Sorry if my post was immoderate but it seems to have struck a chord with some. They of course work for TOM and therefore know what's what and have the perfect excuse to have a moan and to have a moan at me as a rep.
I'm sick of dropping in here from time to time to post what I hope is useful info only to find a bunch of people who presumably lessen the pain of their own lot by finding fault in the lot of others.
Simply put, I've yet to see any of them answer my question and several thousand qualified applicants applied for the latest round of recruitment. To answer In The Clouds' question, yes, all 60 places were filled even after some changed their minds and withdrew.
For that reason I'd be reasonably comfortable in saying the company will now have to reappraise their remuneration offer to continue to attract the talent, a point made clearly by Matey who is of course another chap who has actually sat in a room with a TOM manager or ten and had it from the horse's mouth rather than a mate of a guy who once got a peck on the cheek from the mum of a temp Hosite who last worked for us in 1972.
As for promotions, yes a great result this year after some serious discussions and I'm hopeful we might be able to jemmie a few more. There is a retirement bulge of sorts, high teens in numbers IIRC for the next few years. The early retirement scheme went better than anyone hoped and is a win / win so hopefully we'll revisit that soon.
So, as I said, plenty wrong in the company but show me a company that isn't bearing down on costs at every turn. More importantly, there's a lot more going right and looking good for more to come. To those who want to work for a company that treats you like a God, pays you whatever you ask, asks nothing in return and Bollox to the shareholders and / or owners, I wish you the very best in your search. For everyone else there's a slack handful of not bad employers out there. IMHO, TOM is one, warts and all.