Mercer Reviews

Pros

Mercer (still) has an excellent brand name and reputation. Though recruiting is run by admin staff and has mercurial management influence, it's very choosey. In New York, it brings in top Cornell, Yeshiva, Rutgers and Columbia grads, so it's a stimulating place to begin a career. Don't stay more than 2 years.

Cons

A shadow of what it was. In 2009, all the top performing partners left, followed by a delayed exodus of the analyst staff in 2010. The NY practice rebuilt and has a handful of good stories, as people learn compensation analytics. All other practice areas are in the dumps. Rather than address any of the underlying issues, management did more or the same, just instituted tougher controls on an otherwise low-performing partners/principals ("duds").

Advice to Senior Management

Get back to client work, continuous improvement and investing in your people and clients. Your training and the people behind it don't have a clue about hitting the appropriate balance between learning theory and learning on the job.

Pros

Mercer has great intellectual capital overall and vast professional resources to learn and service clients. Some profs are snobs unless you have clout, but most are a blessing. You get all the PowerPoint training you can handle, that is, training via PowerPoint. Bring your lunch and take good notes.

Cons

Leadership is very top-heavy and out of touch. Smaller clients are an afterthought and are better going elsewhere since they're probably not sexy or profitable enough. One has to track their time as a law firm (a NYC law firm), regardless of the revenue arrangement. Constant reinventing, re-branding, rehashing, re-something.

Don't expect senior management to guide, train, or want to get involved. They are above that. Sink or swim until you sink.

If you made rush in college, you'll fit in better than most. If you were GDI, good luck. Fit the mold or be gone. We want to listen to our clients, but let's deliver a 100 page presentation to talk about ourselves. If we don't, we'll get poor performance reviews.

Advice to Senior Management

Management doesn't understand that the employees make the brand, not shareholders. Mercer has no business in the smaller employer arena. So many other locals do it better.

Pros

Flexible
Cooperation and communication between peers
Competent co-workers (usually)
Relatively "relaxed" atmosphere

Cons

Bad coffee
Pay rises are not always sufficient to keep up with inflation.
Occasional mandatory wastes of time (but what employer doesn't have this?)

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more science/math/engineering majors

Pros

The team has very high caliber professionals. It is a very team oriented culture and in general, people seem very happy with their jobs.

Cons

There's a lot of bureaucracy but that is expected with a big company. It can make it difficult to answers to questions.

Pros

Paid Training, nice facility, beautiful grounds.

Cons

They treat human beings as though they are disposable. Extremely high turnover creates an environment that is stressful and inhospitable. No one looks anyone in the eye. It's a sad place. People are not happy to be there.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut the fat at the top so that you can pay the people responsible for fulfilling 90% of your obligations to your clients an adequate wage. It's criminal that you employ a bunch of temps that don't know what they are doing, when handling such critical and sensitive information for millions of people.

Pros

Great benefits, intelligent colleagues, well-recognized brand.

Cons

Huge amount of process, only lip service to work/life balance, leadership does not practice what they preach, below-market salary.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more transparent and honest. When you hire consultants to consult, don't make them spend half their day on process.

Pros

Great co workers
Informal work environment

Cons

losing focus on key skills
Political

Advice to Senior Management

A lot work to be done to build a sustainable organization

Pros

The breadth of investment related activities associated with plan sponsor management and the money management industry

Cons

Long hours of monotonous work

Advice to Senior Management

Strategically introduce junior people to meetings and given them a small role earlier on in their careers to build self esteem and client perspective

Pros

You can perceive really a global company, you can meet very smart colleagues and well prepared people, diversity is lived and very well appreciated. Training is great. values and business vision are important reasons that inspired you to continue into this company. They are very open to new ideas and different points of view.

Cons

Not yet totally focused on clients; processes and investment take much more time than the business reality. Direct and dot line reports of executives makes the structure heavy and overcharged of political issues "bureaucracy". You waste to much more time in Self administration for several internal processes, easily deviates the focus on clients and business. HR strategy works well for high and senior positions but not for the rest.

Advice to Senior Management

Lighten the structure, faster opportunities for short term employees, with outstanding performance is needed. Refresh the way to do and handle business, especially with leaders over 10 years working in the company. To do business is an art not a forms and system filling out process.

Pros

It is a place that allow one to participate in their projects even when you are just an analyst there.
Flexible working arrangement.

Cons

In terms of compensation, it is not as rewarding as compared to the other consulting firms or financial institutions. Very complicated organisational structure.

Advice to Senior Management

Simplify the organisational structure in Mercer as it is simply too complicated. Offer more attractive compensation/benefits package to the employees to retain talent. Offer more training opportunities to the employees.