Accenture

Strong sense of community in certain areas. People are very driven.

Very accommodating to employee health issues, in my experience – my request for reduced hours was respected. If you want to commit to Accenture, you can go far.

Non-salary benefits are good. The share purchase program is great (15% discount should mean most minor shocks leave you breaking even, and making a lot more money in other cases, and no cost for selling). Other benefits like gym discount/restaurant discounts are presumably good.

Training/etc. seems good, although budget dependent. Full access to Pluralsight was opt-in, which I found useful.

Diversity/ethical concerns seem to be big considerations, which is a plus from me. They're still a large multinational plc, so their tax approach isn't great, but contributions to

Pay scales were substantially below market value. Furthermore, getting raises for existing employees was like pulling teeth, leaving and rejoining with a "new joiner" bonus was more or less standard practice for the financially motivated. This contributed to a serious talent retention issue in technical areas (being about 10K below regional average wages is not a long-term proposition, and they know it).

Retention issues have knock-on consequences, like high pressure on those who remain after departures. My stay of 5.5 years left me as nearly the sole SME on numerous systems (a situation that was only getting worse when I did depart). Those who stay longer can expect high levels of pressure on their time.

In my case, management was protective and proactive, but I don't think this was a universal experience. Since the problems are structural, the pressure isn't going away; just changing projects seems to be the solution.

Personally, I think this is made worse by the process-driven promotion process (performance achievement), which is a nebulous, awkward, and form-filling process that takes a lot of energy and time from those looking for promotion. As expected, it boils down to management connections, which happened to benefit me, but seems unfair for those who spent a lot of time trying to fulfill the criteria.

Higher salaries would make a huge difference. Aside from that, cutting down on the process would be huge. However, with 450,000+ employees worldwide, it's a difficult ask.