A potentially great place to work being destroyed by a toxic culture propagated by middle/upper management - Government Consulting Group BerryDunn Employee Review

Advancement is not based upon qualifications, experience, results or merit. Climbing the corporate ladder is achieved solely through some mix of: sucking up to the right people; excessively over-billing your client(s); forfeiting your real life and devoting 100% of your time to work; mastering the toxic political culture of the office. "Work/Life Balance" is constantly spoken of during corporate brainwashing events but is an impossibility if you wish to experience any career progression at the company. Of course, there are those whom are allotted special privileges to do as they please as a result of being close with the "inner circle" of middle/upper management. Extremely poor sense of teamwork / trust among peers. A very cutthroat culture has been put in place by a handful of people in management, encouraging employees to lie, cheat and steal the ideas of others to get ahead. You will find yourself internalizing your discoveries/ideas, as broadcasting them will often lead to someone bringing the idea to management and claiming it as their own, sometimes with you sitting in the same room. Inconsistent treatment to employees, regardless of successes & client relationships. You may be a top performing employee of the company with impeccable numbers and invaluable client relationships, yet you will still find yourself on the outside looking in unless you immerse yourself in the "*brown-nosing" culture that is encouraged by management. Regardless of performance, some employees are allowed free reign to have flexible hours, flexible travel schedules, work from home privileges etc. whereas their peers whom do not participate in the aforementioned toxic culture will be reprimanded for identical behavior. Lack of transparency in salary/benefits adjustments. Salaries for employees are only altered once per year in July at the start of the company's fiscal year. No information is transmitted to the employee regarding how or why their salary will be adjusted. For example: you may find yourself requesting a raise in November based on merit & results - you will be told to wait until July of the next year for any possible increase. If you decide to stick it out and wait for this potential salary increase, you will be given no information as to whether you are on track to meet your requested salary or not. On July 1, you will receive a piece of paper describing your new salary; not once are you spoken to by anyone in management or HR regarding the reasoning behind this number. The entire process is unnecessarily secretive and passively aggressive, highlighting a consistent lack of respect shown to employees. Confusion of managerial hierarchy. During my time at BerryDunn, I had anywhere between 3-6 "bosses" at any given time. Although there is a very linear progression path at the company, it is often difficult to please all of your superiors consistently and understanding proper escalation paths is overly convoluted.