Guidehouse reviews

Guidehouse is a large company that has grown much faster than it can manage effectively. There is little organization or standardization internally. While leadership acknowledges challenges, actual solutions are incredibly slow to materialize. To some extent, you get the sense that the lack of effective solutions is due to the constraints and inflexibility around performance metrics from PE ownership. The internal challenges can create a lot of extra administrative time that you don't anticipate coming in, making it much harder to actually achieve your utilization goals even though you are often working more than a full week. Like many firms right now, Guidehouse is on a hiring frenzy but, in a few critical areas, they are hiring people who do not have the appropriate qualifications and there is a major disconnect between the skills and knowledge that leadership thinks team members have and what they actually do bring to the table. This disconnect leads to constant scrambling from project managers to try and locate the appropriate expertise to deliver on contractual commitments. While leadership says that they want to address this by brining PMs into the business development process, they do not always bring the right PMs into the BD process because they are reaching out to who they know informally rather than putting in the time and effort to locate the appropriate person.

Guidehouse doesn't spend money on it's employees in the same way I've seen other consulting firms do. Social events and corporate social responsibility efforts largely fall on the employees to organize, which has been tremendously difficult during COVID. In my 4 years here I only remember 2 events where the company has invested money for people to meet and have fun. It seems very apparent that the company is focused on the bottom line, often at the expense of company culture and cohesion. There are also no "spot bonuses" or other instant feedback recognition, and everything depends on the annual performance feedback cycle. There has also been a problem with attrition lately without significant changes in compensation.