Perception trumps reality - Consultant KPMG Employee Review

* Pay and benefits (unless you're a contractor or partner) - Most people are not paid that well relative to similar-level roles outside of Big 4 audit firms. It also does not move up with inflation. It is up there as the worst pay-to-stress ratio (I've seen an actual survey demonstrating this). You can get paid a lot more for equal stress elsewhere. Scandalously, there are also separate pay scales that they keep a secret, where some of your colleagues doing the same work could be getting paid more - the criteria for getting on this scale and who makes the decision is highly questionable. They publicise a 'progression point' pay framework within the firm, so you are likely to be fooled into thinking you're getting the same as another person doing the same work but the actual figures aren't publicised, including the existence of a parallel scale. As the gender pay gap is publicised, they might comment on that (although I can't say whether the means by which they try to impact this is fair to all staff or not). However, since no one asks about the 'skills' pay gap (2 people with the same skills being paid differently), they don't have any incentive to fix it or even acknowledge it. - Bonuses are smaller than you can imagine. Most people can expect a single-digit % most years, even if partner pay goes up. This may not be the case for every single team in the wider firm but I am speaking about what I saw in most of consulting over a long period of time. Also, this is not the same for all countries but definitely the case in the UK. It's amazing how you can be shown positive results month after month, only to get a warning at the end that results were not great. You would think an accounting firm would understand the difference between revenue and profit. Ridiculous. - Do not expect correlation between pay and performance. In fact, you will see people outperforming other people and getting rewarded less and you will wonder how this happens. Don't wonder; nobody cares. As long as the powers that be can tick a box saying that everyone was appraised, they don't care if it's an accurate representation of performance. Perception trumps reality, - Pensions are pretty shocking for any longstanding/respectable firm. Not that much better than the bare minimum they need to do by law. Don't expect them to even match your contribution. It gets slightly better when you get older but for most people, it's bad. They are fortunate that many staff were new grads or came from abroad and therefore do not know how bad it is compared to other big firms. (Note: Contractors are paid fairly well. There are some getting paid more than they should and getting frequent gigs simply because they are close friends with the partners/directors from before. You will see people on the bench while they are simultaneously requiring contractors. This is arguably scandalous, eats into PnL, and theoretically could make your life harder / impact timelines since the budget will be eaten through quicker. Money is effectively funnelled to friends while you get your pittance at the end of the year. If you raise this concern, you will get spiel about how there are controls over this - hah!) * Appraisals - If you work in an area of consulting that does different types of work, you may be assessed by people that have no understanding or appreciation for what you've actually done. For many years, an arbitrary person would read a few freeform emails and say that person A did better than person B. It's amazing how confident people are in their assertions of other people that they know very little about - based on such few data points and usually influenced by hearsay from their friends. People are busy with their lives and targets that they shortcut everything and rely on perception which may have an extremely flimsy basis. A room full of performance managers (who may or may not have worked closely with any of the individuals) could say whatever they wanted and you wouldn't necessarily even find out, yet it would influence opinions and the outcome of your appraisal. In recent years, they've (FINALLY) tried to improve this with templates and some comparison metrics but it's still prevalent in the information going into them in the first place. There is no consideration for the representativeness of feedback. The opinion/comments of a more senior person that has spent no time with you (but has 2nd or 3rd-hand information) will count for more than a less senior person's opinion, even if they worked closely with you for a long period. When you get your year-end outcome, it's mostly just a "here's your rating" and maybe one sentence if you're lucky - sometimes nothing! It's essentially a black box. It's the most important thing, that all your year's work culminates in, and yet there is no formal appraisal outcome document stating your rating and the reasons it was given? It's purely at the discretion of your performance manager (who may barely understand what you do) how much you get told. If you get feedback that isn't fair/correct, and this was used to appraise you, good luck trying to challenge it. If someone makes a comment in the appraisal meetings, your performance manager may not know enough about it to challenge what's being said and you won't be a part of it either. You also won't find out until it's too late, if you find out at all. It's ridiculous as a construct. Timelines are so tight for year-end that there is no appetite for any challenge to feedback or ratings anyway. You can collect additional evidence if you want but nobody will care to read it. They've moved on to the next thing already. There is blind trust in anything anyone has said, particularly if they're senior. This leads to a game where people copy in someone senior to add 'weight' to feedback, whether or not that person knows what you did. In short, people just want to tick things off their list and have the records show they did their task, and looking into the details of anyone's performance (or related challenge) is not part of that. When there is a room full of people discussing employees, depending on the team in consulting, they could be discussing 30-40 people who worked in vastly different areas and they can't possibly spend enough time on each individual. The firm is happy to just shortcut the whole process with perception. I posit that (in parts of consulting) most of the people that have an influence in your year-end rating (and therefore bonus, salary, etc.) could not articulate what you actually did all year. They don't see this as a problem. (Note: since they use a distribution, which they're entitled to do, it means there are necessarily 'winners' and 'losers' each year. The 'winners' will not realise that everyone wasn't really appraised fairly because from their perspective, they did their job and got rewarded. They will therefore assume the system works while others are more likely to leave. This survivorship bias means you will be battling for change against people that didn't see anything wrong with the system. The point is, it is a gameable system. Also, you may of course see this is as a positive, since you may be someone gaining from the flaws and it takes quite a lot of speaking to people and self-reflection to admit that and want to change things. You're more likely to want to keep things as they are so you can continue to game things and benefit from them). * HR staff that are either negligent or incompetent - I've had the 'pleasure' of dealing with numerous HR teams within the firm (there are fair few) and most just want to get your concerns off their list; they do not care to get to the bottom of issues. You will be ignored, passed on to other teams indefinitely, get mistakes on important documents, etc. The only exception to this is perhaps the People Centre who have at least tried when I've spoken to them. As for the rest, it's honestly shocking how much disregard they have for getting to the bottom of the issues or doing things properly. It's almost as if they hope if they're terrible enough, you'll leave out of frustration to save them having to do their job. I'd be shocked if the firm isn't sued every year by an employee. I could rant for an hour about this with specific examples but I'll stop here. Always remember that HR are there to protect the firm not to protect you. * Staff attrition - Lots of people come and go each year. The firm doesn't really care as you're all just fungible. They don't need to improve anything I've said above because behind you is a conveyor belt of people looking for a job, or hoping to get KPMG on their CV, or simply looking for someone to sponsor them for a visa - which the firm does. As a consequence, there is enough supply that there is no incentive to improve anything, E.g. why would they raise pay when they can bring someone over from Asia or South America who will happily take the role on that pay? Why would they reinvent their appraisal process when leadership believe it works 'well enough' because, well, survivorship bias plus the fact that it doesn't impact them much anymore as they themselves are assessed on other things like sales? * Graduate 'programme' - In consulting, there is a good chance your graduate programme isn't a 'programme' at all. No organised rotation or anything. You just get what you get workwise. The only difference between grads and non-grads is that your progression to the next grade is virtually decided (3 years) and you will necessarily be able to take a qualification. That's not to say non-grads can't do a qualification. (Note: I believe some apprentices / school-leavers do get an organised rotation programme but these are for non-grads). *Work-life balance - This one is hit-and-miss. It is pot luck based on what projects you get. 2 people working at the same level can have vastly different lives. Consulting is project work and unpredictable. Some staff can be relaxing while others are dying / stressed out but don't expect them that to correlate with anything come year-end. In fact, the person with loads of free time is MORE likely to be able to get involved in other activities and therefore look better on paper come appraisal time. Remember, the people deciding often don't really know what you did, so it matters how it looks on paper. What's that, Alice? You were 150%+ utilised and had no life all year? Well, since you've not made time for business or practice development, you won't be getting a top rating. You should be more like Bob, who was only 70% utilised. He at least managed to tick all the boxes with his spare time and may even be put forward for promotion! * Being 'KPMG' - I'm generalising here but at the end of the day, consulting is a group of individuals with no guarantee of a minimum standard. If you hire KPMG for a project, you get whoever is free - they may or may not even work in that area! If you are, say, asked to work in an area of risk consulting that is completely new to you, there is no guarantee that anyone will ensure you have the requisite knowledge or skills. To analogise, the attitude from leadership is to throw everyone into the ocean and see who swims, rather than ensuring everyone is taught to swim before sending them out. That is ultimately the firm's prerogative to take this approach but as a result they don't care that it means something to be 'KPMG'. You are effectively a bunch of individual consultants and it's pot luck what people get.