Well, not all the critiques are unmerited.
The biggest one is that, despite "standardized" roles across the DC office, there is a HEAVY bias towards people who have come up through the ranks at Chemonics, whether or not they deserve it. This has a lot of cons for the work as a whole, because you get staff who are unfamiliar with anything that's not Chemonics, but the bigger issue is that it often feels that when it comes to moving ahead, everyone else is playing with a set of rules you've never read. There's certainly something to be said for promoting from within, but not to this extent. As a result, great people leave, all the time. (And it's even worse for staff who aren't from the US. You were a DCOP? Great, welcome to your entry-level role.)
A related issue is that the company, despite its best efforts, still has not a clue how to handle staff and teams whose expertise lies in specific technical areas as opposed to operations or management. The new job classification system should theoretically help with this, but it was rolled out so poorly, so inequitably, and with such gaping holes that I wouldn't be surprised to see it abandoned. The technical practices are full of people who truly know their areas and are passionate about them, and, if they're lucky, they get a tiny budget and have to constantly justify their existence. Meanwhile, project managers who have served in operational capacity on two projects in the same area are trotted forward for clients as "technical experts." You have actual technical experts! Use them! Recognize project managers for managerial excellence instead, because that's also a real challenge!
They have to work on diversity. I mean, who doesn't, but really.
And, finally, every time there's a problem, leadership will do a massive overhaul. This is, at best, counterproductive. If they perhaps focused on making small, meaningful changes instead of assigning teams to new regions and divisions every six months, they would be able to build on existing work. Instead, there's an overriding feeling that I would describe as "transformation fatigue."
