Barnes Roffe Reviews

The main problem with BR is the terrible culture that is set by partners. Now this is obviously different if you are a ‘favourite’. To become a favourite you need to be very good at sucking up. Favourites will not be sacked when they fail exams unlike the unlucky few that haven’t earned this title and get sacked for failing 1 exam. The partners and managers will make no effort to get to know you as a person and just see you as a machine to do their bidding. I have even personally heard a senior manager refer to graduates as ‘minions’. Said manager is ironically in charge of training and hiring said ‘minions’. The atmosphere in the office is terrible and a precedent has been set that chatting with colleagues is bad and partners will regularly come out of their offices to glare/moan at you for talking. This means when you come in the office in the morning you’ll be lucky if the person sitting next to you even looks up let alone says hello. Like I said, terrible atmosphere. When you do need to speak to a manager about your job or for help etc, do not expect them to look at you, they’ll probably continue working whilst you stand there like a lemon asking your question. No consideration is given for where audits are located. Instead of strategically sending people that live close to the audit they will just handpick the people that they like at the time, meaning you could be travelling to the opposite side of Kent/London when there’s someone that lives closer... There’s not really any room for progression as the managers that are there have been there for 10+ years and are unlikely to be leaving anytime soon. Following on from that point, there are 7 audit managers of which 1 is a woman as well as 3 partners of which 0 are women, take from that what you will... They promote how they train their employees but the only training I received was from fellow colleagues that have muddled their way through following the schedules for the previous years. Other than that it’s a ‘get on with it’ type attitude. They have been shoved into the 21st century because of the pandemic meaning you’re ‘allowed’ to work from home. I use that word loosely because they say you’re allowed but if you haven’t got any work on the planner (a planner that the managers are meant to update to give you work...) then you have to go into the office so you’re available to do all the managers scanning. Completely inflexible with working hours you have to work 9:15-5:15, even frowned upon to attend a funeral even when asked to take it unpaid. Absolutely no perks of working there, standard holiday, standard pension, no flexi-time etc. The biggest laugh of all is their promise to support your mental health. They have teamed up with another company to offer employees use of an app to help with mental health issues. I can’t stress enough the damage this company had on my daily mental health and when this ‘support’ was first launched the partner presenting the meeting (who is also the mental health go-to person in the firm) made jokes and undermined the whole presentation. When one of the partners at the firm spoke to me so terribly that I had to leave the office to compose myself and couldn’t bring myself to go back, when I called the office to say I would not be returning because of my mental health the reply was ok when do you think you’ll be back? (This was another partner). Their attitude towards mental health is laughable and so stuck in the past. Following on from the point of the way the partners speak to employees, I’ll sum it up in one word: appalling. It’s a bully atmosphere and the partners swear and shout at you, completely unprofessional and you can’t have a meaningful conversation with them. Another quick fact: make sure you have a credit card to put your expenses on because you’ll be waiting for a couple of months to get those back! Finally, be weary of the 5 star reviews. In no means am I saying they are fake. They are real reviews from real employees... That have been at the company for 5 minutes. Ask them what they think in a month or two. Also, CERTAIN current employees are asked to leave reviews. I refer back to my first point for the ‘certain’ employees.