Work life balance is non existent here if you are on a billable project. The billable work always takes priority, which is common with consulting and not unique to B20, but there is a mentality that if you are not 100% billable at all times (even when you have non-billable work assigned) or over 100% billable, you are in danger of being cut. There have been a lot of staffing changes over the last year which also include lay offs and leadership and management had a difficult time being transparent with their employees even though we have asked for it time and time again. Many employees, not even billable ones, are working 60-80 hours per week for months on end to make sure that leadership and management know they are dedicated to the company, in hopes that they too will not be laid off. At all staff meetings the employees who work 60-80 hours per week are celebrated and praised (as they rightfully should be for their hard work), but it is spoken about with an attitude that 40 hours per week is not enough and the only suitable answer is to work evenings and weekends to support the company.
Another example of a lack of a work life balance is the way meetings are scheduled. Instead of hiring more resources (because they cannot currently afford to do so) so the work can be appropriately spread out, many employees are in 8-9 hours of meetings on top of the work they need to accomplish. Meetings are consistently scheduled at the start of business, past close of business, over lunch breaks, and one all staff meeting is held every single Friday at the end of the day for the final 30 minutes .
Overall, transparency is something that leadership struggles with. The company is going through lots of changes including company restructures due to financial issues resulting in lay offs, changes in processes for operating procedures, and partnership programs with the products the company works with. With change there is always growing pains, but the biggest growing pain at this company is the fact that no matter how much we work to grow and change there is no clear messaging given to employees.
When layoffs (or any staffing changes be they firings or resignations) happen, only select teams are told and the rest of the company is left to learn about the changes through either the rumor mill or LinkedIn posts. Leadership constantly promises to "do better" but doesn't provide examples of what they will do with their actions to follow through with that, only empty words. There is no direction given to those who remain on how to address the staffing changes with clients either, creating confusion on what can be said and what cannot.
Another example relates to our partnership programs. There was a period of time where our consultants were locked out of a partnership portal for one of the companies we work with due to a breakdown in communication regarding contracts. Leadership was well aware of the consequences that were being delivered to Beyond20, however this was hidden from employees and only disclosed when enough employees received communication that Beyond20 was purposefully blocked from the partnership portal. This resulted in a chain reaction of consultants being unable to work tickets for their customers without knowing the reason behind the issues and the creation of extra work to investigate the issue when leadership was already aware of the root cause.
