- Initially you are lied to and told you have a say as to which project you want to be part of: but in practicality, you really do not have much of a say and are forced/coerced into projects for billing purposes. This then results in people with
- HR claim they are independent, but they are heavily influenced by the politics and hierarchical culture of the organisation. Fairness is something that does not exist in this organisation - if someone senior does not like you, or you have reported them, the process, people, culture and system favour them: it is their seniority against yours.
- Having worked at a non hierarchical consulting team at a big 4 organisation, I was astonished at the widespread culture of treating people at a more junior grade with disrespect (generally and in front of others).
- Most people have been promoted not because of merit at all, but political considerations (i.e. they had someone at a senior level back them). This is the same for projects - a person could be extremely weak and not performing in their role at all, but if they have a senior person's or project manager/lead's backing, their faults or the failure of their work are blamed on other people. Due to the fact that people have been promoted before their time, they do not know how to deliver effective feedback.
- There is a lot of unprofessional backbiting and as people have been promoted prematurely, due to political factors, they lack the very very basic skills of managing people effectively on projects. This leads to severe problems on projects.
- There is a culture of blaming others for mistakes made in work, and there is a huge lack of personal accountability - a culture of reflection and learning from mistakes to do a better job in the short, medium and long term is non existent (it is pretty much a dog eat dog world).
- The company's 'Bring Yourself To Work' initiative is complete rubbish, as truly bringing oneself to work is job suicide, due to the reasons mentioned above.
- The company's flexible working culture for consultants is very very poor - not because the clients that consultants work at are not supportive of it, but due to extremely ineffective project leaderships (who force their view of the world, work and culture down your throat)