alliantgroup, LP Reviews

alliantgroup was founded in 2001 in order to help businesses claim the research and development tax credit, which rewards technical, i.e., hard-science-based, problem-solving. Its founder came from a Big 4 accounting firm and much about alliantgroup is a reaction to his experience there. To the founders, these firms had a “safety first” attitude. But not alliantgroup. AG would be composed of bold, aggressive alphas, who worked hard, played hard, and finished first. And they soon had the money to prove it. Sports cars. Weekend splurges in Vegas. An annual jaunt to Wimbledon. Afternoon trips to strip clubs. And so on. Money was no object. The founders are living the American dream and have every right to enjoy the fruits of their labor in the way they chose. As single, childless, younger men, they had more freedom than usual in which to do this. If this meant sleeping with the occasional co-worker, so be it. If it meant bringing in coolers of alcohol for employees while they worked to eight, nine or ten o’clock, that was fine, too. Their house, their rules. Rules that were largely a reflection of their self-perceived identity. The founders were, in their minds, the best of the best, so their company would be the Google of the tax world, too. It would be a tax firm for the twenty-first century. Modern. Fearless. Sexy. Where other firms had suits and ties, alliantgroup had t-shirts and jeans. Cubicles were passed over for large open spaces that encouraged collaboration and transparency. Advancement could be had in months instead of years. Other professionals were dour, boring, timid, and cynical. alliantgroup would be fun, exciting, dynamic, and positive. Very positive. Pranks were laughed off. Blowout parties were had regularly. Telling jokes was part of the interview process. Many—both inside and outside of the company—began to compare the company to a frathouse. The one holdover from prior firms was the determination to outperform everyone. They would work harder, longer, better and at any time. That’s what the founders did, and that’s who they wanted to work for them, they decided. “Navy seals,” “superheroes,” “the 1% of the 1%” was what they sometimes called their ideal employee. In essence, management sought a business where nearly every employee had the drive, talent, and mindset of a CEO, right on down to the secretary. And I should emphasize this mindset—it’s a kind of Tony-Robbins-esque, won’t-think-can’t-think-negative kind of mindset where what one thinks and the image one projects is, somehow, more powerful and important than—i.e., actively shaping—reality. A mindset that, to a degree, is necessary for a CEO but not so much for a secretary. Regardless, these two sought out the CEO-types, brought them aboard, continued to grow, but then, amid all the growth and riches, alliantgroup began to have a problem. It was strange, not to mention unanticipated, for management, who were accustomed to professional success and assured of their talents. Nevertheless, there it was, month after month after month. Turnover. A lot of it. A former alliantgroup employee once said, just after putting in her notice, that alliantgroup had hired roughly 130 people in the year in which she was hired. “Three years later, twelve are left.” Another former alliantgroup employee confessed that she had had eleven different supervisors and eighteen different subordinates during her tenure. Only one remained. The exit rate is not weekly, but someone, if not multiple people, leave every month, at least. This is, in part, why the company demographics are a bit strange. It’s rare to meet someone who has been there for more than two years. About 50% of the company has been there not even a year, and the vast majority of all employees are young—mid-to-late twenties with thirty-somethings sprinkled in. The turnover rate had upper management scratching its head. Why, if the company was so great, were people leaving in droves? Some pointed to the age of the employees. Millennials changed jobs more frequently than any prior generation. Others fingered the workload. Each project manager might have a caseload of 45 to 50 files, which on average demanded 12-hour days, including time on the weekends. This doesn’t make much time for family, friends or really much else besides basic survival and the beginning of alcohol dependency. And these reasons might be why some leave, but I think something else is driving the loss of personnel, and that something was on display when I first started looking at the company. alliantgroup likely curses Glassdoor daily because of the reviews. For example, some reviews are entitled: “Nightmare,” “Do Not Do It!!,” and “Run, Run, Run.” These cite no work-life balance, favoritism, a political environment, and the turnover rate. But then, curiously, there are those that are just the opposite. A sample of titles include: “Home away from home!,” “No limits!,” and “The Best Professional Services Company in the World.” These latter “reviews” also typically list no cons to working there, and either have no advice for management or—how to say this—drive their nose up management’s rear: “Advice to management? Keep pushing for greatness. You are doing great. Congratulations on building such a fantastic company! And have you lost weight?” (Okay, that last part wasn’t in there.) Predictably, these “reviews” have been layered in large doses over the negative ones. I’d only been there a week when I noticed the next strange thing. My email was suddenly inundated. “Congratulations!!!” “Great work!!! Keep it up!!!” “Way to be proactive and collaborate!!” Each one congratulatory, incredibly excited, and peppered with the company’s values and slogans. Someone had gotten promoted, so after the announcement nearly everyone in the company sent a reply-all pepp-o-gram, regardless if they knew the person, regardless if they meant it, and regardless if the person deserved it. The appearance of a large, like-minded, superhero-employee community was what mattered. And this happened—whether in response to a promotion or any number of positive things about the company or personnel—every week. I was slowly discovering that management not only wanted CEO-positive-till-I-die types but that personality mattered more than ability at the end of the day. They, like many companies, promote culture over competence, and it’s not hard to see why. An employee who is a strong cultural fit with an organization is more likely to work well with other successful employees and continue to build their skills with the company. On the other hand, an employee who fails to fit within a work environment is more likely to leave for another company that is more aligned with his or her values. Cultural fit is critical to long-term employee retention and productivity. However, one can go too far. When a company begins hiring for cultural fit, i.e., personality, because they don’t want to hear bad news or be disagreed with, then it’s a disaster for all involved. And this extreme is basically where alliantgroup has gone. alliantgroup looks for, hopes to hire, and rewards personality clones. And if non-clones sneak in and remain for a time, it’s because there’s more business than people (translation: money trumps culture) or because certain activities are necessary for running a business (translation: the culture does not affect accounting, IT, admin staff, etc. as much.) This aspect alone was disturbing, but the desire for personality homogeneity is not what solely inspired the cult comparison. It was more due to the way the company goes about monitoring and enforcing conformity. For instance, I always felt like I was being spied on and evaluated. This was so because I was aware of being scrutinized some of the time, so it made me wonder if I was watched without my knowing it. Once this latter, covert type of scrutiny leaked out, my paranoia blew up. For instance, I learned Dhaval had a habit of dialing in to conference calls before employees without their knowing it and then listen in. Or that he is likely Bcc-ed (blind carbon copied) on certain emails, but employees never know which, so employees learn to reply to all emails as if he or their immediate boss were. I learned that someone searched Facebook to monitor whether anything negative about the company had been posted by an employee. I was told multiple times—even when I hadn’t brought it up—that no one monitors whether employees reply-all to a super-peppy email, creating a thou-doth-protest-too-much situation, and then other superiors would suggest that it’d probably be in my best interest to reply to this one or that one. When new employees say or do something off-message (e.g., express discomfort about the weirdness), that event is escalated and disseminated to select employees, leading to a series of sudden, tense meetings about how the miscreant can return to the fold. It’s in these meetings, usually, one is informed that nothing can affect one’s advancement in the company like being negative or associating with those employees who are not “culturally aligned.” That management knows who associates with whom and what is said needs no mentioning, likely because there’s not much time for non-work association. This, of course, breeds paranoia and distrust about who’s informing on whom and suppresses people from being genuine. And this, of course, creates an environment for the worst acting and propaganda imaginable. Here’s a sample from an anonymous employee, again, courtesy of Glassdoor: “Do you want to sit round-table and toss ideas around with the founders of a 600+ person, $800MM+ company? Feel free to on your first week. - Want to learn more than you ever have before (whether you have a 4 year degree, MBA, law degree, or PhD)? You can here - for the rest of your career. - Do you want to work with people you can call your friends and family that teach you and motivate you to succeed? You can here. To me - all of these are pros. To those that are no longer with the company and are writing horrid reviews on Glassdoor, these were all Cons. No other company has the 1% of the 1% working for them in every department.” Every department. You should see their custodians. And then the “cons”: “The people who trash the company because they were not/are not a culture fit. If you want to work 9-5, clock-in/clock-out, hide in an office, remain unchallenged and work somewhere that hands you trophies for just showing up - you will hate it here. To the 1% of talent out there that reads this and thinks - man this is exciting, I want to be a part of something that has raving reviews paired with crazy posts from those lacking the ability to work hard and build a career - this is the place for you. To those that hold on to the negative reviews, let them stop you from exploring the group, and believe every negative review that is written on the internet - you are truly, 110%, undoubtedly missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime, and I feel sorry for you.” As for the bad acting, imagine listening to speech after speech at quarterly parties—which extend into the night because of the number and length of the speeches—about how alliantgroup is the greatest company “in the Milky Way Galaxy,” with the smartest people in the country (sorry, Apple), and shout-outs about how “the big blue ‘a’” basically saved their mortal soul. When special days, e.g., “Dress up like your favorite decade day!”, or yoga nights or weekend runs—because family is a 24/7 thing—were set up, it was surprising to see Ron-Swanson-equivalents suddenly donning yoga-wear. When employees were promoted, their speech revealed that providing tax credits was not merely a good thing but, rather, “Awesome!” or “Super exciting!,” and the emendation of tax forms is suddenly a “wild ride!” The company puts a premium on “high performers,” but the emphasis should really be on the performing aspect. Indeed, even the way some write their emails mimics the manner in which the CEO writes his. He tends to end sentences with a space and then three exclamation points. Magically, this idiosyncrasy appears among subordinates’ missives. I was curious how long employees could stomach transforming their personalities, along with the stress of the consequences for failing to do so convincingly. Regardless, once an employee can’t act any longer or refuses and is either fired or leaves, management revs up its message control. Grey is spun into black or white, or white into black if need be. Outright lies are told about why an employee and the company parted ways. What’s more unbelievable is that remaining employees—who’ve often grown close to the former employee because everyone’s at work so much—are counseled to avoid the recently-declared pariah lest they be infected by negativity. Indeed, zero contact. I understand that, after hundreds of exits, management would be paranoid, but it is a gross misunderstanding of human nature to think a former employee’s negative comments is more damaging than being spied upon, informed upon, and intimidated into rejecting a friend. Other lies are told to prop up the company’s image. For instance, one company newsletter states: “A work-hard/play-hard meritocracy has fueled the growth of Houston-based consulting firm alliantgroup. While a data- and performance-driven culture like that of Amazon has its benefits, human factors still make a difference in workplace satisfaction. For employees at alliantgroup, these human factors include a mission-driven company focus with work that makes a direct, positive impact on the U.S. economy and work-life integration initiatives such as those that cater to new mothers, as well as a very active corporate wellness program.” Out of the 600+ employees at the firm, I can count the number of mothers there on one hand. And it’s not hard to see why. Mothers, even in modern times, still have a disconcerting desire to see their children in the day time and while awake. The deceit is not relegated to image or personnel management. It leaks over into corporate practice, too. For instance, the hours that are billed for a task depend on how big the overall credit is for the client. A task that might take an hour or two is sometimes billed ten or fifteen hours to the client. If the credit is big enough, redundant work will be performed. Finally, clients are told that twenty-six-year-olds with a background in law and a Dummies book under their belt are “experts” in a given field, e.g., software or agriculture. There is no shortage of additional examples. I cannot explain why grown men and women would behave in this manner other than that, in lieu of a meaningful or sustaining worldview, a corporation has become the best source for a sense of purpose and community. It’s the best I can come up with because the company and its mission are preached about, defended, and justified as zealously, duplicitously, and surreptitiously as any cult would be. Many advise conversion—that is, drinking the “blue ‘a’ kool-aid”—as the best option while there and best done sooner than later. However, my advice is different and given below.