Forrester Reviews

Pros

The company's response this year in the face of a pandemic and recession has been nothing short of textbook. The Executive Team has been clear and transparent about the steps the company is making to ensure the physical and mental health of employees and the fiscal health of the company. Everyone is working from home, but in many ways our culture has never been stronger as the personal and professional blend together and we know each other more intimately than ever before. The people here are incredibly smart, generous, and kind. People want to do the right thing. Bring your "A game" because the standards for quality, integrity, and customer service are high. I learn something nearly every day from colleagues way smarter than I am. My immediate teammates and my manager are the most inspiring group of colleagues I've ever had.

Cons

Current events have highlighted the need for the company to be more progressive in the area of flexible work. The current flexible work policy is the option to work one day a week at home. The company needs to rethink its entire approach to flex work while honoring its strong culture of collaboration and learning. There's a productive and even exciting path forward that blends the best of the home experience and the office experience, but we need to be bold in our thinking. I hope we don't take the safe route.

Pros

Amazing, smart, and supportive colleagues across the entire ecosystem An incredible place to learn and grow Fantastic clients Competitive salary and benefits Flexible work life/balance Chief people officer who is empathetic, thoughtful, and caring. Has done an amazing job keeping (most of) the organization human in a time of disruption.

Cons

Lack of coordination and communication Toxic leadership within certain departments **Proceed with caution** Culture varies widely by team My role is being eliminated over an incredibly long time period to make way for the future alignment of products. While leadership felt that this was the best way to help us find new jobs, it has made it incredibly difficult to stay motivated. The lack of coordination, communication, and a plan for how we will move forward is has created an awful employee experience for those of us who work closely with clients. We have been buried underneath layers of poor management, and are slowly being pushed out of the company. Given all the transformation Forrester is undergoing, you would think that they would like to keep some of their talent and re-purpose them. The opportunities have been few and far between to transfer internally. Forrester is losing great people because of a very unthoughtful decision.

Pros

Decent pay/benefits for MA Quality colleagues in GTM functions Decent brand to be associated with

Cons

Tech stack is from 1990. Almost laughable to come here from any competent start up IT support and Deal desk are extremely hard to work with and are favored / entitled Collaborative Processes are dated and very clunky. Expect any interdepartmental request to take 5 meetings and 3 weeks to solve. Or just lost in limbo. Very political and the diversity cheerleaders are almost exclusively wealthy white women.

Pros

Great colleagues. Forrester is a great place if you're interested in surrounding yourself by intelligent people. There is a great buzz of information around the office, you can really engage with people around you on some interesting topics that range from research on marketing, financial services, etc.

Cons

The pay is pretty poor, especially for New York standards. At the end of the day the impact of the company feels rather shallow. The whole business model is rooted around trying to be a "thought leader" in the MANY verticals the company focuses on. The quality of research used to support this model is rather poor in my opinion. A research engagement basically consists of aggregating qualitative interviews from executives at different business. The only data used is survey data that in many cases is hard to access due to cumbersome internal processes. If you look at the way companies are operating now, what's the appeal of going to this outside entity when all the data relevant to optimizing business performance can be aggregated and actioned upon internally? Forrester feels like a dinosaur company flailing for relevance in the modern era of advanced analytics and data science.

Pros

Forrester is simply a great place to work in the Research business. Interesting work, constant opportunities to learn and incredibly supportive coworkers.

Cons

Strategic direction can be unclear, doesn't do change too well, and advancement paths can be opaque