Pros
1. You can broaden your skillsets relatively easily due to the needs (read: lack of resources) of the company and their flexibility towards role changes; again, due to the needs and nature of the business (they are an agency, no matter how much they brand themselves as a consultancy), you tend to not be able to grow in "depths" in any specific discipline/verticals. 2. There are no SOP in a corporate, bureaucratic sense, so things are less rigid. Though do expect some processes, especially within team/departments. Also, do expect these processes to be not as organised; definitely not the place if you are used to corporate rigidity, at the same time, will require a lot of maturity and initiative if you prefer a "startup" culture. 3. Perks are pretty good... just one major caveat... it only becomes "pretty good" after Year 3/4. Without this context, you will wonder why perks are great but people are disgrunted. 4. Lots of autonomy... autonomy to take ownership over your work, autonomy to explore entrepreneur-ing opportunities outside of OM, and autonomy to be creative and learn. Therefore if you are someone who need to be spoon-fed or hand-held, this is not the environment for you.
Cons
1. Directors/Leadership tend to take a passive-aggressive approach. Perhaps this is subjective (please don't use this as your defence, just read on), but regardless, communication is as much how people actually feel when receiving from you as how you think/want to make people feel when you communicate to them. So it doesn't matter if you think you are not passive aggressive as long as we think you are. The speaker has the responsibility to ensure that he/she communicates right, and and help the listener to receive it as intended.. if speaker doesn't want to take responsibility to ensure the listener receives as intended, then the speaker shouldn't have any expectation towards the listener. Period. 2. Grudges aplenty as evident in the subtle passing remarks and occasional negativity on individual's social media. Ever been confided in by a Director who, in my opinion, took things too personal. This is nothing against ranting in your own personal/social media space, but if you want to do that, either don't let your colleagues/mentees follow you, or don't be in leadership position. After all, they say "with great power comes great responsibility" — responsibility to make sacrifices on things normal humans enjoy but someone with power can't. If not why do politicians need to be so careful with their public image and try so hard to secure their private life? 3. Tend to have a hard time receiving criticism. There's not much of a self-reflection culture/habit/attitude/behaviour among the Directors, or even if there are, the focus would quickly shift away from the criticisms they received. If it happens at a personal level, it usually creates a very toxic and distrusting environment, and probably result in #1 & #2. 4. No unity among Directors... well mostly 3 v 1. This is so damn obvious even though they try to hide it behind a united facade. It's one thing to have disagreements, and another to spread the disagreement among team members in a very unhealthy manner (read: rants/gossip). This, again, often creates a toxic and distrusting environment. 5. There are a lot of talks on culture and people and though it sounds good at the beginning, it is too good to be true. Or perhaps, it was good until it got bad. Seems like they lost it in my last years. 6. OM executed a salary "deferment" initiative recently to handle the Covid-19 situation, and presumably to curb losses/allow for more liquidity. Here's the catch — it is only a salary deferment if you stay in OM all the way till they pay back whatever salary they have deferred. If you leave for greener pastures before they pay you back, you won't get your "deferred" salary — it is basically a pay cut, which they will return once finances are back in order because "they are great employers", provided you are still with them. Feedbacks were given to leadership that deferment = postponement regardless of whether the employee stays all the way or not, and if they wanted to structure it differently from a deferment (as you and I both understand it, and as clearly defined by various dictionaries), then they should call it as it is instead of trying to brand it as "deferment" just to make the initiative more appealing and acceptable. Another feedback given was that it would be very unfair to not return the deferred salary to someone who left because this salary was fair and contractually agreed compensation for work done. Obviously these feedbacks went on deaf ears. In fact, the leadership's response was about how we had been benefitting tremendously monetary-wise and we should stay loyal and stick with the company through thick and thin, again, missing the point. Here's the thing... - Firstly, contrary to popular beliefs, looking for greener pastures has nothing to do with loyalty but everything to do with trying to feed the number of mouths back home. Everyone has different risk appetite. Why can't people who leave halfway get their pays back when you clearly call it "Pay Deferment"? - Secondly, if you want to initiate a pay cut without rejections, then do so formally and re-negotiate our contracts. That way, the ball is on our courts to accept or not. If we don't, just go through the proper process of firing us and giving us our due notice. Why initiate a "Pay Deferment" on a volunteer basis but structure it as a pay cut, and expect everyone to be on board with it and if we don't you start guilt-tripping us with all the above-mentioned responses? - Thirdly, stop using past benefits to make us bend to your will. We earned the benefits in the past because of our work done, and because of your generosity (yes, it is not like we don't acknowledge it). But if you are always bringing up the past to guilt-trip us, then it just shows your generosity as unreal and insincere; you are basically giving us a favour and then leveraging it, not un-similar to politicians/lobbyist currying favours and leveraging a rival. - Lastly, please understand our pay is fair compensation for our work done. When you defer (read: postpone) our pay, it is still due to us whether we are still in the company or not because work had been done. A pay cut is when an employer wants to reduce the value of work done by an employee. They are very distinct differences. I beseech the leadership to get acquainted with standard HR policies and plain old English definition of such basic words.
