A "Mine Field" of Professional/Ethical Misconduct
Pros
Since the majority of the firm's staff is under 40 years of age, there is a strong collective work ethic stemming from the many talented, dedicated, energetic employees who genuinely want to do great work and push themselves to excel. Many nice people work there who try, despite the company's cut throat culture, to be supportive of their fellow coworkers and have developed true friendships with each other outside of the office. Decent benefits package, but nothing more than most good firms offer.
Cons
The company's leadership pride themselves on their mission statement of "Work hard. Play hard," which in practice translates to staff working hard and leadership playing hard. As other reviewers have noted, yes they do regularly throw some "well stocked," frat house style employee appreciation parties to which attendance is required, even if it means being subjected highly unprofessional, awkward situations and working extra hours to catch up on lost work time. Key partnership - a tight-knit clique of self-absorbed, arrogant middle-aged white males - for the most part seems oblivious to the glaring deficiencies in the firm's operations and management practices. Instead they are excessively preoccupied with acheiving firm growth goals through aimless, often fruitless, marketing/BD efforts involving copious amounts of "business" travel, during which time they are unresponsive to calls or emails, and miss important meetings. When they do respond or show up, they are often unprepared, but always willing to tell everyone else how things should have been done with no regard for the established project timetable, deadlines or the staff overtime hours it will take make the requested changes (that often result in a degraded solution). The firm recently experienced a mass exodus of employees from every department. The firm's high turnover of technical staff and inability to retain enough seasoned management level professionals is strongly apparent in how projects are regularly mismanaged and understaffed. Disgruntled staff, external partners and subconsultants complain often of leadership's incompetence to train and mentor young staff or to provide adequate attention to projects requiring the high level of skill promised to clients in the marketing phase. While there has been a steady stream of departures by disgruntled employees from all levels and departments, there has also been a clear pattern of leadership finding unsubstantiated grounds for letting go of longstanding, high performing middle-age employees, including women who are mysteriously replaced by younger women or by less qualified men. It is well known (and sadly accepted) among the employees that male employees are paid more than their female counterparts who are equally or more qualified. There is no legitimate system in place for documented performance reviews. Raises, bonuses and promotions are handed out arbitrarily on the whims of leadership alone, to accomplish unclear, hidden agendas. While favored, underperforming staff and cronies of leadership are not only retained, they are regularly rewarded with bogus promotions and perks not afforded to higher ranking, higher performing employees. The NEGATIVE REVIEWS OF THIS FIRM ARE NOT AN EXAGGERATION. The people who run this firm are essentially unethical, unprofessional and will stop at nothing to get what they want, be it lying, cheating and even falsifying information. They find no problem with the flagrant sexism, ageism and cronyism that goes on. HR has dozens of documented complaints, but don't count on HR to help. At this firm, just know that HR's primary role is to protect the firm and its partners, not the employees.
