BDO UK Reviews

Pros

Friendly and understanding staff who are willing to encourage interns to participate in many activities both in and out of the office.

Cons

This is a pro and a con: As the name is less well known than some of its counterparts, the amount of work was sometimes slow.

Advice to Senior Management

No possible room for improvement in Audit.

Pros

Good non monetary benefits (e.g. Six days for charity work)
Ability to make your own job if you persevere

Cons

Managers too focused on sorting themselves out
No support post accountancy qualification or clear structure to help with next steps

Advice to Senior Management

Bite the bullet and spend some sinus money on advertising the brand globally- dropping the local names is a good first step, but it's still the worst of both worlds...

Pros

Professional qualifications paid for by the firm. Seem more flexible than the big four.

Cons

Not as well known as the big four.

Pros

Update technology
Working from home
Pay is good

Cons

management needs help.
Staff over worked

Advice to Senior Management

need training course

Pros

Good work/life balance with genuine respect for personal situations
Empowered to work on your own on projects with little direction or supervision (also a negative tho)
Good office and infrastructure facilities

Cons

Low reward and recognition compared to other employers
Lack of leadership by middle management
Lack of career prospects and development
Lack of management support on projects

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the pulse surveys staff fill out and look at rewarding those staff that go the extra mile. Understand where to position BDO as an employer and give staff some security which means not holding redundancy twice every year and then following with a round of unfair dismissals

Pros

interesting clients to work with

Cons

work balance is very good

Advice to Senior Management

expand globally

Pros

It used to be a nice place to work

Cons

The company are reneging on earlier promises of promtions

Advice to Senior Management

You're being very short sighted by not promoting the very people who you are supposed to have retained because they were the strong employees

Pros

more interested in staff than their competitors. quality of offices and what is made available to staff like fresh fruit daily, gym membership, location of office are all major pluses. Good people to work with and generally a friendly environment.
The firm also has a decent pension scheme available to staff.
Staff also dont have to work as many hours as are expected in a Big 4 environment.

Cons

complexity of work sometimes isnt there in comparison to Big 4. Overall pay is lower than big 4, but thats to be expected as partners earn substantially less than partners in big 4.

Advice to Senior Management

drive growth and profitability further and get rid of deadwood. There are levels in the organisation who arent improving or selling work, and these people need to be weeded out, or shaped up.

Pros

As good points: the company provides adequate staff training and organised social events.

Cons

The promotions and staff evaluation are not fairly based on performance but on getting close and personal with the partners. Women, in particular, do not get equal opportunities for carrier development and thus equal pay.
BDO used to give opportunity for a good work life balance but since the new management took over this is not the case anymore. It is increasingly stressful with a focus on financial targets and compromising the quality of work to meet budgets.
Generally people lack basic communication skills and it is very hard to be a new starter as nobody would be bothered to make you feel welcome or even talk to you. There is a culture among some managers to ignore totally people below their level unless working on their project. All this makes the atmosphere in the office very tense.
Although the pay might be similar to the competitors, bonuses are something unheard of.
The staff appraisals are focused on the negatives and development points. They are designed in such a way as to make you feel not good at your job. This is also the attitude in communication between senior and more junior members of staff; on many occasions instead of thank you people are told that they are not good enough and are inefficient.
Overall there must be better places to work.

Advice to Senior Management

The management need to learn how to say thank you and really mean it.

Pros

Excellent work life balance
Very friendly people
Relaxed atmosphere
No much politics

Cons

Salary is okay - comparable to the Big 4s, but auditors seem to be under-paid everywhere

Advice to Senior Management

Good job... keep growing and always keep people at the heart of what you do