Company: EY
Date: 2017-07-18
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

UK PAS Reward  Advisory - AVOID!!
Pros: A good office environment and a powerful brand which does earn respect in the wider market place
Cons: PAS Reward Advisory has a really unhealthy environment right now and is definitely one to be avoided. Following some senior hires in 2016 into the team there has been (and continues to be) a significant amount of turnover and it is not a good place to be. In particular the team has suffered from: 
- some astonishingly poor leadership behaviours and a complete lack of trust between the team and its leadership
- a number of individuals being placed in long term secondment outside of London (and the UK) with no consideration of individual circumstance and no opportunity to say no!
- individuals who complain about the current team climate being bullied and isolated from the team by the leadership. No confidence in the internal complaints processes so those individuals just leave the firm.
- a complete lack of respect and empathy from the partners towards the team
- individuals in the team having significant amounts of chargeable time wiped off of project codes to protect Partner profit margins
- ongoing pay freezes and a lack of any bonus awards except for the chosen few
- Partners with a very clear set of favourites who get put on the best projects and allowed to get away with behaviours that would not be tolerated anywhere else
- Partners pushing colleagues (even Directors) aside to take over their opportunities and clients when they look likely to deliver a positive outcome 
- a complete lack of a credible, compelling business plan and a dominant focus on just doing what is needed to hit the financial numbers so the Partners look good
- Partners who just ignore team members in the office and only talk to them when they want something
- no freedom to operate and do the job that you were hired for thanks to a micro-management and controlling culture with no autonomy or freedoms evident for team members right up to Director level. 

This is clearly not an environment where the individual team members can succeed as all of the focus is on the Partners protecting their own interests and covering their backs. This has become so evident in the last 6-9 months that turnover in the reward advisory team has jumped to the point that nearly half the team have now left.  This is not the first time that the firm has tried and failed to build a meaningful reward advisory business. As they go to market to try to recruit again it is clear that word of the team challenges and toxic leadership has certainly got out as evidenced by how long it is taking to find anyone even remotely suitable. By trying to backfill at the lower levels without addressing the real issues in the partner group they look destined to repeat the same mistakes once again. Unfortunately, this is definitely a place to avoid until the leadership and the behaviours change.