Where to begin? Well let's see for starters, the decline in culture just from what I observed was swift and precipitous and it was mostly due to lack of transparency unprofessionalism of upper management. No joke I remember a kick off benefits call where the person hosting the call got very rude and defensive to someone's question. That destroys morale.
Like a previous reviewer stated, a lack of transparency caused the biggest issues for employees that had certifications requiring CPE's. We would see email after email of them promising that they would set up a learning portal (never happened), management made sure you knew it was an 'open door' policy (joke) but when asked a question about reimbursement for CPE's, the email was forwarded to someone else then not responded to, very unprofessional. This happened the three times I tried to inquire. As a CPA you can't miss your CPE requirements especially for ethics or you will get censored by the board of accountancy. Management was silent on reimbursement which makes you angry why a company with so much cash was shy about helping employees maintain their certifications.
They actually fired me which I found quite comical because the reason I was on the bench was due to a complete communication breakdown and utter failure on management. Long story short, Guidehouse's brilliant strategy of not continuing to be an accounting firm and rather a management consulting firm, caused them to lose SEVERAL very lucrative DoD audit readiness contracts (I was on one of them). My team initially was told that we lost the prime spot and would have to be sub-contractors (okay that sucks if you're a senior trying to get promoted, good luck with hitting your revenue targets). Then we were told the negotiations were not going well and Guidehouse was having a difficult time finding a spot for all the existing team members, not good. We asked management if we should be finding another project just in case negotiations fell through, to which we were told to STAY PUT and NOT LOOK FOR A PROJECT. So we did what we were told.
It wasn't until THREE DAYS before the project ended that we were told that we would not be able to return to the client. You heard that right, three days! All of us were seething over this because anyone in the industry knows bench time is not good. A couple days later, myself, another senior, the manager and the partner had a conference call regarding staffing and we were told that basically the only people that could come back were two seniors and an associate, no manager. Basically it would be just associates at the mercy of Deloitte (if you have ever been at the mercy as a sub-contractor as a competitor with no manager of your own around, it's asking for trouble). The partner said to us on the call, that if we choose to pursue another project we are free to do so. So I emailed the partner letting him know that was my plan to do so but I worked it out with the partner that I would stick around until a suitable replacement could be found (FINE). Come that Monday, I had to find out from another senior associate that I would not be returning to the project (of which the partner confirmed). Apparently the partner was throwing a tantrum because I didn't want to stay on the project!?
After that, I used my network at the firm to the best of my ability to find another project but could not find anything. I suspect the partner blacklisted me and lo and behold, two weeks later I was fired.
In summary, this is a sinking ship due to unprofessional, vindictive, narcissistic management. The best of PwC Public Sector left with the sell of to competitors or transferred to PwC commercial. OH did I mention? I tried transferring to commercial before the sell-off finalized and HR basically said that they would not allow anyone to transfer to PwC commercial due to some mysterious arrangement between the two companies that they were not telling employees about? Very shady practices, so glad to be out of that place!
