Accenture

When I try to find positives of the organization, I don't see anything except for its brand value and the hold it has on the market. There might be different pros for different people, but my personal experience has been too bitter to share with this organization. Working here is like working to make money for Accenture, and about yourself, it's all less about the employee!

Please note: I worked in the organization on an internal project, and hence, I will be totally unbiased with my review. I am not projecting how Accenture deals with its clients; I am depicting how the company deals with its employees who work for them directly. The client-working employees might disagree because the working is interfered with as per the width of the client.

1. Rigid Policies: Their policy structure is too rigid and cannot be regulated as per their own personal needs. Hence, I found it to be of no use to the employees who work for the organization.

2. Lack of Transparency: There is a major gap in transparency of the work done by junior and senior levels. Hence, there is also a gap in communication, and college freshers (whom they have been hiring in large numbers recently) are just treated like kids, not as employees, irrespective of the quality of work they contribute to the organization.

3. Promotion/Career Development Cycles: The organization has the biggest drawback of following rigid promotion cycles, and this is thus a very demotivating thing to stay in the organization. Even though you are eligible for promotion, they may give you a lame excuse of "budget issues" (remember, you are a high-performing guy). You have to wait for a full year to get a promotion in this company. Appreciation of work in terms of compensation is minimal and thus demotivating for the employees.

4. Industry Standards Stories: Let us take a very good example in this case, which I found to be very relevant when I talk about industry standards. Many of its peer counterparts, e.g., Wipro, Infosys, etc., provide a default percentage of hike for people who have served more than a year. In Accenture, that is not the case at all. The company might play around as per its need and shift you across projects and bench. At the end of the time, you'll get a story that the organization didn't get a chance to rate your performance, and the employee is yet to prove his/her worth. I think the employee should have been put in their "Performance Improvement Phase" and given a chance to prove his or her caliber instead of providing some random stories. If a person from a different organization demands a higher package than his/her worth, again, they have an excuse: "As per the Industry Standards." I have a question for the organization: What about the industry standards for the people who are already working in the organization? Whose responsibility are they?

5. Performance Measurement Metrics: Accenture boasts of one of the most efficient performance measurement mechanisms in the industry, and with its latest mechanism, they boast it further. Let me tell you my experience, which I can actually quote: It's all about high favoritism delivered. What I felt is, it's all about comparing one resource to another (which they abnormally boast of not doing). It's all about the fact that if a person gets the teams switched or gets relieved from the project, the employee's future in the organization goes for a toss, and he/she is asked to prove himself/herself again in the new environment. If this is the case, what is the use of the performance measurement tools which this multi-billion dollar organization boasts about? It's like running different companies under the same umbrella, and if you go to a different company, you are asked to prove yourself, along with the learning. In my case, my project didn't change, but I was sent from one team to another as per the project's requirement. I was satisfied and had the utmost dedication towards the organization with the feel that they were able to extract the best out of me and I was a critical resource. I had to switch 3 teams in the same project as per the requirement. When it was appraisal/promotion cycle, they gave me an excuse that "You were with us for little time and we judged your performance as per the previous assessment." Let me tell you guys, I had a fantastic performance record in my first team and received 5/9 above expectations, and the rest met expectations. What does this convey? It was all pre-decided, and the tool is just useless when it comes to "Cross-Team/Teams-Understanding." Managers/Supervisors just chicken out of the whole process, saying they don't know. Let me ask, who else knows about it? Do you mean a resource who has been working for you is nobody's responsibility?

6. Anything Can Happen in the Organization Based on Undefined Terms: There are people who get the appraisal/hike/bonus/promotion even though they had a less productive cycle (even though they have spent a significant amount of time on the bench), but they get through. On the contrary, there are people who work dedicatedly for the organization, and at the end, they get a dissatisfied and demoralizing result. What does this convey? Isn't it about politics? What is the criterion for the practices being followed in the organization? Isn't it a violation of core values?

Please note: These are my personal experiences, and this happened to me. I don't want to generalize the above-mentioned facts, but these points are serious points that one has to consider before joining the organization.

Be more employee-friendly instead of having "bossism." If there is a body to check these circumstances, it should be more transparent and accessible. Please follow the industry standards that peer companies follow (in the operating country) and make sure everyone is aligned enough to contribute towards the organization's goals. Everyone is answerable, and no one is the boss. It's about management and extracting the best from employees. If you believe someone is an underperformer, please reconsider their employment in the organization. If someone is worthy of something, please don't dismiss their point. You should also think about the organization's employees, who make up the company to whatever it is today in the IT industry. Please be transparent on performance measurement/judgment and apply policies in real-time scenarios.