanks for your hard work, we know its tough and we appreciate your efforts. Still a challenging market, need to deliver on our promises, keep your nose to the grindstone, don't have an accident, on yes there's a spending freeze. Oh yes, remember to live the values. Of course, no matter who you work for or how they dress it up, these are:
Make lots of money for the shareholders
Don't break the law
Be good to the environment
Don't have an accident
When we were bought out, one remark that struck home was "It's no wonder we were kicking XXX arses in the market for the last 20 years if this is the sort of s
t they had to put up with". And as one of my colleagues quipped recently, we make the hard things look easy but the easy things almost impossible.I've never worked for a small company (say < 100 employees) but certainly in the multinational world, smaller is better. The only downside is that if your company is small and competent, its only a matter of time before you get bought out. Then, see para #2.
rambo19 said:
The problem with big companies is you are just an employee number.
A number that clocks off at 5 though. It is the smaller firms I have experienced that tended to be more understaffed, people do work outside your job role and may end up working longer days. I once pointed to a bloke who was a financial whizz with a degree & Masters and creditations that he had just spent most of the week helping to carry old pcs and other equipment around to make way for the new ones along with other crappy tasks he was doing that were only being handed to him as IT was outsourced and so billable per hour at £££ and facilities management was non existant.
Pro's and cons.
Edited by hyphen on Saturday 20th January 23:28
wormus said:
Try looking at the civil service. It’s better than you think.
I look at their vacancies quite often. Some of their more technical roles do seem of interest, however there's usually a huge list of requirements for even the most basic jobs, mostly requiring experience which as a design engineer/project engineer I don't have exactly. Lots of acronyms being thrown around. There's a DIO office not too far from me which seems to have a lot of the vacancies of interest, but seeing such a big entrance milestone puts me off!
I went from Civil Service, to a Multinational, to self employed contractor, to a small company (40ish employees).
The massive benefit in a small company is the lack of one size fails to fit all corporate policies. The multinational had various corporate rules that made sense in some circumstances but were just barking on occasion, and could take ages to get anything slightly out of the ordinary approved. In a small company if I have an issue I can just poke my head in the bosses office and sort it out, although it rarely happens as there's a lot more trust and delegation beyond the formal management chain.
There was also a lot more Them (management) and Us (workers) attitude in the multinational, we still get it a bit in a smaller company but as you know the individuals personally is it's a lot less of an issue than when we used to get strange edicts from 5000 miles away. Internal feedback is a lot easier and faster which helps too.
Something I consider a benefit of a small company, but others might consider a down side, is the need for the staff to be flexible. I was originally hired on the bases that they didn't enough work specifically for the role the hired me for, so would want me to do some other stuff as well. As a result I've done on site training, exercise support, and even delivered and assembled equipment, on top of my day job as an analyst. I love the variety, when I was a civil servant I'd designed and built a test rig and then my job became running it, which got boring really quickly as I doing the same thing all the time.
The massive benefit in a small company is the lack of one size fails to fit all corporate policies. The multinational had various corporate rules that made sense in some circumstances but were just barking on occasion, and could take ages to get anything slightly out of the ordinary approved. In a small company if I have an issue I can just poke my head in the bosses office and sort it out, although it rarely happens as there's a lot more trust and delegation beyond the formal management chain.
There was also a lot more Them (management) and Us (workers) attitude in the multinational, we still get it a bit in a smaller company but as you know the individuals personally is it's a lot less of an issue than when we used to get strange edicts from 5000 miles away. Internal feedback is a lot easier and faster which helps too.
Something I consider a benefit of a small company, but others might consider a down side, is the need for the staff to be flexible. I was originally hired on the bases that they didn't enough work specifically for the role the hired me for, so would want me to do some other stuff as well. As a result I've done on site training, exercise support, and even delivered and assembled equipment, on top of my day job as an analyst. I love the variety, when I was a civil servant I'd designed and built a test rig and then my job became running it, which got boring really quickly as I doing the same thing all the time.
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