Toxic environment and disrespectful culture. Wouldn't recommend it even to an enemy.
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
You start to better value your time and effort, and realize that you shouldn't waste it by exposing yourself to this kind of an environment and/or become less competent or simply dumb. Therefore I decided to leave this toxic place.
Every bad experience is an experience is not valid for this specific situation.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
A company with a real potential to become a relevant player in European and perhaps international markets, is being dragged into a swamp by incapable and inadequate management.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
There is nothing they can do that will improve it. Unless the whole management and further incompetent people who came through questionable relationships are removed. But this will never happen for variety of reasons. It is a structural failure.
A few competent employees are oppressed by those in charge. The bad ones are so arrogant and ignorant, you can't help them. They even can't help themselves.
Restructuring the company into separate entities such as the production, to take care of the security of supply for Switzerland, combined with other production companies and a profit making trading machine. Cut the incompetent and toxic overhead of this abundance of money.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
The most toxic and unwelcoming environment I have ever witnessed in a company. The overall management competence level is definitely below average across all industries. And this is true for the most corporate functions of Axpo Holding.
Not to say that there aren't competent and motivated people. But those come, get disappointed and soon leave. It is the main cause of a high churn for this state owned company.
The words: Fairness, Performance, Trust are absolutely not applicable to this culture.
The holding is unfortunately a perfect example of a useless and worthless overhead. A bunch of incompetent people, who are only involved in dirty politics.
Production and trading divisions are somewhat better. Perhaps because they have a purpose and actual work to do.
Kommunikation
Obviously there can't be an adequate and transparent communication in such culture. You are much better informed if you are in the "trusted circle" of certain people, who a couple of years ago all came from the same company, or simply if you follow the Internet.
Communication department is the most incompetent I have ever seen. One ChatGPT account can replace them all and be more productive and effective.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
It correlates with the overall culture. The moment you become open, transparent and honest you will be punished.
These values are not appreciated and actually are considered weak.
Everyone is talking about collaboration, because "it's fancy", but nobody actually believes or lives it. Everyone is only using it when it fits them. I can't blame the employees. This is the environment they are exposed to. Either they adapt or they leave.
The only collaboration you see is that everybody is gossiping on everybody.
Work-Life-Balance
Since performance is not something the management actually cares about, accomplishing your job is not that challenging task itself, assuming your qualification is adequate. However, you have to spent a lot of time and effort dealing with the demoralizing politics and useless work, which keeps you constantly stressed out.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
This one is terrible and the home made root cause of all the issues.
Few years ago, in his first town hall meeting, the newly appointed CEO's answer to a question by an employee: "what is your Vision for Axpo?", was: "if you have a vision, you should see a doctor". This is pretty much the attitude that's is promoted across corporate management levels. You don't question and/or challenge management. You simply say "yes" and imitate execution.
The management, at least in holding, is absolutely inadequate. Many of who were hired under very suspicious circumstances. It is widely believed that relationships played much more important role than the competence and experience.
The best way to describe it: there are good managers, there are bad managers and there are Axpo managers.
And of course there are absolutely no leaders.
Interessante Aufgaben
There are some interesting areas to work in. Though this is pretty much a result of the industry transformation and not the reflections of the initiatives of the management. Even on interesting topics the company is many years behind the peers.
You can't define most of the tasks and work on topics you find interesting and/or relevant. You are told what to do and then micromanaged by a manager who has absolutely no idea what he/she is talking about.
Gleichberechtigung
I can't speak for the female employees and their chances, but I can speak for the foreigners and expats: The situation is dire!
One example, in one of the meetings a department head stated openly that the board of directors was concerned with the fact that Axpo loses its "swissness" and therefore we should focus on hiring Swiss nationals.
Out of 20 - 25 people in the room, only very few had a "non-Swiss" citizenship. Meanwhile the ratio of the foreigners/expats in the company is one of the lowest across all industries.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
I have seen a few cases when people were let go after tens of years of working for the company and being still several years before their pension. For a state owned company this seems utterly strange. You would believe that this would be one of the "pros". But unfortunately it is also not the case.
Arbeitsbedingungen
The concept of "flexible office" changed several times in few years. It seems that HR and communications dept. have the urge to imitate action once in a while. They turned into a purpose itself.
Employees are never asked for their preferences and or suggestions. The objective of these constant ineffective changes was never communicated and understood.
The equipment given might contain an old Lenovo laptop, having been used by someone else and you have to pay for your own mobile phone. Company compensates a couple of hundreds of Francs for it.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
There are talks about it. And the company tries to project itself as a leader in renewables. However, if you see the actual numbers and initiatives, you realize that this is primarily just the talking.
If, what Axpo does, would indeed make it the leader in renewables. Then we all should give up on the idea of carbon free future and go home.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
Salary is somewhat market average. Actually it is more than I would have expected them offering, considering everything else gone badly wrong.
Obviously it is the only argument left for them to attract some level of professionals. People do not join this company for values, image, opportunities, experience, development, etc.
Bonuses are allocated based on the "personal relationship" with your manager and not objective performance evaluation. This doesn't actually exist.
Image
Among expats, nobody I know ever heard of the company before. Swiss on the other hand, do know the company in the majority of cases.
As an employee of Axpo and while in the process of working with other Swiss companies I was several times confronted with open sarcasm and prejudice towards the company. Initially, I took it seriously and was somewhat offended by it, while having had the urge to defend it. Today, I would buy those people a beer and laugh together with them, for they were absolutely right.
Several former employees even stated that it is better to have a gap on your CV than this company. This is very sad...
Karriere/Weiterbildung
If you are from the "inner circle" of certain people, who recently all came from the same company, then you have good chances to receive promotions and development opportunities.
If not, most probably your salary will not even be adjusted for inflation for years, or ever. There is no career development plan. HR is not even aware of what it is.