Poor management - management (senior directors and above) doesnt know what theyre doing. They have no inside knowledge of how to complete tasks, or what it'll take to complete tasks. At a very high level Senior Managing Directors do know what needs to be done. But will never know how to get into the actual details.
Illegal HR practices - A lower-level employee notified me that they the company was placing them on unpaid leave due to their covid status. The former employee told me that they have a strongly held religious belief and had a signed letter from their church. FTI denied their religious beliefs due to 2 factors: 1. the former employee was subjected to travel 80% of the time. To my knowledge, anyone can travel freely within the united states with or without the vaccine. Mostly all employers are subjected to honor the employee's serious held religious beliefs. 2. The letter the former employee showed me stated that the firm was operating as if it was a private practice. FTI is a publicly traded company. I told the former employee to seek legal advice.
Do not promote deserving employees - Will only promote employees if they suck up or are really friendly to management. There is no structure or guidance the firm uses to promote an employee. There are very general vague guidelines, however, an employee could meet a director level competency while they are still a consultant, based on the vague guidelines. At roundtable discussions, they compare employees based on a favorability scale and not based on their work and accomplishments. I've seen this first hand as a coach.
Horrible diversity practices - I am not a diverse individual, however, i've had the opportunity to sit on a new program designed to keep and retain top diverse talent because i am a woman. This program to me, felt like it was more of a coaching/venting session minorities were facing while working here. I've heard some horrible stories and corroborated them with some directors i knew within that sector and they confirmed it was mostly true. I've even discussed with HR what i was told and to my knowledge they just had a "conversation" to sweep the issues under the rug. IF I WAS A MINORITY I WOULD NOT WORK HERE. In the same program, there are minorities who've been here for years who are expressing their anger for not being promoted or compensated fairly against their peers. Being exposed to this information, is a horrible practice, because the lower level employees who just started are hearing and seeing the same things I was, which was not assuring to be a minority and work at FTI. Instead the leaders of the group make it seem that its your responsibility to own your own career, and flip the issues addressed back on the employees.
Your work never gets noticed - I am one of the few directors who actually knows what to do and how to get the tasks accomplish both on a high level and lower level. Theres an employee within a different sector than me, who also is a minority, who I engaged to help me with excel and tableau work. This employee was a Consultant and had more years of professional experience than some directors. This employee did mostly all of the work in the engagements they were assigned and completed firm-wide (internal) incentives and was never recognized for their accomplishments or even put up for a promotion.
Horrible career management - FTI will only staff employees based on their familiarity with the line of work. This is great for higher level employees, but horrible for lower-level employees. Lower-level employees should be staffed on all engagements so that they can learn. FTI does not believe in this theory, because they expect the lower level employees to be subject matter experts, so the higher level employees have less work to do, and more time to land clients.
Archaic practices - The company offers very old and traditional solutions. We constantly lose bids due to our approach and ways of handling new technology. Take tableau for example. I was told that we lost a bid by a client i used to go to school with because another consulting firm pitched with more bells and whistles of new aged technology. Therefore, I asked around who had tableau experience and it turned out that a lower level employee in a different sector than mine, (who I've mentioned above) had the experience to walk me through the basics. I had to go through hoops and obstacles to first get a tableau license, since this isnt a firm-wide objective. Now, it seems like the firm is expecting lower level people to be acquainted with tableau due to the need in the market.
No communication between segments - there are no communication between segments. Each segment works in silos and instead of being able to refer a client to another service line we offer, the client goes with another firm. FTI keeps trying to mitigate this issue, however, people only know what their segment does and that it, i have not seen a successful approach by management to solve this issue (mind you we are a consulting firm, we specialize in problem solving.) I have no idea what other segments offer clients or even if my clients can gain additional help from another service line.
