Pros
The best thing about Innocent is that the office and work culture is what you would imagine it to be like from the bottle - the office is covered with fake grass, there's a large 'chill-out' zone with loads of picnic benches where employees can enjoy their free breakfast or smoothies, have lunch or grab a coffee whenever they want. There is normally music playing on all floors in the office (which I like but some people may not). The majority of the staff are in their 20s and 30s, so it's a lively young office with lots going on - (not sure how it feels for someone a bit older though). There are Friday beers/wine every week, company quarterlies, team quarterlies and generally lots of organised fun. The culture is heavily alcohol-based (which I found surprising), so if you like drinking and going out, you will enjoy it. There is a fine/non-existent line between personal and professional life - many of your colleagues will be your friends, which makes it difficult to take/deliver bad news/not to take things personally. Generally this is a good thing though because you probably know your colleagues better than you would do in another organisation - this is largely due to the 'organised fun' mentioned. You have a lot of responsibility from the start in your role, and no one checks your work. Training is on the job and usually by your predecessor if they are still there, or via handover notes. The jobs therefore suit people who enjoy that kind of responsibility, which if you are a graduate, you would not usually get until much further down your career path. Depending on your manager, you also have complete autonomy of your role - as long as you get the job done, you can do it your own way. This means that you can easily take ownership of process improvements if you want to. If you don't know what you want to do and you want a non-structured career path, then Innocent can be quite good - you can move sideways into completely different roles within the company fairly easily (someone moved from logistics to marketing), although it's normally expected you spend 1-2 years in the job before you do this (and many people find they get bored in this time). Working at Innocent is a relatively easy job, you work 9am-6pm, probably stay until 6.30pm most days but there's very rarely anything to do beyond this at junior levels. Most roles involve a lot of admin and repetitive tasks, you need to be prepared for that. Innocent give 10% of their profits to charity, and there is some scope to get involved in the Innocent Foundation (the charity) but there is normally a long waiting list. Innocent is a great place to get hitched and knocked up - if you get married they give you extra holiday, if you get knocked up, they guarantee your job will be there when you return.
Cons
Given that Innocent is supposedly a strong-valued based organisation, it really exploits its employees from the outset. Many people join Innocent because it’s Innocent and they agree with the values, the company recognises this and therefore knows that most people aren’t motivated largely by the pay package and therefore offer them less. The pay is well below the industry standard, and the hours (9-6) are longer than usual (9-5/5.30). Even if you consider 10% of profits go to charity and take that off your pay package, you will be well below other places. Innocent treats itself as if it is a charity but the job satisfaction of ‘making smoothies’ doesn’t match that of actually working for a charity. You’d be better off working somewhere else, earning more and giving more to a charity of your choice if that’s what motivates you. At the end of 2013, the CEO stood up and gave an update on the pay rises – he introduced the 1% pension contribution as part of the pay rise - this was required by law and was only introduced from April 2014 (so wasn’t even 1% over the year), and they waited until the last possible minute to do it (i.e. when it became a legal requirement). I imagine given that they are currently giving the lowest they can give, they have to build it up to 4% as per government requirements over the next few years and they will introduce it as a pay rise every time! Managers recruit their juniors, and give them performance ratings (and pay rise) – your experience at Innocent will largely depend on your manager; if your manager changes, your entire experience changes. If your manager is proactive and asks everyone you work with about your performance, you may end up with a more balanced rating compared to a manager who asks who you want feedback from where you can just pick the good people so you get a good rating. This system is open to abuse and has been abused by certain managers. In one case, management changed and the new manager didn’t like certain people on their team, not only were they called abusive names behind their back and told that they wouldn’t have hired them, but three people were essentially bullied out of the business. The manager then went on to hire friends (who they paid more than the original employees who had more relevant experience). I am surprised that senior management have not spotted this. On the other hand, teams are generally very defensive, there is a big no-blame culture which hinders improvements. Managers are often reluctant to admit that people they have hired are underperforming, and the opposite to the above also happens. Because managers hire people that are similar to them, teams tend to have personalities. This means that although there is an option to move sideways, it may be difficult to fit into another team who has a completely different work ethic. It also feels like an uphill battle to achieve company objectives, when there seems to be little alignment between teams or senior management.