Nice coworkers but can't recommend leadership - Consultant PartnerComm, Inc. Employee Review

- Immediate opportunity to work with big-name clients: Within a few weeks of starting at the company, I was on calls with HR leadership at Fortune 500 companies and creating work for them. That is a fantastic and rare opportunity for a young consultant. - Family-like culture and fantastic co-workers: Most of my co-workers were sweet, likable, hard-working and easy to work with. The family that owns the company invites employees into their lives and after building relationships with them treats them with love and like family. - Loving owners and leadership: Kind of already mentioned it, but the family that runs the company genuinely loves and cares for their employees, and considers them family. For employees who are willing to invest in relationships with them, the reward is a pure, positive, and rewarding relationship with leadership. - Amazing unlimited PTO policy: Speaks for itself! - Small enough for you to be able to stand out and not get lost in a corporate sea of employees: Like I mentioned above, within a few weeks of starting I got to be creating work and relating to clients directly. Everyone in the office, including leadership, knew me and was ready to invest in me as an employee. - Abundant opportunity to learn and try new things: The environment is extremely rewarding for those that step up and are enthusiastic about taking risks to try new things. When I did this, I was met with grace, and ample opportunity for advancement and new responsibilities. I learned SO MUCH during my time there and felt that leadership was sincerely personally invested in my growth, which I am so grateful for. -Competitive pay for consultants just starting out The pay was generous for a young, in-experienced consultant, and they were EXTREMELY generous when it came to bonuses.

- Leadership can struggle with work/life boundaries with employees: The family that runs the company demonstrates extreme commitment to client satisfaction, which has contributed greatly to the company's success and is very admirable. However, at times, they offer things to clients without consulting the employees who will be the ones responsible for providing the work, making employees work extra hours/make sacrifices without warning. Leadership will also frequently ask employees to take the time to help them with personal tasks, not included in their job description: Obviously, it is their company and they technically have every right to do this. However, employees are evaluated heavily based on billable hours and time spent completing personal tasks for leadership is not billable, so it can be frustrating for employees. Note about this con: When I worked there, I was often asked to complete these "personal tasks," and while it was discouraging at times, leadership made their appreciation very apparent and I knew that they would not count those non-billable hours against me. How much this con bothers an employee really is up to them, and I wouldn't say it is disqualifying at all of the company. Additionally, employees do get to reap the rewards of leadership's practice of going above and beyond for clients, and leadership is good about acknowledging them when they do. - Leadership can work inefficiently at times: Often, despite a client being satisfied with the work we had done for them, leadership would say they weren't satisfied and make us redo the deliverable. This would result in even more phenomenal work, which is awesome to be a part of, but because these updates would not be requested by the client, they were considered non-billable. This loses the company A LOT of money and also decreases employees billable hours significantly. Leadership heavily evaluates employees billable hours as well as company profit when offering bonuses or letting people go, so this does inefficiency does come back to bite employees. - Strict in-office policy for Dallas employees (no WFH flexibility): The only exception to this is when an employee is sick, which leadership is very understanding about. But, if an employee is sick, they either have to work from home, or use PTO hours. - Nepotism is apparent at times: Most of the C-Suite positions at the company are filled by leadership's children, which is fine and they have every right to have it this way. Plus, their kids are also some of the most hardworking people I have ever met, and make abundant sacrifices for the success of the company. However, at times, their parents gave them WFH or schedule flexibility they did not offer other employees. Also, there are differences in the way leadership responds to pushback or disagreement when it comes from one of their kids, compared to non-related employees.

-You get a paycheck twice per month. -You may work alongside some talented colleagues and learn a thing or two from them.

Most of PartnerComm’s employees and leadership do not occupy any marginalized identities. If you occupy any marginalized identities, I implore you not to accept a position here. *Important note: There are 7 C-level execs, and 5 of them are in the same nuclear family. If you want to succeed at PartnerComm, you’d better have a certain last name that starts with “K”. I encourage you to poke around online to get an idea of this group's values. You might find some (nightmarish) conservative and libertarian ideologies that often show up insidiously in the workplace. How PartnerComm tries to entice candidates: -Competitive pay: PComm claims they offer competitive pay, but in my experience that’s false and pay raises are rare. If you’re lucky enough to get a pay raise, it will likely be meager. If you can afford to get by on a smaller salary than you deserve, PComm can be a decent starting point if you’re just trying to get experience to break into the consulting industry. But as long as you’re in this organization, you’ll remain overworked and underpaid. PComm ensures this by avoiding pay transparency and gaslighting their employees. -Unlimited PTO: “Unlimited PTO” is misleading. Employees have been reprimanded for taking too much PTO, including having their EOY bonuses reduced. This is NOT the employee’s fault. In reality it means management failed to provide adequate guidelines for the policy. If you must work for PComm, I recommend sticking to a “standard” amount of PTO (maybe 10-13 business days per year). Also, they have a “blackout” period during busy season (roughly August through November) when employees are not allowed to take PTO. Related, PComm provides paid holidays for 6 of the 11 major federal holidays, so that’s at least something. -Company Maui trip: This trip used to happen every year. Now it happens once every two years, only for employees who have reached a certain length of employment. I’ve been to Maui, so I can say with credibility — of course it’s nice, but trust me that four days of meetings in a cold hotel ballroom near a beach are NOT worth the toxicity you’ll have to deal with the rest of the time. You’ll get almost zero appreciation/recognition for your hard work and talent compared to the malice and venom you’ll receive from leadership if they decide they don’t like you. The Maui trip doesn’t make up for this failing. -Flat structure: PComm has no organizational structure beyond the distinction of a few C-level folks* (see important note above) who don’t use any discernible management practices. They try to spin this as a positive, but in reality it means you’re on your own with very little support. It also means you can be fired any time, for any reason (or no reason at all). Instead of meritocracy, PComm operates via nepotism and cronyism. To be in good standing, you must constantly manage others’ perceptions of you, much like a high school popularity contest. Instead of cultivating high performers through meaningful mentoring relationships, opportunities for professional development, goal-setting, and constructive performance reviews, PComm relies solely on ~vibes~. If you must accept a position here, consider these tips for survival: 1. Don’t disclose any personal information to anyone beyond innocuous things like your pet’s name or your favorite sports team. I’ve heard about and personally witnessed leadership having wildly inappropriate, unethical, and outright illegal conversations about employees’ personal matters. 2. Do your best to fly under the radar and avoid working with the “K” C-suite bunch. The less direct contact you have with them, the safer you’ll likely be. 3. Be cautious and discerning about who you trust. If you’re interacting with someone and your gut is telling you something is off, listen to your intuition and keep them at arm’s length. Self-preservation is key. 4. Do everything you can to care for your own physical, mental, and financial health. I’ve seen PComm employees emotionally traumatized and even physically disabled due to the impacts of chronic extreme stress. You must be intentional about caring for the wellbeing of your body and spirit. PartnerComm doesn’t care about any collateral damage you suffer as long as your labor keeps lining their pockets. To PComm leadership, their employees are not people; they are menial underlings. 5. Safeguard your security by keeping your resume up to date, networking, seeking opportunities for professional development on your own, and applying for other jobs. Do not get comfortable, and keep building up your personal and professional safety net. 6. On a philosophical note, read up on class consciousness and late-stage capitalism. This will help you recognize the dynamics occurring around you and understand these things are happening by design. As a PartnerComm employee, you are not a human being; you are merely a cog in a machine designed solely to increase the “K” group’s wealth. And if your humanity ever compromises the efficiency of that machine, even to a minuscule degree, they will discard you without a second thought. PartnerComm leadership is keenly aware of all the negative reviews. To address that, instead of improving anything about the way they operate their company or treat their staff, they ask current employees to post positive reviews on Glassdoor. (That’s a flagrant abuse of power.) There's a reason you're seeing so many of the same themes repeated over and over again in these reviews. Where there’s smoke, THERE IS FIRE. Please trust those of us who have been there, and remember you deserve far better.