Digital Marketing Assistant Review

The marketing team at CrossCountry Trains were unable to efficiently work as a 'team', which often affected projects and peoples attitude towards work. The culture within the company is very negative and employees are not happy within their roles, the way they are managed and the lack of development opportunities available. As a placement student, there was no support available to me.

I felt slightly valued. The reports and content I created were very important for the team, however they often lacked to show thankful behaviour. The employees are over worked and therefore seem to not have enough time to value each other, or the work of which anyone is creating. Projects within marketing are often rushed and not finished to the best standard.

My manager at CrossCountry Trains was not bothered about me, I was not given any support or guidance in regards to my job role or the organisation. I had to teach myself my role, and was provided with no training. My managers attendance was disgraceful, therefore I did not have a manager for the majority of my placement year.

My manager would call in sick at least 4 times a week, therefore I was having to teach myself a job role, which also picking up their role and also their backlog of work they would not complete. I was overworked and too busy. However, management was inefficient and did not do anything to help managed this workload I was left to sort.

As previously mentioned, I was not managed at all on my placement, therefore had to teach myself everything. As my manager would always call in sick I had to carry out my own role, whilst also doing their role, which meant I had lots of responsibility and workload to carry out.

As I was 'thrown in at the deep end', I had to teach myself the role, but this meant that I developed lots of personal skills. I did not receive any job related training, which was very disappointing. Due to the variation in my role it meant I developed lots of marketing related skills, which will assist in my degree.

There was often a negative atmosphere. Staff were overworked, paid too little and there was a lack of recognition. The staff in head office were often miserable and did not want to be attending work. These factors meant the atmosphere was always very negative, which often reflected in peoples work and projects.

I was not managed at all, and when reporting this several times, nothing was ever done. There was no organisation around placement students, we were not mentored or checked on throughout the whole year. There was no support for us as students, and there was no structure to our development or training.

I had a chance to complete a course, but I went out of my own way to find out about this. The company did not invest any time into my development. There is a lack of personal development and training available to all staff within the company, which demoralises everyone at work.

A future within CrossCountry Trains does not appeal to me at all. The company have shown that they are not willing to invest time or money into people, or provide any form of personal development. The organisation offers were low wages, therefore will not be able to attract people for employment.

As placement students, we did not get chance to see each other at work, therefore did not socialise. I socialised with some people from my department. But as the team moral was very low and people were unhappy at work, it was most likely that people did not want to socialise outside of working hours.

I lived at home whilst on my placement year, therefore the cost of living was a lot lower than it would have been if I was renting somewhere in Birmingham City Centre. Birmingham City Centre is a nice area, have can be quite expensive, especially considering I was on a very low wage.

The staff at work did not socialise with each other outside of working hours, therefore I did not go out with them. However, I have experience the nightlife and Birmingham City Centre and do believe there is a wide variety of places to go on a night out, something to suit everyones wants and needs.

CrossCountry Trains have a very low employee moral, therefore staff are not interested in socialising outside of working hours. There is a lack of opportunity to get involved in activities outside of working hours. It would have been nice if activities were available, especially more opportunities to socialise with work colleagues.