A people first organization, focused on helping clients and employees grow and succeed.
Pros
Having worked in three other consulting firms (large and small) and speaking with colleagues at other firms, I can attest that no consulting firm does a better job of providing growth opportunities to employees and being focused on their development. The training and development programs match those of the largest consulting firms and the on-the-job coaching and mentoring is exceptional. People genuinely care about people -- both professionally and personally. There are people here who are some of my closest friends and I know will support me through anything I may encounter. Through their actions, it is clear the executive team is committed to the company values and growing the company. They follow a long-term vision, with annual updates to the strategy to continue to raise the bar in terms of breadth and depth of our capabilities. The continued, measured evolution of the company strategy is making a material impact on the company results -- allowing the firm to both go "up-market" into larger clients while also supporting mid-market companies in their transformational changes. These projects give consultants, even our college new hires, an opportunity to make a material, positive impact at their clients and grow faster professionally than any of their peers at larger firms. Many of our Directors are home-grown and the three year goal of the firm is that in the future, most (if not all) of new Directors are internal promotions. Since day one, the company has had a value of 100% employee ownership -- and the recent conversion to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) has made the legal structure consistent with that value. The ESOP conversion helped the company deal with succession issues for two of our founders -- and all future generations of employees. Because our founders were committed to the business remaining independent, they left substantial money on the table for themselves in order to make the ESOP conversion happen in a way that benefits all of our employees who choose to make WMP a significant part of their career. With a way to systematically give equity in the business to all of our employees and have a currency for future acquisitions, the company is now in a great place to grow and incent everyone to stay. The ESOP is a "get rich slow" tax-deferred compensation program. You will not get wealthy working here only for a couple of years, but if you stay, the ESOP can become a nice piece of wealth capital on top of market compensation, bonuses, and 401(k) matches. Only 18% of US adults own stock in the company they work for -- and all WMP employees are in that category. With no outside funding, in 11 years WMP has grown from four founders to 400+ employees -- and I believe we will outpace that growth in the next 11 years.
Cons
I hate the phrase work-life balance, but whatever balance means to you, it can be difficult to achieve at WMP. The expectations for performance here are high. You will travel and this isn't an 9-5 job. The more people invest in their work, the more they are rewarded with opportunity and compensation. While personal commitments are honored, because people work so hard here, sometimes you feel like a "slacker" for not keeping up at work due to needs at home. In reading some of these reviews, apparently we have a few unhappy people working here who apparently aren't doing anything about it by talking to leadership, suggesting changes, doing what they can to improve the culture, etc.. I can't understand why we have people here apparently so miserable, and yet unmotivated to leave.