Screwfix 

Direct 

Limited

Unternehmenskultur

Either you accepted that you were helpless and stoped tilting at windmills or you were out. No vision, no mission no strategy. Just chaos. Those who read prior posts on this site know what was going on. Textbook toxic.

Pretty much the usual, important things you were not told and unimportant things clogged your mailbox. Due to the lack of a clear hierarchy and leadership everyone and their mom bombarded you with requests, be it locally or from the parent company. Contradicting instructions or absence thereof, whatever supported the current state of affairs best.

The German gang: At the beginning a lot of good people from a lot of different backgrounds. Diversity is definetly a good thing and in the case of Screwfix Germany an asset! However, in the course of the Screwfix endgame after some purges intentionally only drones were hired that looked good and could never put their manager at risk through actually doing a good job. A real waste. Team cohesion was good in the individual departments because there was usually a common enemy that brought everyone together. Be that the respective superior, another colleague, another department or top level management. Some departments were even run like sects. Greetings to Munich! The British colleagues were never really a help because they were not commited to Screwfix Germany but only to their individual careers. Usually after one or two tours they moved up the ladder in UK or went into retirement. I generally had the impression that only people were sent that someone wanted to get rid off or promoted.

Since it was hire and fire unpaid overtime was the norm for everybody I knew. I gave a lot of lifetime to this company through about 200 extra hours a year initially. To be fair, that number later declined massively during the Screwfix endgame because everyone in their right mind could see that everything was falling apart.

German management members were either victims, perpetrators or both in dealing with implementing the nonsense from HQ. I will never forget how some disappeared for days without notice and obviously kept on going on medication. Also walking out in the middle of a sentence after not being satisfied with an answer was the norm. It was as low as one could sink interpersonally. Needless to mention the usual playing games and pitting everyone against each other, not standing up to anyone and making our department everyones playball. Eventually German management gambled away Screwfixs last chance because of putting ego and personal gain before entrepreneurial competence. UK management was going on road trips for days in rented Audi TTs with their spouses and whithout any apparent added value to the company. Whenever the door swung open and the UK trolley gang entered after arriving from their Frankfurt accomodation it felt like their was this sense of party in the air instead of professionalism. I generally had the feeling the Screwfix Germany was the sandbox for kids and juveniles where they could mess around with a blank cheque and no controll from parent-hq whatsoever.

Since there were no processes or system support you had to be really good in organising yourself and working with Excel spreadsheets. Self organisation and getting a thick skin were definetely the most interesting tasks.