Once you’ve slammed the door, thrown off your coat and readied yourself for a nice cup of tea and a sit down, there’s a humdrum question which crops up in homes up and down the land: “How was your day?”
The answer, of course, depends on a number of factors — efficiency or otherwise of buses, tightness or otherwise of shoes, state of intray, condition of inbox. But what about the scale of the company you work for? Can your firm’s headcount make the difference between a happy reply or a snort of discontent? Is size the key to career satisfaction?
The vast majority of us in the UK work for a small- or medium- sized enterprise (SME), with just 1 percent of workers spending their nine to five at companies with more than 250 staff, the Learning and Skills Council said. Large companies, as the thinking goes, are anonymous places where you simply disappear among the masses. They are more formal, keen on marketing-speak and like horrible, mission-statement posters and strict hierarchy.
Small companies are great if you fancy a bit of responsibility — in theory you’re more likely to have regular contact with those who hold the purse strings and power. So if you’re good, you’ll get the opportunity to broaden your skills portfolio. Ergo, you’ll get the glory.
But can this really be true? Having spent a good deal of time at the sharp end of the multinational, multisite machine, as well as supposedly softer, small, family-style enterprises, I’ve had terrific and terrible experiences at both.
Mary Dane, chief executive of the UK Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Service (AGCAS), says that SME workers enjoy a range of advantages, including more varied and challenging work. She claims that SME employees are “more visible,” and that “the rewards can be considerable in terms of personal development.”
But do you get the same level of support? Helen Black, managing director of Creative People, an HR and training consultancy, is not sure visibility is the key issue.
She says: “You do tend to see more people in small businesses who are committed and passionate, and the upside of that is that they have tremendous energy and opportunities.”
But having earned the chance to manage large amounts of money or people, you could also end up doing it all on your own without structured backup.
“The potential to fail is enormous,” Black says. “And if you do fail, it could end up being a career-stopper. It’s much riskier if there aren’t support systems in place and if there isn’t anybody overseeing you. It suits a certain kind of individual, who can deal with ambiguity and handle managers who just let you get on with it.”
When it comes to training, received wisdom would suggest you’d fare better with a big company. Smaller companies, it is supposed, have to outsource their training, with many SMEs not big enough for in-house HR departments. But while larger organizations may have more structured training in place, the downside is that the bigger the employer, the more company-specific the training — which can make your new skills less transferable.
Research carried out by the Institute for Employment Studies shows that while large companies (employing 5,000 people or more) do organize externally accredited training, they’re less keen on it than bespoke courses, fearing your new skills will take you skipping off to a job elsewhere.
But if you work for a large company, it may be that you simply don’t need to learn skills that fall outside your locked-down job description. Joyce — a PA with an investment bank that employs more than 70,000 people worldwide — works for an institution where every conceivable task merits its own intranet Web page, helpdesk and departmental contact. And with clearly delineated responsibilities, she has “more time to focus on my own job, with dedicated departments for different areas of expertise.”
If you’re used to dealing with everything — whether that’s part of your role or not even slightly related — it all sounds deliciously straightforward. And there are also financial perks.
“You know where you stand with pay rises, and holiday allocation,” she says, “and appraisals are really well organized.”
Anna works for a hedge fund in London as an office manager, receptionist and PA to the portfolio manager. The only administrator in an office of 12 French financial whizzes, she’s in charge of everything relating to the office’s practical and administrative sides — from making sure there’s enough espresso, to manning the switchboard and processing invoices for immensely complicated international travel itineraries.
“There’s much more scope in this role than in any other I’ve had,” she says. “I prefer the extra responsibility and slightly longer hours as it’s also brought freedom in how I operate.”
But she also knows there’s no one else around if things go wrong.
“I am a one-man band. I have to leave my desk in a state that any temp could take over seamlessly if the need arose. There has to be a detailed handover document permanently in my intray.”
Both PAs admit they have some small gripes with their jobs. When there’s a gremlin in Joyce’s printer, for instance, she calls her IT department — the difference is that her IT department is as far, far away as it’s possible to be — in Australia.
“That can be frustrating,” she says.
Anna’s facilities however, are outsourced to another company, which means “you don’t have much control when things go wrong.”
But she’s not completely on her own. Belonging to a network of PAs all working in the same sector, she is able to email any tricky problems to a central email address. This is then sent anonymously to the whole network of people, who suggest solutions and offer tips. With regular social events in swanky hotels, it’s a capital idea for those working in a department of one.
Still confused about whether you’ll be better off with a big company, or working in a smaller environment? Don’t worry. Black thinks we’re drawn instinctively to the office home that’s right for us.
“I think people do select their own environment to quite a considerable extent,” she says. “Some people are drawn to small companies because they’re apparently more informal, friendlier and they think they represent a certain set of values. But not everyone can manage or work inside the level of ambiguity you often get with smaller companies, and for them, a level of clarity is more comfortable. They need to know what they’re doing, to what standard, when and with whom.”
In fact, the smart thing seems to be to dip your toe in both the big and small ponds.
“If you’re very sensible,” she says, “you try out a variety of sized companies before settling for one or the other.”
And don’t rule out returning to a previous employer. While your first stint at a small company might have involved too much “mucking in” for your taste, there’s nothing to stop you returning once they’ve grown a few organized branches.
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