Bureaucratic, unequal, indifferent to support staff, highly stressful - Anonymous employee Eni Spa Employee Review

Eni cherishes, supports, and trains everyone from management level upwards. If you are support staff, it’s another story. A great deal of energy will be diverted into appeasing upper management and cushioning them from the bumps of real life, while absorbing all the impacts yourself. What’s the problem with that, you may ask. The organisation has a high level of bureaucracy hindering the effective and timely completion of tasks. Red tape and the trenchant adherence to it, strangles any lateral thinking that would get work successfully completed within tight timescales. On the other hand, not finishing on time is not an option. The result is that a lot of unsung and unsanctioned improvisation must take place in order for delivery of the work demanded by the organisation. The goal posts are constantly moving. Prepare to put on your superpower hat and employ initiative and enthusiasm, to move the earth and provide a result at short notice, only to have the request changed at the last minute. Then press repeat. The two alternatives for flagging any issues are 1) to be ignored; 2) to endanger your position by speaking up. Some managers manage upwards and crush downwards. Flexi Friday applies not democratically but according to workload. Lack of trust in my skills and experience meant I was micromanaged. Flexibility was demanded on a regular basis but not given (occasionally) in return. The IT department will eventually get around to helping you, at its own schedule, regardless of whether or not you have a genuine emergency while carrying out a job for your manager. If you are curious to experience a place in which problems could be said to be invented for the sake of it, then you could give Eni a try. If you are a manager or engineer and can turn a blind eye to how support staff are treated, then Eni UK may be a good place to work.