Pros
Location Office environment and amenities Administrative support Great clients
Cons
Backstabbing culture. People get ahead by sabotaging others. Company has upward and downward feedback sessions whereby a picture of the employee being rated is projected onto a screen. Then all of the employees at a level below that employee can rate the employee- even if they have never worked with the employee. The rating process at Towers Watson is comparable to a fraternity/sorority rush process. There are no checks and balances to the process to validate the feedback being given. If one person says someone is not approachable - then "unapproachable " is in the review. Sitting through the process listening to "feedback" on others is awful because the feedback can be very cruel. People criticize people for stuttering, attack their appearance, confidence etc. People hear feedback and can give feedback about people they have never worked with. There is differential treatment by level. If you are a newly hired director you get flower with a welcome note from the "Towers Watson family." If you are a senior consultant or lower you get no welcome whatsoever. It is made very clear early on that if you are not a director or an account director (i.e. sales) you are not important at Towers Watson. The firm is particularly nasty to the analysts entering the firm. They go through a sort of hazing process that more senior employees do not experience. The morale is terrible because employees do not trust each other. Management has tried to impose "mandatory" team outings to improve morale, but less than half the employees show up even when the outings are during work hours. There are constant battles over billable hours allotted to projects. Senior consultants often bully more junior people and newer consultants into not billing all of their time worked on a project. People face a dilemma to either not meet their annual billable hour goals or be slaughtered in the public "feedback" sessions. Leaders do not accept accountability when financial numbers are not being met. They make rash decisions and lash out against junior employees who are not busy, even though they have no responsibility for selling work. Directors place blame on the selling team for not winning business even when the feedback received was that the consulting fees were too high and it was the directors who determined/approved the fees. Senior management readily cuts jobs when numbers are down and then rehires when there is work. There is no job security. There is no work life balance at all. It is typical for management to not allow you to use PTO. If you have any free time at all, your job is in jeopardy. Hard work is not appreciated and not rewarded. Favoritism is rampant. If you are not one of the chosen few, your day to day experience here is miserable. Billable hours and sales goals are not adjusted for most managers. So to meet their own individual objectives managers neglect the employees under their supervision. They do not have time for coaching, recommending training, helping others to establish relationships etc.