I have been here less than a year and I found several cons for this company, however all of them are due to my boss life style that is also managing the project I am working on. Anyway, the majority of them are spread across the whole company in Italy.
1) Regardless that during the interview process I have been open and honest and explained several times the reasons behind my job change and they promised me several conditions that made the job change appealing for me, they removed those conditions at their discretion (e.g. number of nights away from home or working from home). So first advice if you want to work for this company: don’t believe in anything that has not been written on your contract.
2) If during the negotiation process they are telling you that something is not possible because is against any policy, don’t believe them. You will find that for someone else they will break the policy. Again: don’t believe in anything they are telling you.
3) You need to be available 7 days a week from 7 am to 11 pm at least for emails and phone calls even if you are on holidays. Of course, they don’t tell it during the interview process. Second advice: join Reply if and only if you like working long hours and weekend.
4) If you are not willing to do insane hours and you try to set some boundaries, they will always find somebody else available, bypassing you. I have seen people sick after working several nights and then when they were sick they were requested to join phone calls or working from home. Third advice: nobody will care about your health (physical or mental).
5) One of the first advice I have received after joining Reply is: “Don’t trust anybody of your colleagues”. People are only micromanaged. From the top they want to know everything you are doing every hour. Your priorities will change each hour since everything is high priority. Totally no trust. From my point of view, this is insane.
6) They can only say “yes” to the client, regardless sometimes the request is foolish. If there is a problem, the mentality here is “put under the carpet” until it becomes a priority. Fourth advice: to work for Reply you need to have excellent political skills, you need to be able to lie to the client regardless it’s clear to everybody that you are doing it.
7) If your opinion is different for your boss opinion, there is no discussion. You will have to change your opinion. Fifth advice: you will say several time that you don’t agree but you will do it. Join only if you like this mentality.
8) There is no transparency on expenses policy, thus there is not a written expenses policy. Everything it’s on your boss discretion. You will discover that something allowed for you is not allowed for somebody else and vice versa.
