Accenture

Great benefits and some nice people. Also, some great learning opportunities.

Management is pretty oblivious to individual issues. The customer is always right, even when they are wrong.

I was laid off of a project due to a complaint from the customer. When I proved the customer (and the customer AGREED with my assessment), I was still let go from the project. Of course, this was at the beginning of the summer, and that project role was supposed to last through the fall. I wound up on the bench for the summer.

Management shot themselves in the foot here, as they would have had one less person on the bench earning revenue for the company if they had let me back on the project. I told everyone about this, but nobody is listening.

Accenture talks a mean game about work-life balance and employee satisfaction, but they fail to deliver on several fronts.

I also had an experience where I joined a project and took a role I should not have. The customer was not happy (understandably). Management scheduled a meeting with me to debrief. It felt like a tribunal. There were several personal attacks on me by the Accenture management team based on what the customer said. These attacks should not have been allowed at that meeting, and they should have pushed back on the customer for making those accusations. The accusations had nothing to do with my job performance and were either untrue or quite nitpicky (i.e., playing with my phone during meetings).

Support your employees better with customers. Sure, Accenture charges higher rates than smaller firms, but that means management needs to do more to protect those employees. It has been my experience that, when working for a large consulting firm, customers tend to look for ways to reduce their rates. One way to do this is to downplay the accomplishments of the consultants.