DEFRA Employee Reviews
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Fantastic people and progressive
Senior Policy Advisor (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 22 April 2022
Indeed featured review
The most useful review selected by IndeedLook no further for great work/life balance. You can take time back after busy periods. Excellent and supportive line management at senior levels. Fast paced and sometimes lacks structure around tasks from top down.
Pros
The people
Cons
Sometimes lack of structure and clarity
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Good workplace
Senior Executive Officer (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 13 April 2022
Defra is a good department to work for, interesting subject areas and a kind culture. It is let down by significant siloes, lack of collaboration and organisation and too many project managers who don't seem to help.
Pros
Interesting work.
Cons
Poorly organised.
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Insights into DEFRA
What people like
- General feeling of work happiness
- Clear sense of purpose
- Overall satisfaction
Areas for improvement
- Trust in colleagues
Great team, always made you feel comfortable
Executive Officer (Former Employee) - Reading - 14 February 2022
Loved the team Always made you feel comfortable Flexible hours You could work from home Great benefits Mid month advances if you needed Great pension
Pros
Flexible hours
Cons
None really
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slow and boring
Senior Analyst (Former Employee) - United Kingdom - 5 February 2022
very slow-paced and boring place to work. Few great people though but the executive team is not talented individuals and tries their very best to make a decision when it really needs to be made.
Pros
flexible working and relaxed
Cons
work is mundane
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Great working culture
Moving from the private sector everything is very different, less micromanagement and no expectation to work long hours. Trusted to get work done at a reasonable pace by management. Fantastic training provided and great benefits.
Pros
All of the above.
Cons
Overly complex IT systems. Takes a long time to get set up.
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Poor management, good work life balance
Senior Policy Adviser – Communications Lead (Current Employee) - London - 20 January 2022
Interesting workstream area but lacks structure and joint working. Lots of silos and lack of info sharing. Very top down approach with little input from lower grades
Pros
Can manage work load flexibly
Cons
Silos, top down and centralised mgt style
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Good environment to work
Facilities Officer (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 25 December 2021
Need to work on your own initiative as line manager will work in different site. Good holidays and pension, but pay slightly below private sector. No company car but business mileage given for private vehicle.
Pros
Flexi time, good colleagues
Cons
Pay
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N/a
Higher Executive Officer (Former Employee) - Home based office - 16 December 2021
Enjoyable organisation to work for unfortunetely it was a temporary contract would have liked to stay longer. Good Team spirit internally and externally.
Pros
Flexibility
Cons
Long hours
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Incompetent middle managers, awful office politics culture
Analyst (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 6 February 2021
The stereotype of government run agencies are mostly true, I am sad to have learned: overpaid middle managers who add no value to the company (and thus to society); bad culture (office politics, slow bureaucratic practices); large proportion of resources spent on useless tasks; nepotism and cliquey attitude; unwillingness to adapt to changes. Of course, there is no incentive for them to fix any of this, but that's just the nature of these sorts of agencies.
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A bad time to work there
Dual Qualified Meat Hygiene Inspector/Technician (Former Employee) - North of England - 23 September 2020
Worked at the height of the BSE crisis when scientific explanation was very contradictory. A confusing time for the food, particularly the meat industry. Could be enlivened to the Covid crisis.
Pros
A responsible respectable career status
Cons
Long hours for little reward. Slaughterhouse work is not for everyone. A lot of travelling
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Jobs at DEFRA
It keeps getting worse
Officer (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 1 August 2020
For all the talk of diversity blah blah, it's a very cliquey environment full of incompetent yes-men. You don't need to come from a particular background but you need to fit in and you need to watch your back. If you are a self-promoter and care about your advancement above anything else, you may like it.
In the years before Brexit they got rid of a lot of experienced staff then after Brexit they were forced to recruit new people to cope with the increased workload. The new recruits were mostly young and inexperienced. The department has changed dramatically as a consequence. It wasn't great before but now it really has lost its way.
You don't need to be terribly bright to join or to be promoted. With the exception of a handful of genuinely talented people, most Defra employees are average. The problem is that people are promoted beyond their abilities. Most middle managers (and there are far too many of them!) are so inadequate it's painful to watch them making decisions. So much money is wasted as a result. But they don't seem to care. Briefings for ministers can frequently be inaccurate or plainly wrong. Feeble, uncertain evidence is presented as facts.
Like most ambitious, mediocre people out of their depth, this army of self-congratulatory, overpaid middle managers cannot handle criticism or a different point of view. So they become petty, intolerant micro-managers who back each other up. There used to be room for people with an independent mind but it's becoming harder to be a critical voice.
The pension scheme is still good, and they do -
Pros
Pension scheme, work-life balance
Cons
Too many overpaid, incompetent middle managers
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Initially relaxed, then developed to stressful atmosphere.
Administration Assistant (Former Employee) - York, North Yorkshire - 8 May 2020
Particular department changed to inexperienced management with little technical knowledge. Work then became more about delivering your stats rather than accuracy of financial work and customer care.
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Challenging and constantly changing environment
Senior Manager (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 21 April 2020
Typical days at work were very long. I regularly worked from 7am to 7/8pm most days.
The management had very high expectations of delivery despite the constantly changing objectives. There was not always clear direction and support in achieving these aims and as such.
The workplace culture was fast paced and challenging.
The hardest part of the job was getting individuals to accept and embrace change - particularly where what was being implemented was a significant departure from what they were used to.
Pros
Flexibility to work from home
Cons
Really Long Hours
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Good Place to Work
Interim Supplier Relationship Manager (Former Employee) - Peterborough, Cambridgeshire - 6 April 2020
Good Place to Work with good line management and processes. Office environment was nice and the right equipment was provided to work with. Work load was about right and was not stressful.
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Unpleasant work environment
AH (Animal Health) Administrative officer (Former Employee) - Exeter, Devon - 19 March 2020
This has to have rated as my worst office experience, poor management, poor information sharing, poor training. Everyone just hated it and couldn't wait to be out of the office.
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Great place to work.
Archiving Assistant (Former Employee) - Worcester, Worcestershire - 18 March 2020
I was only asked to come in as the company was closing down and they wanted their paper files putting on to computer. It was flexible hours which was good.
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Nervous
HR Finance Administrator (Former Employee) - York City Centre, North Yorkshire - 16 March 2020
No focus on morale, way too many middle management on secondments and an overwhelming large temporary worker force. Huge pay gaps with senior team and zero opportunity for real progression.
Pros
excellent canteen
Cons
atmosphere
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good Company
SENIOR TECHNICAL SUPPORT ENGINEER, INTERSERVE (Current Employee) - Surrey - 4 March 2020
Good Company, Busy and always work to do. Currently working and dealing with multiple projects and ongoing upgrade works.
Keeps me busy all the day.
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nothing to add
Administrative Officer (Former Employee) - Crewe, Cheshire - 26 February 2020
They have a very weak management structure and a blame culture which i have never seem before. compared to the private section they are 15-20 years behind times.
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Very poor experience
Interim Senior Programme Manager (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 12 February 2020
Very poor experience. Culture is awful. High levels of poor well being for all staff. Office environment very poor. Noisy temporary construction work .
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Good place to work - a lot going on!
Programme Manager (Former Employee) - Bristol - 12 February 2020
Productive, collaborative, diverse, busy, lots of travel through out the UK, pro active management, only left for an opportunity much closer to home!
Good place to work - a lot going on!
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Ratings by category
4.0 out of 5 stars for Work/Life Balance
3.6 out of 5 stars for Salary/Benefits
3.3 out of 5 stars for Job security/advancement
3.4 out of 5 stars for Management
3.5 out of 5 stars for Culture
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