While Slalom consultants excel at building technology solutions, they often fail at selling solutions that are a good fit for clients. They introduce solutions prematurely, significantly shortchanging the planning phase of a project. Unfortunately, many Slalom implemented solutions suffer low user adoption because the right planning was not done up front.
While this may not be true across all Slalom locations, in-fighting, has become all too common in the Atlanta office. Recently, Slalom introduced several new middle management roles that were intended to help retain consultants by providing advancement opportunities. However, these roles were not well defined, and they created confusion, distrust, and, ultimately power struggles within the organization. Unfortunately, consultant morale has suffered as a result.
Many clients see Slalom employees as contractors (not consultants) so be prepared to toss your best practices out the window and rework your deliverables until you are blue in the face to please clients who see you as nothing more than an order taker. Do not forget that a senior role at Slalom typically does not mean that you’ll be given more challenging work to do only that you’ll be expected to do junior level work faster.
If your enthusiasm for Slalom does not rise to the level of religious zealotry, you are probably not going to advance far with this company. Be prepared to attend all company after-hour functions and stay until last call if you want to stay visible and relevant. Also, you will be encouraged to provide feedback about Slalom on surveys and on social networking sites with the unspoken understanding that it won’t be negative.
Beware of unexplained delays and sloppy bookkeeping. Don’t be surprised if your vacation hours disappear or the utilization rate that determines your annual raise and bonus ends up lower than the time sheets indicate. Even routine changes, such as converting from hourly to salary or taking an earned sabbatical, take weeks to get approved.
