Plante & Moran Reviews

Pros

Pros:

- They treat employees like they are made of gold. Work/life balance & benefits were second to none.

- Flextime was great. Anytime I wanted to work from home, I could.

Cons

Cons:

- Not a big 4 firm, so the knowledge base and lateral knowledge transfer is sometimes lacking.

- Doesn't pay as well as big 4, but you do have a much better work/life balance.

- Some of the people they were promoting to partner right before I left did not embody the P&M values. I hope they evaluate partners on more than how much cash they bring in, and consider employee relation & development skills.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep focusing on keeping employees happy and re-evaluate partner selection criteria. Some new partners acted more like used car salesmen than professional accountants and they were losing clients and prestige because of that

Pros

Experience and exposure to various industries.

Cons

Working hours tend to be quite long depending on which office you work at.

Pros

- It is a mid-size firm that has most of the resources that would be available to a Big 4 firm.
- Open door policy for most managers/partners
- The PTO policy is very generous

Cons

- No name recognition outside of Michigan, Ohio offices (Cleveland especially) not very well known in business community.
- Most training materials address Michigan taxes quite heavily, but don't address Ohio, Illinois, and other states where the firm has offices.
- After a few years you start to feel like a used car salesmen, you need to "sell" projects to clients. It becomes very cuthroat with your peers after a while in order to meet annual sales goals, which can have rediculous thresholds.
- Benefits are awful, especially if you have children and need insurance.

Advice to Senior Management

- Need to practice the culture, not just talk about it. Also, don't talk about it so much, you feel like you get brainwashed into believing it.
- Stop wasting $ on the annual conference, use that money to invest in benefits instead, or make the 401k match better.

Pros

Public Accounting Experience is great - you will learn about tax and accounting. Offices are nice. good amount of vacation days.

Cons

The firm is only known in Michigan, no brand recognition in Illinois. Very competetive for engagements, and partners favor certain managers and staff. Most decisions are made in Michigan, so partners are powerless. Many transfers from Michigan to Chicago, who end up transferring back to Michigan. Most things are run out of the Michigan office, so if you live in Chicago, expect to be in the office at 6 am for webinar training.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on developing your staff and managers in Chicago who have built their Chicago based networks, this will help with growth in Illinois. Spend money on things like raises and bonuses instead of the very expensive annual conferences.

Pros

Great benefits, you can buy extra PTO, vision insurance

Cons

a lot of travel, high pressure

Advice to Senior Management

not so much unnecessary travel

Pros

Work atmosphere is overall positive and friendly.

Cons

Long hours, opportunities for advancement.

Pros

Excellent Vacation Package, 4 weeks and then can buy an additional 2 weeks
Flexible Hours

Cons

Administrative staff is not recognized for the hard work they put in
No Bonus
Low raises
No recognition
No growth opportunity

Pros

Management is an organization that has excellent vision and really cares about their employees. I recommend it very highly to anyone.

Cons

Sometimes you have to travel a lot during the year and like all accounting firms in the busy season you work longer hours.

Advice to Senior Management

Management is doing a great job evidenced by the fact that it has made Fortune 500's list of top 100 companies to work for 13 years running!

Pros

nice offices to work in
flexible hours
its a smaller firm with the resources of a large firm.
chicagoland is a nice place to live

Cons

too competitive for engagements
managers look to blame staff for anything that goes wrong
they talk about the golden rule, but when it comes to practicing ethics, they are just another big accounting firm.
opportunities for advancement are political

Advice to Senior Management

there is a lot of b.s. at the senior manager level. too many "type A" personalities in the office who are willing to walk over anyone.

Pros

-Very friendly work environment
-Competence of Senior Management
-Upward mobility

Cons

-As with other accounting firms, promotions can be very competitive