Genuinely Cares for Employees
Pros
M2 leadership demonstrates excellent concern for each employee and promotes a healthy work environment with positive incentives. The leaders and managers have collectively worked at dozens of other consulting firms and have identified the practices they do and do not like in deciding what to bring to M2; for example, they do not use a numerical rating system for performance, like many other companies, and do not place exaggerated emphasis on the importance of competition or promotion. They focus instead on substantial growth and goal-setting and tailor performance plans heavily for each employee. They also are great at listening to employees and implementing change. I, personally, received a lot of personal attention from the CEO herself when starting work as a new employee on a new contract trying to navigate complex political relationships with sub-contractors and the client, but she also encouraged me over time to be self-sufficient and make judgement calls. She provided great guidance and stuck up for me 100%, make sure I knew she was in my corner at all times and that I, as an employee, was a priority for her. W/L balance is great - they are flexible in letting you recommend/set the hours you prefer to work, within reason, and offer telework after a period of time based on agreements with each client. When public transportation in the area was severely impacted, they made an earnest effort to lessen the burden on employees. Benefits are fair/good and pay is competitive. 100% company-paid health care and dental. The company is growing very fast and I can tell management is being proactive in trying to build/modify management practices before any systemic problems arise.
Cons
PTO is lumped into a single category (instead of separated sick vs. vacation) and is not competitive at all: 10 days total over the year to start, whereas former companies I worked with offered 15+ days vacation and 5-7 sick days. I always felt like one bad multi-day illness could knock me into negatives and prevent me from taking any planned time off for the whole year. As another review here said, not a lot of peer culture. It is difficult, of course, when most employees work onsite with clients, but I tried and was supported in organizing social events, though it was hard to keep up/encourage attendance and was not "organic".
