Accenture Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

Good renumeration. They were pretty flexible about working hours and being able to fit in my other social activities. There are a lot of people so you meet a wide variety of people and there is a lot you can learn from them

Cons

Bad reputatin within the market so you often get a lot of staff at client sites that already hate you before you've even started. Ridiculous laddering system for promotions. High leve of travel expected and a frustrating way the company is orgnised sometimes means that you get 1 person travelling from London to Newcastle every week and another person travelling from Newcastle to London every week.

Advice to Senior Management

It's too much "them and us" between senior management and the "workers" there isn't enough communication in both directions and it feels a little bit like you can't be an individual

Pros

Being a large organisation, you will have the ability to work in a range of industries and the opportunity to travel to various parts of the world

Cons

The company had a lot a wasted resource, often with the wrong people placed in the wrong part of the organisation. Added to which, it's very difficult to stand out in a workforce of over 200,000.

Advice to Senior Management

Flatten the hierarchy and enable junior staff to contribute more to senior-level activities. Try not to view staff as resources, and put a strong emphasis on personal development.

Pros

Very wide range of opportunities and excellent people

Cons

Long hours and very hard working culture (not necessarily a bad thing!)

Advice to Senior Management

N/A

Pros

Positive environment, good place to begin for the newly graduated. Plenty of training opportunities. People are from a mixed background and definitely the best part of the job. 30 days holiday is a huge bonus (struggling to use them all up)

Cons

Climbing up the ladder can prove to be messy as you go through the higher ranks. Performance management is the weak link with many people who should be promoted are not - but frustration sinks in when you see those who are promoted just for knowing the right people.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve the performance management process. Credit people for their work and not for who they know.

Pros

The people
The work
The challenge
The client relationships

Cons

The HR team
The global management team (US values imposed globally)
The compensation (which is dire)

Advice to Senior Management

Improve the compensation, and give the UK management more jurisdiction over pay

Pros

Wide range of projects, if you can get on the right on you are likely to engage in some exciting projects.

Cons

Very large company means it's easy to get lost in the crowd. Communities are built project centric rather than fluid.

Advice to Senior Management

Understand senior management should engage better with more junior colleagues would help improve morale Amongst staff, otherwise not a bad place to work

Pros

Great name, good training and range of projects

Cons

Lack of work life balance

Advice to Senior Management

NA

Pros

Opportunities and access to building knowledge through internal resources
Networking
Power of the brand name in the market

Cons

Fabulous skills in discriminating without leaving evidence
Experienced hires should stay away from MCIM
No Godfather; no career, no progress! - talent and skills are not relevant to progression

Advice to Senior Management

Do you really know what is happening in the middle management? Don't believe what you are told by Senior Managers - find out for yourself.
Do not let Senior Manager misrepresent on employee profiles while bidding for business.
If redundancies are not based on performance, why doesn't Accenture reach back to those who were made redundant when recruiting again?

Pros

Good opportunities to develop, excellent support structure and great intranet and knowledge base. People are bright and enthusiatic. Promotion well explained

Cons

Long hours, work-life balance not really a consideration and role preference is not taken into account when joining a client

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

Great clients, great people to work with, great career development, great learning opportunities. The worlds most challenging engagements, leading edge and the finest grounding in how to plan and execute transformational change programmes.

Cons

Tough work \ life balance. Long hours culture. Away from home 80% of the time. Fine if single. Not good if married and want to see family.

Advice to Senior Management

Proactively seek whether any of your alumni may wish to return to Accenture having spent time in industry or other consultancies.