|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Mar 11th, 2021 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Executive
|
Manchester, England
|
|
Changed for the better
|
|
1. Great to work in an organisation dedicated to helping improve the lives of others through its humanitarian and education clients.
2. Long overdue overhaul of people, processes, systems - organisation bogged down in the past by old-timers with head in the sand and engaged in internal warfare, inefficient systems and poor processes
3. Strong response to challenges of the pandemic. Though sad to see job losses, Key Travel will come out of covid much stronger
4. Focus not just on reducing travel cost for customers but also traveller wellbeing and, what is really exciting, innovative approach to managing travel's impact on the environment
|
Travel companies not a place for the faint-hearted
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
1.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
5.0
|
3.0
|
2.0
|
5.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
Call out ex-employees who go to competitors and badmouth Key Travel on social media
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Mar 10th, 2021 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Manager
|
Manchester, England
|
|
Key Travel Transformed
|
|
Clear purpose to support customers who do good in the world.
International coverage across many countries.
Global nonprofits market leader.
Strong leadership team who have modernised the company and took the tough actions needed due to COVID .
Big investment in new systems: systems hitherto outdated and poorly integrated supporting a work force weighted towards offline transactions when the market had moved online.
Simpler organisation and simplified processes: historically, inefficient way of doing business, many silos and local barons.
Departure of energy-sapping employees wedded to the past and unwilling to embrace required change who treated Key Travel like a country club.
|
Balancing customer demands with resources available during the pandemic
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
1.0
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
3.0
|
5.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
Don’t let disgruntled departees with negative glassdoors reviews and fake news get you down!
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Nov 11th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
|
Manchester, England
|
|
Run by travel's answer to Trump
|
|
Some good people work and worked there
|
CEO - no understanding or knowledge about the business; ridiculous fake culture attempted to be forced on staff; business "decisions" made for personal enrichment (desperately trying to get his own bonus); rarer to see than a dodo; claims to be approachable yet any criticism is met with moves to remove. Incompetence - the huge number of failed project rollouts, constantly late and often not tested, shows that putting favourites who don't know what they're doing in charge doesn't lead to success; placed huge pressure on front line staff. Backstabbing - certain individuals would stab you in the back and spit on your corpse if it meant them getting ahead; usually the ones who would be nice to your face and are favourites of senior staff, creating a culture of fear and lack of trust. Asset stripping - if the company is around in 6 months it won't be in the form it is now. No morals at the company - 4 rounds of redundancy (possibly 5) in a year with little communication to those leaving and when government confirmed they could bring those who were made redundant back and be furloughed have refused both times leaving some with no income at the start of the pandemic and others without income over Christmas and both times when jobs are scarce; the only reasons not to do this is that there is paperwork involved and holidays accruing, showing that the company does not value people at all and has no compassion. The values it professes are lies - the way staff are and have been treated proves this; no desire to help anyone; profit comes first (that and CEO ego).
Covid has had an effect on travel but the problems at the company go way deeper and were already there prior to the pandemic. Covid has given cover for the con man in charge to give another excuse as to what the problems are and will likely ride into the sunset with a big bag of money (as he has done previously).
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
21.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
2.0
|
1.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
The company is dying from a disease that is not covid. I fear it is too late for the good people remaining. Please just try and make them comfortable before the end.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Oct 28th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Senior Account Manager
|
London, England
|
|
Wasn't the Company it used to be
|
|
Great teams and colleagues. Nice Manchester office
|
Poor management / Asset stripping
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
5.0
|
3.0
|
2.0
|
3.0
|
2.0
|
3.0
|
1.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
Before you make the entire workforce redundant make sure you have enough staff goodwill
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
4.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Oct 21st, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Senior BTC
|
London, England
|
|
It used to be great company
|
|
It used to be great company to work for, but unfortunately this has changed about a 2 years ago, when the new CEO started. Within 2 years the company has closed almost all its offices and the workforce reduced from approx 300 employees to around 30. Make your own judgement whether you'd like to work there or not.
|
It used to be great company to work for, but unfortunately this has changed about a 2 years ago, when the new CEO started. Within 2 years the company has closed almost all its offices and the workforce reduced from approx 300 employees to around 30.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
9.0
|
1.0
|
4.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "eng", "userJobTitle": null, "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 2825236, "responseDateTime": "2020-10-26T04:55:33.687", "translationMethod": null, "response": "We appreciate your feedback. Key Travel continues to have offices around the world - in the UK, USA, Canada, Italy, Kenya, France and the Netherlands to name a few. With the arrival of COVID earlier this year, we moved all our employees to homeworking in response to national government lock downs and call for homeworking where possible. We have recently re-opened our Nairobi office at the request of staff and in line with other companies in Kenya. In other parts of the world our employees continue to tell us that they are happy working from home rather than having to commute into city centres on public transport. Offices will re-open as we move beyond Covid and in line with recommendations from local authorities.\n\nWe have very sadly reduced the size of our workforce over the past year. The impact of Covid on a travel business has been significant and unfortunately, like so many travel organisations, we have had to let great people go.", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
PART_TIME
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Oct 20th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Executive
|
Manchester, England
|
|
Good luck to the few who remain, you're going to need it!
|
|
A beautifully redesigned office space in central Manchester close to all the transport connections and amenities you require (side note: now, surplus to requirements.)
|
So much has already been said about the demise of this formerly great travel management company. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to why popular reviews are heavily promoted. Some suggest significant sums of money have been spent on promoting a positive company image on various social media and peer-review based websited. It also goes some way to explaining why Key Travel are in so much financial trouble. As has already been said, be under no illusions that Key Travel's fall from grace in 2020 is solely due to Covid-19, the seeds had been sown many months prior due to consistent and continual mismanagement at the very top and throughout the heart of the organisation.
First there was the overstretched purchase of another TMC in 2018 that was loss-making and also poorly run. The subsequent failure to turn it around and merge it with the wider business fast enough lead to a succession of integration failures that - given the number of overqualified staff members involved - is embarrassing. Then there was the continual growth of the exec team, filled with overpriced folks who were incredibly skilled and adept at talking the talk, but when it came to walking the walk, they couldn't organise a party in a brewery. Approachable? Nah. Want to share a contradictory opinion? Nah. Continual project management disasters, technological launch failures on spectacular scales, elevating more and more underqualified and very often incompetent individuals to middle and senior management roles (100% who you know, not what you know), streamlining/expanding/streamlining/expanding teams on a scale that must have been nauseating for our clients, one re-structure after another on a scale that was akin to the corporate equivalent of stabbing in the dark, you could literally go on for hours.
Let us not forget the incredible and much-hyped move to the new 'operational hub' office in Manchester that can only be described as a vanity project for the CEO. It must've cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of ££'s to renovate and it did, genuinely, look incredible. The only one of 5 major company projects that year that was achieved (not just on time, but achieved, full-stop). But, that money was spent at a time when there was an incredibly expensive acquisition and a large number of staff were already moving towards home-working. Fast-forward 12 months and the company now have an office space they have signed up to for 10yrs that is designed to fit 300+ people when there are now barely 10% of that number left based out of Manchester, almost all of which are home-based. So now they’re working on carving up said beautiful office space into smaller units to sub-let and it’ll go down as yet another waste of time and money. Will the tuk-tuk end up on eBay? Stay tuned. Add to the mix the CEO and senior management’s relentless desire to turn around rapidly diminishing airfare margins and you develop a company that is so focussed on squeezing every last penny from our predominantly publicly funded charity, faith and academic clients, that they completely fail to see they have lost their way entirely. It is OK to be a for-profit company working with not-for-profit companies. Don’t style yourself as ‘doing good in the world’ when you have made it your sole purpose to exploit those who genuinely do good in the world, it is so incredibly transparent, disingenuous and lacks integrity. Just focus on what you are and tell the truth: Key Travel are a travel management company who sells airfares and other travel products, including some unique content, to other businesses and you make a profit out of them. Well, you used to make a profit.
Finally, let’s not forget the great, dear leader. Some might form the strong opinion he is incredibly narcissistic, eccentric, oft absent, and morally questionable individual they’ve ever had the delight of working with. Many have suggested a potential dislike for those of a certain gender within the business (which is well known to have been reported). Who knows what became of those investigations? Very coincidentally and quite possibly unrelated, there was a surge in said underrepresented gender at the top table. Combine these intolerable qualities with a toe-curling and downright awkward desire to create a fake and forced culture within the organisation (whilst simultaneously cancelling-out what genuine culture and normalcy remained) via fabricated words and phrases, an obsession with animal-themed projects and fleeting appearances once every blue moon, made for a very surreal and uncomfortable work environment. So much so, it’s little surprising the CEO didn’t have his portrait hanging on each wall in the office. Less clapping and star jumps, less fakery and nonsense, just do your job properly and well, make your presence (regularly) known and it’ll command respect, not ridicule.
By many accounts the current CEO performed well as COO at EasyJet, leading to a CEO role at FlyBe. One could suggest this is where the wheels start to come off; he paints all the planes purple, drives bigger losses, and leaves early. Joining Key Travel, the theme of pushing bright colours continues, we’re all forced to live and breath lime green, forced to eat Key Lime Pie-related puns and do star jumps. I would suggest in your next role you should avoid forcing company colours and cultures on people, invariably it tends to have the opposite desired effect. Covid-19 has definitely had an impact on Key Travel, the scale of it would overwhelm most companies and exploits those with poor management and in an unstable position prior to it taking hold. However, there were many nails in the coffin before 2020 even began, Covid-19 may just be the last in a long line. Good luck to those who remain, you’re going to need it.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
17.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
CEO has long overstayed his welcome. Let’s hope the dear leader moves on soon before it’s too late for the company, but I fear the damage has already been done. Listen to your staff, they're your greatest asset. Don't just find an excuse to get rid of them because they have a different opinion. that doesn't suit your agenda. Get an IT team that is led by individuals that listen to staff, not simply close cases and provide unrealistic/non-existent timescales for project work. Give credit to and value those staff who work hard and make a difference, not just those staff members who will do anything to please management and climb the career ladder. It won't serve anybody well in the long term.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
9.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Oct 20th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Former Employee
|
Manchester, England
|
|
Key Travel shall Viva no more
|
|
A fantastic (though now redundant) office in the city centre.
|
Key Travel, whilst always somewhat flawed, was once a company with a strong, positive culture. There was a feeling of being valued, listened to, and with opportunities to improve. This was a workforce with huge dedication to the company, offering years of service (many had worked there for 5, 10, even 20 years) Sadly, since a change in “leader”ship, this culture was eroded leading to a highly dissatisfied workforce.
Whilst Covid would have put the strongest of travel management companies under immense pressure, Key Travel had already had the rot set in following failed business acquisitions, an inability to move technology forward quick enough and a lack of strong leadership. Gloomily, this once great company with a strong moral purpose looks set to be gone following this crisis. The company has been amputated to a handful of workers, with costs (namely the wage bill through devastating, botched redundancies) reduced so it's ready to be sold on. Rebuilding it will be almost impossible.
Responsibility for this mishandling lies with a woefully inept leadership team who have consistently and spectacularly failed to deliver on any of their projects or improvements. This starts with a CEO who initially seemed to speak solely in acronyms before, moronically, renaming all projects after animals (including the use of a picture of an elephant that looked to be defecating on a crocodile…) and degrading his staff by asking them to jump up shouting “Viva Key Travel.” He has incredibly poor people skills and does not understand the business’ core offerings. He is, thankfully, very distant to much of the business as reports from the London staff of him ranting and raving made many very uncomfortable.
The CTO has not successfully implemented any new systems. A new phone and email management tool went in a year too late and caused chaos to business and blames this failure on others. The company still has not upgraded its agent booking tool which is over 10 years old leading to inefficiency and poor service. Their agents can do less that their website which leads to customer frustration. His bullish approach to staff, who were once willing to work with him before realising they were his scapegoat, was taxing and one that won him no fans.
The financial pressure really set in with the acquisition of a loss-making company that they could not integrate quickly or successfully and dragged profits down across the board. Greedy growth plans were nigh impossible due to squeezed margins and meant the last two years were dominated by staff being put under immense, unattainable pressure to achieve. Improvements required were not financially supported, as more and more complex processes were added to agent’s day to day life. Sadly, I no longer felt we were offering value to our customers.
Even prior to Covid, there was a culture of fear, secrecy and blame. The collaborative business had gone as everyone watched their own backs. Access to the CEO through the #asksaad email might as well have been the #asksaadforthesack email as no one felt comfortable to raise anything that could be perceived as criticism. No one ever saw any responses and communication was patchy despite many promises to improve it. Unless you were a "yes" man, you were unlikely to succeed. There was no support, leadership, guidance or mentors for anyone and the business had begun to stagnate.
I wish those who are still there the best of luck. There are many that I respect and wish the best for. They are remnants of a place I was once proud to work at.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
18.0
|
1.0
|
3.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
It would be like screaming into the ether
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
9.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Oct 11th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Business Travel Consultant
|
Manchester City Centre, England
|
|
A sinking ship!
|
|
Zero, none at all! Avoid at any cost
|
Everything! Blinds guiding the blinds!
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
7.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
1.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Oct 9th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Head of Revenue Management
|
London, England
|
|
Houston, we have a problem
|
|
Loved my job, great team
|
Apart from being made redundant...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "eng", "userJobTitle": null, "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 2825233, "responseDateTime": "2020-10-26T04:53:52.547", "translationMethod": null, "response": "We appreciate your feedback. We agree that you were part of a great team. \n\nThe impact of COVID has been significant and it was with a heavy heart that we have said good bye to talented, committed and wonderful employees such as yourself. We wish you all the best for the future and hope we are able to work with you again in the future.", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|
|
private:keytravel
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=652203
|
Aug 6th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Key Travel
|
Travel Consultant
|
Manchester, England
|
|
Compassion needs to be removed from their mission statement
|
|
The people are Great and the office was excellent. Great Coffee
|
The redundancy process was awful. To be angry that I was being made redundant in travel during the pandemic would be silly and not unexpected. However, to be forced to sign new contracts or automatically be put up for redundancy felt underhand and somehow like we were forced to sign away our rights. Also the pay vs the intensity of the work was not reflected. There was also little to no support for newer employees.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
19.0
|
1.0
|
3.0
|
4.0
|
1.0
|
4.0
|
1.0
|
|
652203
|
Open
|
Remove the word compassion from all the emails that are sent.
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "eng", "userJobTitle": null, "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 2825244, "responseDateTime": "2020-10-26T04:57:16.7", "translationMethod": null, "response": "Redundancy processes are challenging to go through, particularly in the current climate. We have very sadly said good-bye to many talented and dedicated employees such as yourself and we wish you all the best for the future.\n\nWe appreciate your feedback about the intensity of the work compared to the pay. We also appreciate your feedback about supporting new employees. We will consider how we can bring more balance to the work and better support new employees as we recover from the impact of COVID on the business.", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Mar 14th, 2021 10:15PM
|
Key Travel
|
|
Travel & Leisure
|