While great people work at Summit and there are plenty of social events, Summit has a serious culture problem. The environment is highly competitive to the point where it's almost cut-throat. Team leads will hoard work, not sharing with other members of their team, out of fear that other staff members will get promoted before they do. Managers turn a blind eye, acting like they either don't know it's happening or don't want to know it's happening. Promotions are painful because everyone who is not getting promoted is hurt and upset. And this is partially validated - management really struggles with consistently promoting across the company. Favoritism is a big problem and everyone knows it. I honestly don't think it's purposeful, but because management refuses to admit it's a problem, it's going to continue to be a problem. The promotion policies (that you need to be ON some promotion list one year in advance of promotion) are NOT industry standard and they honestly take advantage of staff. If you assign someone Senior Consultant responsibilities on a regular and recurring basis, you need to pay them as a Senior Consultant. Period. Anything less than that is taking advantage of your staff.
Management consistently struggles with being honest and transparent with staff. Many of the staff that work for this company have been there for years. They honestly just want to feel like management has their best interest in mind and yet, it consistently becomes apparent that the best interest of staff is not the driving factor for management. It's a very 'money talks' environment.
The structure of the company is very silo'ed. Instead of encouraging staff to build up a solid resume of skill sets, staff are encouraged to find 1-2 engagements and park it. You literally can't get promoted unless you've worked your way up on an engagement through seniority. People become consultants because they crave variety and this system directly discourages variety.
And finally, the way Summit defines responsibilities at each skill level means that you'll automatically take a demotion if/when you ever leave, and it also suggests that you are underpaid. As an example, a Summit Consultant is most equivalent to a Senior Consultant at other consulting firms. A Summit Senior Consultant is most equivalent to a Manager at other consulting firms. This means that, when you take another position as a Consultant or Senior Consultant, you'll automatically take a demotion in terms of responsibilities.
