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The Access Group (UK)

Engaged Employer

The Access Group (UK) reviews

3.3

54% would recommend to a friend

(1,354 total reviews)
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Chris Bayne

77% approve of CEO

49% positive business outlook

The Access Group (UK) has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 1,354 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The The Access Group (UK) employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
1.0
Jun 26, 2023

Terrible company- avoid!

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you work here you’ll soon realise what you value from a job, because Access won’t provide it to you.

Cons

This company is a complete mess. Its strategy is buy any company they can get their hands on, bring them under the access logo and shred the company to its bones. They are obsessed with quick revenue and sales. There is no care around a solution for the customer, or supporting customers, they only care about making a quick buck and see everything else as a burdening cost- including employees. They compare employees against each other in public tables and create a culture which puts you against your colleagues rather than one where you all work together to drive value. Their benefits are abysmal, paternity leave is stat pay for two weeks. The pension minimum, the share scheme impossible to buy into and expensive. Holiday leave is average and there are no pay rises, just comp comp and tacky holidays to those who’ve squeezed every penny out of a deal. The products are shoddy and way behind market. The systems you have to use every day require hours of training to understand them. With training you are mandated to complete hours and hours of it every quarter. The company is completely remote unless you want to travel to the company’s obscurely located sites. They refuse you travel to meet clients and restrict budgets on anything important to your role. Avoid this company if you want to make any progress in your career and be part of something better.

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The Access Group (UK) Response
3y
Thanks for your feedback. Our acquisition strategy ensures what we bring in diverse talent to Access, so we can have this diversity of thought and behaviours. And we take our time to integrate new colleagues so they feel at home. Our company values include “Love Work, Love Life and Be You” where we want all our employees to have a job that makes them smile by thriving, having fun and giving back in a way that benefits everyone. Our salaries are reviewed each year and we promote a pay for performance culture where high performance is expected to be recognised. We review all pay increase submissions to ensure that a consistent approach is followed. We offer a variety of benefits that help promote our values and are in line with our total rewards strategy, with private medical insurance available to all, a pension scheme and other insurances to help provide stability and security for all our employees. Not to mention the opportunity of investing directly into our company with great returns possible. Our holiday is competitive with a minimum of 25 days (increasing with tenure) and we also offer our employees the opportunity of an all expenses paid break to celebrate the success of our company each year. We encourage our managers to discuss and help with work life balance challenges and it is a real shame that you weren’t able to experience that.
1.0
Aug 6, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You are allowed to leave

Cons

Many, many cons have been outlined in previous reviews. Every single one is correct. The majority of positive reviews are fake. Their Glassdoor score was actually under 2 stars until a couple of years ago. They then rolled out a financial incentive to gain positive views from young, inexperienced employees. Just read the reviews. No detail in any positive review and no 'helpful' responses. The negative reviews contain great detail and have multiple 'helpful' responses. Pay and benefits are laughable. One week paid sick leave only after 2 years of working there. Minimal annual leave and only statutory mat and pat leave. The 'holiday' is only actually open to around half the company and is really just an alcoholics retreat. You are peer pressured and shunned if you don't fancy drinking the bar dry on a daily basis. Lovely culture... Speaking of culture, don't listen to a word of the spiel they'll likely respond to this review with. Its merely taglines with no substance. They do nothing to actually deliver and encourage their supposed values. They only value profit and employees are disposable. Good luck if you're a company that has been acquired by Access. Unless you're in sales, you're going to be gone within 6 months. The company you previously worked for will be hollowed out and your products will be broken and left nearly unsupported. Access have a continuous simultaneous recruitment drive for sales people and laying off of support, development and customer service staff. Every single great member of staff leaves for other tech companies and are replaced by graduates that can be brainwashed into believing the 'Access Way'. Diversity and inclusion there is borderline criminal. The entire board is 50+ white men and that is reflected in the company. Other than a few roles where they actively positively discriminate im favour of females to boost their women in tech numbers. To potential customers of Access: avoid like the plague unless you're spending £100k plus annually. You won't get any support otherwise.

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The Access Group (UK) Response
2y
At Access we love feedback, and we also love data. They help us to continuing making Access a great place to work. However, there are several untruths in this review, which don’t give an accurate view of working at Access and we believe it’s important to highlight these, so everyone can make informed decisions when either considering working at Access or doing business with us.      1. Feedback – there are no fake positive reviews on Glassdoor, and we have never financially incentivised colleagues to post reviews. As I’ve said, we love feedback. In addition to listening to Glassdoor feedback we also survey our employees every month to find out how they think we can make Access better every day and the feedback we receive from our employees is reviewed and responded to every month. 2. Reward - we review our pay and benefits annually and a lot of focus is given to ensure that our reward offering is competitive and scalable across all of our geographies as we continue to grow our global footprint. Following on from feedback we received from our employees, we’ve been able to introduce a number of great enhancements – a few examples include a new, enhanced maternity package that was rolled out this year in the UK, a more affordable private medical insurance so that more of our employees and their families can join, as well as a number of new benefits in some of our overseas locations. 3. Our aim is to ensure that our employees are healthy and happy at work. If there is a need to take time off due to illness, we work with that individual to support their return to work. In addition, we offer a very competitive leave policy which can be enhanced through the purchase of additional holiday as well as an extra two days if employees choose not to take up the all-inclusive weekend away (see point 5 below). 4. Wellbeing – we pride ourselves on ensuring everyone here can take control of their wellbeing with our own Wellbeing Hub. In the hub you can access 24/7 wellbeing help and support, the Headspace App, our Employee Assistance Programme, along with a wealth of wellbeing resources and experts. And we recognise that not all wellbeing is mental or physical, so we also provide financial wellbeing support for anyone who needs it. 5. Big Break – the Access weekend away is open to anyone who wants to take up the offer of an all-inclusive paid break away with colleagues. This is an opportunity to get together with colleagues who you may have only worked with virtually due to the global nature of Access, and to have fun – which is at the heart of what we do. Those who prefer not to go receive two additional days leave to spend doing what they love.  6. Culture / Diversity – diversity and belonging (along with wellbeing and giving) are at the core of who we are. Hiring for diversity means we can bring a wealth of diversity of thought and behaviours into Access and pay that forward to our customers and communities. We aim to ensure that everyone can bring their whole, authentic selves to work, and we celebrate all communities which make up the Access family. Our entire Board is also not 50+ white men –check out our awesome Board members here: https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/about/our-management-team/. You can also check out more about our brilliant culture in our People Report here: https://pages.theaccessgroup.com/People-Report-2023.html. 7. Acquisition – we have a comprehensive and robust acquisition strategy which ensures that colleagues brought into Access are fully integrated and welcomed and new products are used to provide the best software solutions to our customers. We pride ourselves on being trusted by over 100,000+ customers to solve their biggest software challenges. We have also put measures in place to understand how people are feeling with a focus on their integration experience as well as Integration Champions, integration buddies and face-to-face welcome events. As always, the integration experience is difficult for acquired employees and is a different way to join a company and we recognise and acknowledge that. However, 60-65% of our organisation has come from an acquisition and they are still here! Access isn't for everyone - hired or acquired - but we pride ourselves on our culture of caring, innovation and constant improvement. 8. Data – along with feedback, we use data to continually improve Access. We are proud that our eNPS scores (these are scores benchmarked across the tech industry from our employees which indicate if they feel Access is a good place to work or not) are high. Our eNPS in Wellbeing is in the Top 10 and 29 points above the tech industry benchmark; our eNPS for Diversity and Belonging is also in the Top 10 and 28 points above the tech industry benchmark. Our overall global eNPS for engagement puts us in the Top 12% in the tech industry. Our aim is to be in the Top 5% - which I have no doubt we will reach. No organisation is perfect; and we admit that we aren’t. However, we have a ‘learn-it-all, not know it all’ mindset and want to continue to grow, learn and make Access even better for all the brilliant, diverse talent who come to join us. If you have a growth mindset, want to take every opportunity offered to you and make it happen in a growing, global organisation where you can bring your whole self to work, then please do reach out to one of our recruiters to find out more. We would love to hear from you!
1.0
Feb 6, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I thought the pay was okay but to the cost of my mental health it definitely wasn’t. Work from home

Cons

Where do I start?! This place is toxic to the core. The Access Way: Love Work. Love Life. Be You… is the biggest lie, I got to the point when saying this to clients and lying through my teeth. It’s a ploy to attract the young and naïve in to what you think will be an incredible company to work for, when in reality it will turn you into someone you really aren’t. You couldn’t really get any support from any other team when you need it because they are too understaffed and overworked. I got to a point where I wasn’t able to sell as I was putting out fires here there and everywhere. When I asked for advice on something I would get different answers off different people and not know what to do. It’s a sad reality that I believe Access are just “winging it” Customers were never happy because they were over promised and in reality we would underdeliver. There was no real training for my department, instead it was here is your laptop and phone… oh and here is you unachievable target. This place hands out PIPs like sweets, unrealistic and just a way to manage people out. This place destroyed my mental health to the point that I felt worthless and not good at my job, even though prior to starting at Access I had been very successful. If you value your mental health and your sanity please don’t entertain the façade that they will present at the interview as this “amazing” place to work.

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Glassdoor has 1,401 The Access Group (UK) reviews submitted anonymously by The Access Group (UK) employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if The Access Group (UK) is right for you.