S-RM Reviews

S-RM does not compensate senior women comparably to its men, and I left the company mainly because of this. For context, I was promoted five times in six years, and received excellent performance ratings in every review. My performance was not a limiting factor in my compensation. And yet: I took over management of S-RM's US intelligence clients from a man with a similar level of experience and responsibilities. I was paid 25% less. Over the next year, my work growing these client relationships resulted in doubling our US revenue. At my last performance review I asked for a 20% raise. I was given 14%. I resigned soon after. My role has been taken over by another man with a similar level of experience and responsibilities. He is, again, being paid over 25% more than what I was making by the time I left. There are significant seniority and wage gaps between men, and every other demographic, at S-RM. Its executive leadership, heads of every geographic region (Americas/EMEA/APAC), and heads of almost every practice area are almost exclusively white and male. The firm made steps toward transparency by providing some data to employees about salary bands for junior and mid-level roles. But as of the time I resigned, no salary transparency at senior levels was provided to directors. This leaves the women and minorities who do make it to a senior level with limited data to understand whether - and how substantially - they are being undercompensated for equal work.

I have waited several months to write this as I wanted time to reflect and be fair. Here goes... Management - both middle and senior - is toxic. S-RM is an abusive employer that will extract everything it possibly can from you and leave you exhausted and almost constantly angry until the day you leave (on average 12 months later). It is expected that you will work overtime (working day is 9-6) and objecting to this is not an option - if you use this to demonstrate your hard work during appraisals, you're criticised for inefficiency and told to practice 'give and take'. Middle management constantly assigns reports with totally unrealistic deadlines (e.g. a 4-day report to be turned over in 1.5 days) meaning you are forced to work until 11pm to complete with no gratitude. In fact, you should never expect positive feedback - the only feedback you'll receive at S-RM is a constant stream of criticism and general negativity for your high-quality and highly skilled work. Even if you can get your head down and write some excellent reports that each - written in a matter of days - generate more revenue for S-RM than your annual salary, it's entirely futile due to poor business decisions by 'the board' (which, incidentally, is 100% pale, male, and stale) that push the company into negative EBITDA and lead to layoffs. NB: it is egotistical and downright irresponsible to move to a flashy new office that you can't afford. It's always a pleasure for a non-linguist to criticise your translation of a particular word based upon a different result from Google Translate - evidently you can spend several years learning one of the hardest languages in the world but an uptight, underachieving middle manager can still overrule you because, as we all know, Google Translate is foolproof. Naturally, as a mid/late-twenties child with multiple degrees and fluency in multiple languages, you cannot be trusted to make any decisions yourself let alone - SHOCK HORROR - meet clients. Consider yourself the Chosen One if you're ever involved in a client call, and the Messiah if you meet one face-to-face. Even emailing a client is not an option. We must leave the socially (and managerially) incompetent superiors to do this for us, lest we forget our insignificance. Whilst I was based in London, this is certainly not an isolated case. S-RM's Directors are inexperienced for the jobs they hold and these leads to countless examples of misconduct in the workplace, including the protection of middle manager bullies and racist belittling of analysts in international offices (did someone say Hong Kong?). Social gathering between analysts is discouraged and sometimes outright opposed, I can only assume it's because this would lead to an anarchic uprising that would dismantle the entire regime... Honestly, the cons are never-ending, just work somewhere else. Work somewhere that appreciates and celebrates your talent, encourages a positive work-life balance, and compensates you appropriately. I was once told by my feeble S-RM line manager that the grass isn't always greener...well kids, it is. *Cue the 5-star review from a current manager to enhance the average rating*