Marks & Spencer reviews

Stuart Machin, the CEO, seems to have an actively combative relationship with the data and technology wings of M&S. More than once he has expressed the view that employees 'should be more selfless' and prioritise the company's needs over their own. This has felt particularly disrespectful when he has also continued to push for a 'return to the office' despite the fact the there are less than half the number of required desks in the office and no keyboards or mice provided at all. I have heard numerous people in more senior leadership position express that Stuart is unwilling to have conversations on certain topics and does not appear to take kindly to dissent - even if there is a legitimate discussion to be had.

M&S has a good rep as a company, but from what I have seen they treat their employees very unfairly as they prefer to keep them on rolling temp contracts so that they are able to be used at M&S's leisure. This makes it difficult to book any time off whatsoever, as you are unable to book holidays in advance on a temporary contract and also do not even know if you will have a job after the contract period has finished. I had a 3-month, rolling, temporary contract which was very frustrating as I was unable to book any holidays in advance and had to work every single weekend. I was not the only one at my store in this situation either - most of the people I worked with were on temp contracts and there were very few permanent staff members outside of management. One coworker had been on a temp contract for >2 years with promise of a permanent contract coming up (I met up with the same person recently and they still have not been given a permanent job with M&S). I asked for 1 weekend off 5 months in advance and was told this would be fine (with the date noted down in a diary). 2 weeks beforehand I was told my holiday had not been noted anywhere and that I would have to take it unpaid. This was also brought up during my leaving interview, as they considered it 'unacceptable' that I had taken one weekend unpaid, even though I had given them plenty of notice and been OKed by management. They also gave no warning that my contract was not going to be extended - on my last shift I was simply called into an office for my leaving interview and that was that. Overall, I did not mind working for M&S as the job itself was not difficult, but they really need to get their priorities sorted out with how they treat their employees.