Grant Thornton International Reviews

Pros

THE PEOPLE! If you are luck enough to get a good manager and partner that want to teach you what the audit process is and put you in a position of power.....you're GOLDEN!

Cons

THE PEOPLE! There are some people that just shouldn't be in accounting, unfortunately a herd of them work in my office.

Advice to Senior Management

Just because you are not considered a Big 4 firm doesn't mean you have to act like you're there little step brother.

Pros

Respectable pay. Management cares about the employees. Great people to work with.

Cons

Hours and projects keep increasing. Pretty soon we will be at 2000 chargeable hours a year.

Advice to Senior Management

increase pay or decrease hours

Pros

- Good salaries
- Friendly leadership
- Ample training and learning opportunities
- You can create your own path to success

Cons

- Anuual re-orgs are the norm
- GPS is being forced to integrate more with the accounting side of the firm, including financially
- Annual performance review process is too cumbersome for everyone involved

Advice to Senior Management

- Scrap the "coach" role because although it is nice in theory, it is minimal value-added.
- What the heck is GPS 2.0? Better change management, please.

Pros

Due to the small size of the firm, staff have opportunities to work on a great variety of projects.

Cons

The work environment can be concluded with two words -- "drama factory".

Advice to Senior Management

Office politics is unfortunately important, but it shouldn't be all there is. If someone who is smart and has good skills, learn from them, don't just try to get rid of them in order to secure your own position.

Pros

Better hours than big 4, good variety of clients

Cons

Too much travel, long hours during busy season. management vocally promotes the need to be fully chargable, but then fails to deliver clients and work...

Advice to Senior Management

More telecommuting options whenever possible, there is no need to spend 10+hour days all week at the office or client sites

Pros

The firm is the largest in Tulsa, OK and with former Anderson partners running the ofice the practice is a good one to be involved with.

Cons

The management of Grant Thornton is very short-sided and tends to make the same mistakes already made by the Big 4 10 or 12 years ago.

Advice to Senior Management

Take advantage of others mistakes and learn from them. Do not make the same errors made by the Big 4 years ago, and think you can fix them. Arrogance such as that will be the end to the firm.

Pros

The people are wonderful, lively and supportive. They will be lifelong friends rather than just colleagues. GT is a very ethical company that supports its employees acting with integrity.

Cons

Sometimes the hours are long, depending on the engagement and the time of the year, but that is expected with any public accounting firm.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep smiling, it trickles down all the way to the associates. Everyone at the firm is so nice, keep it up!

Pros

- Good work/life balance
- Solid learning environment and reasonably challenging work
- Nice people who want to help you in your career

Cons

- Hours can be unpredictable
- Great variance in talent/drive between the top 25% of employees and the bottom 25%

Advice to Senior Management

- Spend more time developing a coherent internal culture
- Spend more money on employee development
- Paint a clearer picture of what success looks like

Pros

1. Decent work/life balance for a public acct firm.
2. Good work experience
3. good for the resume
4. ability to jump around service lines (audit rotation, SALT/SFTS exposure, etc)

Cons

1. relatively low pay/bonus compared to big 4, other large firms
2. shaky business model (more expensive for clients than big 4) as GT is trying to be "category of 1" and offer highest quality at highest price in this economy...
3. not enough recognition for highest performin employees (i.e. mediocre staff treated/paid similar to highest performing staff)
4. lack of collaberation/structure within local office service lines

Advice to Senior Management

higher pay, more realistic biz model

Pros

the bosses are great. intern program is structured and you get to work with lots of different people. they move you around on different projects. they wine and dine you. every friday is a special event for interns.

Cons

some of the work can be tedious but its public accounting so what do you expect. people are nice, office is nice, baltimore is a great city to work however some of the project will be DC based

Advice to Senior Management

advertise better, understand what it is that interests your people and know how they feel about the work they are doing.