Pros
Flexible working. Some decent people.
Cons
The senior leadership team has been in place for several years, during which time the business has changed and not necessarily for the better. The firm has benefited from a buoyant market in terms of revenue growth but it always felt like the leadership team was taking credit for that instead of just accepting that work was because of market driven factors. There's a huge disconnect between leadership and the day-to-day realities faced by staff and there are opinions that people in leadership roles are not the right people. There is a huge amount of dishonest behaviour, backstabbing and fakery meaning it's very hard to trust people, even people who come across as though they have good intentions. They often don't. Nobody, not least senior partners, want to challenge the current leadership style or ways of working as there is a fear of repercussions and concerns of job security. Quite often we were told that our leadership team wanted to be "transparent", which ultimately translated to sharing financial information with us. In reality, it always felt like there was a huge amount being kept from us and stuff going on behind the scenes that lacked transparency. Core functions are often undervalued and are an afterthought because of the misconception that they don't contribute directly to revenue growth. The marketing and comms department, and teams, were once a team led by the right people who did the right things and cared about people that worked for them. Relationships were built on mutual trust and respect, But it turned into a dreadful team to be in after changes that were influenced and orchestrated by disingenuous and self-serving behaviour, with little regard to the wellbeing of the wide team. Anxiety and mental health was affected for a lot of people based on decisions being made. And many of the decisions that were taken, or advice that was listened to by senior leaders in the business, was based on information that was inaccurate at best and in reality based on falsehoods and deception. A number of people in the team suffered setbacks, remuneration restrictions and saw their career development halted because of the influence exerted by one “professional”. Bullying and ruling by fear (always with a smile) were quite commonplace. The people that wouldn't stand for that, or agree with that poor leadership style, are no longer in the business. The most worrying part about all of that, is that the firms' leadership team are either oblivious to everything that goes on in the team, wilfully ignore it all, or worse, have somehow been convinced of a completely distorted version of reality. Everyone in the team is afraid to speak their mind or disagree and while open dialogue and constructive feedback were always touted as genuine, in reality, everyone stayed silent because you knew where that would get you. There is a lot of talk about "culture" and being a firm that looks after its people, when in reality those values are often not reflected in practice. Ultimately the parting feeling was that if you don't fit the mould or tow the line then regardless of how much respect you have earnt, time you have served, dedication you've shown or good feedback you've had from around the business, you are treated as surplus to requirements. It's a shame because it used to be such a good firm to work for before political manoeuvrings put the wrong people, in the wrong roles for the wrong reasons.