Perkins & Will Reviews

Cons

a few large firm dynamics, hard to get to know everyone sometimes.

Cons

Revolving door. Trouble securing projects.

Cons

Reasonable working hours. Big team size

Cons

I worked in the San Francisco marketing department. I found the marketing and design leadership within the office as well as the marketing leadership at the corporate level listless, incoherent, and strikingly unready to cope with the challenges they face. How many times can you get excited about some new database or internal initiative or pursuit that fizzles and goes nowhere?

In the SF office, it was a very catty and clique-y environment. I heard the human resources person call a highly respected senior employee "sad" (as in pathetic) directly in front of me, and I was struck by racially insensitive comments occasionally made about a foreign coworker by the marketing manager, who seemed mostly focused on finding ways to make every conversation all about herself (foremost), or about the people who are out to get her. Meanwhile, the principals have no guidance on how to achieve their sales goals, the office is losing projects left and right, and no one can figure out why. It's the marketing!

The SF office is struggling from a lack of design leadership, hemorrhaging skilled and ambitious designers who suddenly realized they'd been pigeonholed into doing CA eternally, losing projects that they either had or should easily have won--and no one can admit that so many of the problems come from the laissez-faire, head-in-the-sand attitude of the marketing team, starting from the CMO on down. Despite all the verbiage about diversity (window-dressing) and social purpose (which is code for pro bono projects where they don't have to waste too many otherwise billable hours), it's an firm that has no coherent vision for how to represent itself. All that really seems to matter to the firm's leadership is whether or not they've moved up in the rankings or are beating their competitors in gross revenue. I know this sounds reductive. It's not. I think they've come a long way from the even more banal work of the 70s and 80s, but along the path somewhere, they seemed to have forgotten that the strength of an organization lies in the integrity and vision of its leaders, and, on that account, this is a very weak organization. Clients meeting with leadership in the SF office would reasonably choose to spend their millions elsewhere--I wouldn't trust these people either.

Also the health benefits are pretty bad.

Cons

Growth method can make consistency in work methods difficult

Cons

Mass exodus from the New York office of anyone under 35 and is driven. Terrible management who may be good designers but no idea how to run a business in New York as well as in upper management.

Cons

Corporate policies and internal barriers limit innovation and growth.

Cons

there are no cons that I can think of

Cons

Slow promotion rate with small pay increase

Cons

The staffing process seems to be something we’ve struggled with for the last few years. It’s slowly becoming more transparent, but has a way to go before it’s great.

Our performance review process is not structured. It works well for those individuals who are proactive in requesting formal feedback, but is not ideal for those who need a push to schedule a review.

There is not a consistent process/set of tools for Project Managers. Project Architects are often required to wear both a PA and PM hat.