-Low calibre, most resources come from random small companies which is also reflected in the low salaries.
-Institutionalized resources as people are not encouraged to rotate or attend trainings or challenge the inefficiencies.
-Understaffed regional and group finance teams, means that everyone is overworked and morale is low, missing a strategic view of the business as they fight to reconcile numbers between outdated systems.
-despite being a consultancy, there is not much investment in IT (software and hardware): used laptops and used phones is suboptimal or outdated accounting systems. Even with the pandemic, there was no consideration for staff to buy equipment (monitors, ergonomic chair etc).
-Board has the 'complex of God', ie they are generally inaccessible and important decisions are never communicated to those affected (e.g. regional business reviews key decisions are not shared with neither regional ops and finance teams nor group teams). Also contrast between used IT equipment for staff/no spend on training and excessive T&E spending for the Board.
-Male dominated environment with low diversity at upper and middle management.
-Short termism . The impression is that the business operates for the next 15 days, there is hardly any medium term (next 12 months) or long term view (next 5 years). This is a reflection of Board's short termism and lack of a clear strategic path (except for maximising bonus just themselves and cutting down the staff bonus pool)
-Publicly discussed 'cost synergies' from the recent acquisition is a clear message of the future of group functions. The Management's short termism is also reflected in the fact that they keep hiring people in the group functions even after the acquisition and the cost synergies announced..!
-Get away with murder if you are cheap e.g. there is a case of a resource being
rated under perform for some consecutive years, then goes into Performance Improvement Plan that they fail, and still they hang around....!
-Not an issue but worth noting an odd trend: Associate directors and Directors are generally mid 30s and early 40s whereas managers and specialists can be late 40s and early 50s.