In 2023, Cloud9 had a 100% staff turnover, and in January 2024 they’ve already lost two more people. Definitely remember this before accepting an offer from them.
Cloud9 tries very, VERY hard to have you believe they're an amazing company to work for, evidenced by the literal dozens of fake Glassdoor reviews created to artificially increase their total rating and try and hide the negative ones. They boast about amazing benefits, incredible work culture and plenty of growth and learning opportunities when the truth is far from it.
Benefits:
- Cloud9's pay for their entry level roles is laughable, starting at £20k per annum, meaning junior employees are barely paid above minimum wage. Employees are lured in with the promise of good pay once they’re made consultants, but the reality is that some junior consultants and line managers are being paid under £30k.
- To make sure employees don't question the meagre pay, Cloud9’s employee handbook explicitly states that employees are strictly forbidden from discussing salaries with one another and that pay rises may be reversed if employees are found sharing details of personal pay rises with colleagues. When I pointed out that this goes against the Equality Act 2010, management explained that having the rule in the handbook technically isn't illegal, only enforcing it is. Yikes!
- They used to boast about how generous they are for giving employees an extra day off every fortnight, but in reality all employees had to work an extra hour every day to compensate for those 8hrs they’d be off work every other Friday. This benefit was recently downgraded to only one Friday per month - as long as employees work an extra 30min every day, of course.
- Paid sick leave is only 4 days per 12 months period, much lower than the industry average. This also isn’t stated anywhere in the contract or employee handbook, almost as if they’re trying to hide it.
- If you're not a consultant, their WFH policy is extremely inflexible. Employees have set days where they’re allowed to WFH and where they're expected to be in the office (usually it's 2 days WFH and 3 days in the office), so if you worked from the office on a day you normally WFH you can't WFH the next day. This is also the case if you request to WFH for things like a family emergency, or a package delivery that you need to sign for, or an emergency plumber visit, etc.
- Line managers are in theory open to being flexible with the WFH policy according to employees' circumstances, but senior management is CONSTANTLY WATCHING and will reprimand managers for bending the rules for the benefit of their employees, regardless of the reason why.
Culture:
- While I worked there, a senior employee came in obviously trying to shake off a cold, coughing badly and sniffling throughout the day for two whole weeks.
- If you're a junior employee, expect to be treated as a glorified office manager, having to work around office hours so you can answer the phone, set up new hire laptops, move furniture and receive mail delivery, because why bother hiring an office manager or a moving company when you know junior employees aren't in a position to say no to whatever you ask of them?
- In my first week, a manager boasted about how they quickly made their way up the ranks by working lots and lots of unpaid overtime, explaining that this is what I too could accomplish if I followed their example. And indeed I quickly noticed that junior staff (who, again, are barely making above minimum wage) were following this very advice, often working from home after hours or staying late in the office to complete all the extra work assigned to them. Not once did I see their line managers openly discourage the practice.
- The employee handbook explicitly states that, while casual wear is the dress code when clients aren't visiting, white trainers are explicitly *forbidden*. When I asked, I was told that it's because the CEO dislikes white trainers. An office isn’t a cheap night club in the town center in the early 2000s, but I digress. Maybe someone missed the memo?
- One individual in senior management is responsible for organizing activities for office events, and said activities are questionable at best and degrading at worst. Things like organizing quizzes themed after HR benefits for a team-building event, having us clap, spin and dance to the rhythm of a song before a monthly all-hands meeting to “wake both sides of our brains”, and gifting chocolate bars to employees the very same way you give a kid a gold star for silly accomplishments, without considering people’s dietary requirements and/or food allergies.
- Appearances are favoured above performance. During my short tenure at Cloud9 I consistently received perfect customer feedback scores (something that a colleague mentioned he’d never been able to achieve despite being a fantastic employee) and I was the department’s top performer at the end of my second month, despite this being my very first time working with MS Dynamics. However, during a probation review meeting, my accomplishments were brushed aside in favour of pointing out that I wasn’t demonstrating the behaviours they expected of me. I had no complaints from customers, colleagues or even managers, but regardless, I was told that I needed to avoid looking idle in between tasks, amongst other petty issues. Senior management was incredibly condescending when delivering this feedback, talking down to me and even going so far as to “joke” that completing my tasks quickly didn’t matter if I was making mistakes (which I wasn’t, something my direct line manager confirmed when I pushed back on that particular comment).
Cloud9’s biggest downfalls are inflexible rules, cult-like culture and offensively low pay, especially for Brighton. Before I left, I had a very candid conversation with a manager about all of this and more, per their request. Their honest feedback was that they’d heard the same feedback from previous employees but that nothing would change, and if I wanted to keep my job I needed to put my head down and play along. The same manager later told me that I was being disrespectful to the company rules by pointing out their flaws and that it wasn’t my place as a newly-hired junior-level employee to so openly discuss my concerns with management, despite having only brought up my concerns per his urging.
Just before I left, senior management claimed to be shocked and disappointed to hear that other employees shared some of my concerns but didn’t feel comfortable speaking out due to fear of retaliation. But I know that talking to my colleagues about the red flags I kept seeing ended up being the nail in the coffin for me. Before I left, I was told, why would you say to your coworkers that they deserve better? Don’t you know that makes things very sticky for the poor, poor company?! It’s blatant union-busting tactics; get rid of the people willing to fight for better work conditions lest they poison the well. But the truth is that the well is filled with sewage and people have normalized drinking the sludge, not realizing there’s plenty of fresh water within reach.
Cloud9 is a small, local Brighton company that doesn’t have to follow pointless bureaucracy, fill out endless paperwork and abide by a dozen stakeholders with a strong opinion on how the company should be run, but they act like one, mandating that rules are followed without room for flexibility or nuance. They care about appearances more than work output and they’re self-sabotaging themselves by demanding blind loyalty and refusing to listen and accept that change needs to happen. The result is that employees don’t trust senior management, HR or C-levels. As they shouldn’t.
Cloud9 is woefully understaffed and losing people faster than they can replace them. Employees are overworked and stressed. Clients are unhappy. The company is a sinking ship and they’re just one more department walkout before their operations completely collapses on itself.
