- “High School”: It’s a juvenile culture. People drink a lot, co-workers date and hook up, people gossip. There are cliques, which completely dictate whether you’re included/excluded in opportunities .
- Cliques and Favoritism: People use the phrase “inner circle” to describe the cliques within Slalom. The “Inner Circle” is typically a group of people with leadership titles and who have been with the company for awhile. If you are in the ‘Inner Circle’ you’re golden - they’ll pull you into growth opportunities and leadership conversations, and your career within the company can take off. If you’re not in the clique, it doesn’t matter how much you do, you won’t be included in any growth considerations.
- Unclear/Limited Opportunities for Growth: Slalom is a flat organization. It’s well-defined what each role is (e.g., MD, PAL, CSL, CM). But, jumping from one to the other is ambiguous and entirely dependent on the relationships you build within the company (see above point). In my experiences, I saw multiple average/low performers move up because they buddied up with CSPs or MDs, while high performers who didn’t specifically befriend the higher ups were glossed over and eventually left the company. Very sad.
- No Growth Development Framework: Slalom does a poor job of grooming leaders. There is no formal process of rating performance, or managing high performers. I’ve seen many top performers get frustrated with going above and beyond and not moving up, while others who buddy-up with the MDs get chosen for growth without doing much.
- Elements of a Toxic Culture: Given the above, Slalom has many elements of toxic workplace culture. Favoritism is a huge part of one’s path in the company. As an example, I was personally workplace-bullied by someone for months who saw me as a “threat” to getting promoted. I eventually left due to this behavior (and other things), while the other got promoted even after not hitting key metrics and being on the bench for over a quarter. Wow. Care to take a guess on why? See the above few points.
- Awkward Diversity and Inclusion Rollout: Slalom has been trying to make strides in diversity and inclusion (which is a great thing…and also interesting given my comments above on favoritism). When this first kicked off, there were at least a couple DI leads who told other individuals that they shouldn’t be promoted based on their gender or skin color, because they were trying to even out the quotas. Yikes. I hope they’ve gotten things together and are on a more inclusive path.
