(Deloitte US) Blackmail of Staff to Perform Work for Free, 'Rank and Yank' HR Practice - Anonymous employee Deloitte Employee Review

1.0
20 May 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Culture of excellence, awesome career challenges, work with best in class peers, some inspiring leaders, and competitive benefits IF you miraculously worked 40-45 hours; (see CONS)

Cons

Where to start?? How about with my headlines. Most places expect you to work 40 hours a week. Some places a bit more. Few have have leadership (PPDs) who make an *average* of $600k annually, but blackmail junior staff (who make a tiny fraction of PPD income) into working for free by calling it a "Firm Contribution". Pardon? Contributions are what feed the poor, house the homeless, and teach struggling kids. Deloitte made $30 Billion (USD) last year. The partners are the least in need of a "contribution" . Yet if staff fail to make this 'contribution' they will either not get promoted, or they will be shown the door. Contribution used to be based on number of hours, but is moving to "impact" namely how much money did your slave labor bring into the firm? If the impact isn't great enough, if you didn't "contribute" enough, (regardless of other performance metrics) please bring your badge and laptop to a meeting with HR. So maybe you make $140k, but if you tally it up against the hours asked of you, you really only make $75k versus working for a sane, ethical organization that doesn't extort free work from you. I'll save some text here; Google "Rank and Yank" to understand how HR and evaluations work. 10% are cut from Deloitte annually, no matter what. I've had some awesome couselees kicked to the curb because they missed some minor metric, even if overall they were star performers. It makes for both a revolving-door culture for most people, and as noted in some other reviews, nepotism for the folks who want to get to PPD. You will not make it to partner based on performance and client reviews, or even your book of business, unless you trip over some multi-million dollar opportunity. *WHO YOU KNOW* rules, and even that won't save you if you miss bare-minimum metrics, like "firm contribution". Lastly, if you are at all 'different', that is creative, innovative, bold, interesting, tattooed, pierced, artsy, talented in a niche, or otherwise don't look like the shiny happy faces you can see in Deloitte-posted videos, don't bother. They (honestly) do accept LGBT and folks of all colors/ancestry with grace and blind eyes. HOWEVER: Deloitte hires, retains, and promotes people who 'look'/think' like Deloitte. They want to claim to be 'innovative' and 'bold', but their DNA is an AUDIT/RISK FIRM, a TAX firm, and a FINANCIAL ADVISORY firm, even if they also do some consulting. Do the math. BEANCOUTER MENTALITY prevades. If you question the system enough times, or think you know a better way to do something, just bring your badge and laptop to a meeting with HR. There is no Hawaiian-Print Shirt Day, however you WILL be required to work, errr... ummm, I mean "volunteer" on some of your holidays to either do commuity service, or come to the office for all-hands meetings. Other reviews eloquently cover most of the ugly under-belly of this rat in shiny green-dot clothing. I spent seven years with Deloitte, and can tell you, she is most beautiful when viewed in the rear-view mirror, receding like a roadside snake-oil saleman in the desert distance behind me. Be warned. Most of the best I knew there have left, and the few that remain are eyeing the door. And God-forbid Deloitte is eyeing your firm for a Merger/Acquisition. Ugh.

Explore other reviews about Deloitte

5.0
4 Aug 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

These folks know exactly what they are doing. They set high standards, and consistently deliver. Their project expectations and planning is excellent. The top level management folks are extremely smart and have a great sense of vision and planning. If you go to company social events (which are very frequent by the way), it is quite easy to have conversations with upper management people (Partners). Deloitte's hiring pattern is very consistent. For the young starters, they hire smart, well spoken, and subtly aggressive candidates. They have excellent training and knowledge management. They have a well oiled and empowered HR and Tech Support group. Things get done pretty fast. Their paid time off program is really great, and pretty straight forward. No messing about. They have a big social responsibility program that encourages volunteering. It also presents a great opportunity for youngsters to take event organizing responsibilities. This can be very very useful. Once, I volunteered for an event where we painted rooms for an orphanage center. There was a young guy who did the organizing. We were 10-12 people, with 3 senior executives actually doing paintwork. Quite unique. I have personally seen that Deloitte's top talents tend to start young, spend a 3-4 years, then take a hiatus to pursue a Graduate Degree (typically an MBA). The firm sometimes re-hires these consultants after their MBA with generous financial incentives. They offer much better packages to folks graduating from top universities. Sometimes they can offer huge joining bonuses. I worked in the IT consulting division.They tend to get top-end projects. On projects, the average age seems pretty low. A lot of 20-somethings, then there are a handful of 30-40 year old people and some senior Management folks. Beginner salaries can be a bit low. (which is expected. It takes some time to build credibility in the Consulting business) Overall, a great place to start your professional career. If you pay attention, you will get seasoned very quickly.

Cons

Work-life balance can become poor, especially during tight project timelines (This is expected in the Consulting Business). The employees have a significant amount of "firm-internal" training and knowledge contribution tasks. There are annual goal expectations. It can get tedious if you continuously work on high demand projects. There is intense competition, especially during targeted promotion/milestone years. There can be some backstabbing. It's part of the experience. It is not as bad as it sounds, and seems manageable. A lot of times, being young and inexperienced has it's flaws. The company has a simple way of seasoning consultants. They get pushed into high pressure situations, and they learn fast, and quickly start managing their own work. But they tend to be blind towards intricate details, especially in complicated IT product implementations. This has an interesting effect. If someone is able to do the hands-on work, everyone else tries to piggy-back on that person for their actual work. The hands-on guy gets overwhelmed, and others try to use him/her as a key resource. -- I personally went through a crunch project, and found a number of people "managing expectations" (piggy backing), while a handful of people actually knew the end-to-end solution and did the hands-on work. This created a lot more work and mental anguish than needed. Because of the expressed pressure, the hands-on guys have a hard time building and growing their reputation and subsequent performance evaluation rating. This also affects the project execution timelines. IMPORTANT: Make sure you thoroughly read through your employment agreement and understand the implications. In recent years, they have started hiring for specific projects ONLY. This falls under a particular "AMS service line". In this case, if your assigned project gets into a problem, you are exposed to the risk of employment termination. Their HR and Management are very helpful, and they will try to get you a new project. But there are several constraints like location, your skills, and limited time. I went through this, and it was somewhat unnerving. This was one of the reasons I ended up leaving the company.

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