Bad place to work. Limited career progression and partners have favourites. - Anonymous employee RSM Employee Review

1.0
6 Mar 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1) It's good if you want to have a top 10 firm on your CV but it's not the ideal place to work long term. 2) There are interesting and varied clients to work on.

Cons

1. Big 4 culture but the salary is below average. Benefits also not great. 2. Partners had favourites and use the same staff all the time. Promotions are based on your ability to brown nose and not on merit. 3. Feedback given at appraisals is not listened to. Ultimately, if you are not happy you are pretty much forced to leave since nothing will change. 4. Long hours culture, and then they resent it when you try to claim the overtime that you are due. 5. A lot of pressure to meet targets. 6. A lot of the management were very unfriendly towards those below manager level. There is a toxic culture when they bad mouth you behind your back, even on issues that are outside your control.

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RSM Response
7y
Thank you for your feedback about your experience of working in our London office. I am not sure which department you worked in, but I believe that my response will be appropriate regardless of your specialism. We regularly benchmark our salaries and benefits with our competitors, and also with the marketplace generally, and spend a lot of time and effort ensuring that we are competitive and abreast of market developments. We are currently undertaking a wholesale review of our benefits package to ensure that it is as attractive and flexible as possible. We have a firmwide appraisal system in place and also mentoring within teams and across the wider office. All promotions are reviewed and ultimately approved by a team head, and these promotions take into account the performance of the individual, coupled with a business case for the promotion. We do upward, downward and in some cases 360 feedback, to ensure that individuals are measured, rewarded and promoted according to merit and their performance. Unfortunately, the nature of professional services firms is that there will inevitably be times where there is a pressure to complete client work, and we try to manage this as best we can and allow flexibility of working hours. We conduct an employee engagement survey to ask staff their views on a number of key areas, and are currently working through our action plan within the London office resulting from the most recent survey undertaken in August. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you every success in your future career, and I am happy to discuss this further with you if you so wish. Jez Filley, London Office Managing Partner

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Pros

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Cons

The pay is below big 4

2.0
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Pros

- As assurance associate that came over from another public accounting firm, some pros are the ability to work with several different teams. - Hybrid, 2-4 days in office - Learn from senior associates - At my last acct firm never did inventory observations, so got the chance to see what that was like here at RSM

Cons

- Some seniors associates aren’t able to explain or teach which plays a part in your development as a first year associate or intern. I feel first year, intern should be able to leave feedback on senior associates. As if I’m having trouble with a senior who am I supposed to go, due to the hierarchy system they have implemented at RSM. - Can be Clicky & your colleagues will be friends in your face and talk behind you behind your back, I’ve seen it happen to others so I’m pretty sure it happened to me. Houston office can be toxic - Hierarchy system, leave people thinking with senior job titles that they are above you and you can be treated like sh*t - Favortism, you don’t have an equal chance here, because every first year is not put in the same position to succeed. Some first years are able to work closely with partners and the same colleagues but different clients which is where they can have the opportunity to build great relationships while some have to bounce from senior to senior having to learn for each client and adapt to how the senior wants the job done which in turn doesn’t help build relationships. As one can senior want something done such as accounts payable one way then you get to another client and the senior wants accounts payable done another way which makes you look bad in their eyes. Which doesn’t set you up for success at all and can overall lead to a layoff.

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