Company: KPMG
Date: 2016-08-13
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

Undervalued but given good opportunities
Pros: -Early opportunities to lead and manage others
-Constant flow of new projects
-Lots of flexibility for working remotely 
-promotions occur on a consistent cycle
-Travel Opportunities are ripe for some teams
-Lots of talented managers and staff who make great coworkers
Cons: -Dramatically underpaid compared to industry and even other competitors. Management has realized a few years too late that this was the case and is now frantically trying to catch up. Time will tell if this is too little too late.

-Overly protective management  actively inhibits employees from pursuing new opportunities. Although there is a constant cycle of new projects, managers and directors will constantly prioritize their own work over letting associates find the projects that most interest them. This can even escalate to almost paranoid proportions. During my three years I witnessed multiple instances of associates being retaliated against for asking to work on different teams. Directors and Managers hold on to associates without any work for them just on the off-chance that a longshot proposal would lead to an SOW. Employees that left the firm to pursue other careers or business school were almost never spoken of in a positive manner. 

-Partners/Management are completely out of touch with reality. Although this is a Big4 stereotype at KPMG it's gotten significantly worse over the past few years. The best of evidence of this is the fact that we were the last of the Big4 in the Silicon Valley to adjust associate salaries. After this was completed there were no salary adjustments made to current employees. Year-end raises did not make up the gap as evidenced by the survey discussed in the point below.

During the 2015 Employee Engagement survey this discrepancy was highlighted to management and they chose to ignore it in favor of increasing work flexibility and allowing more people to work remotely. Although these changes were appreciated, they ignored the root of the problem and KPMG has been experiencing higher turnover as a result. Management has compensated by basically making managers perform more associate level work.

-Work 60 charge 40 is basically our company creed

-Little to no respect towards employee welfare.Almost every director or partner I've met is afflicted with tunnel vision towards winning more business. Although this is a critical aspect of our successful business, employee welfare is rarely, if ever, put before the client's business. If nothing is in motion you are free to carry on your business but the the second work comes through you are expected to sacrifice everything for the client. Forget about raising a family, the only people I have seen raise kids and stay with the firm are directors or above. 

-Lack of trust towards upper management. Pretty much every director/partner is only looking out towards their own self-interest. Backstabbing and dishonestly are almost unheard of below manager but are essentially a daily component of life for those above. Most directors or partners are too non-confrontational to voice their concerns to employees directly and prefer to silently retaliate behind closed doors.

-Blatant sexism which goes both ways. Attractive females are prioritized for projects where they often face subtle and not-so subtle sexism if they don't uphold a very specific image. Physical attractiveness is a pretty blatant priority in the hiring process. At the same time the upper echelon is predominately male.