For the past 5 years, Booz Allen has been focused more on shareholders and bottom line than on employees and clients. Our emails from upper management tout increasing profits despite declining revenue - like it's a good thing. It is a good thing, for the shareholders, but the slashing that's taken place to make it possible have all directly affected the employees.
First came small and pretty inconsequential changes - no more biannual laptop upgrades, then our first big change: from everyone having their own office to "hoteling," where each employee reserves an office each day and checks into and out of it like a hotel room. This allowed Booz Allen (BAH) to eliminate empty offices (employees who were on client sites always or almost always) and consolidate employees. A reasonable change, and understandable.
Next came compensation changes we were told that our compensation actions (read: raises) were to no longer be tied solely to performance, but rather a host of new criteria, one of which was "bid-ability on contracts," meaning "will your salary make it easy or hard to bid you on contracts?" Of course, proposals compete largely on cost, so it's always easier to bid a cheaper employee on a proposal, so this gave leadership a way to freeze salaries or give paltry or in some cases insulting raises with a black and white justification, and the deniability of "it came from upstairs." Lots of talented employees jumped ship at this stage, because raises are the #1 tangible retention tool, and many took these paltry raises as writing on the wall that they were no longer appreciated at BAH.
More recently, BAH is selling real estate - closing offices. That's a magic trick that can prop up the bottom line, but you can only use that trick once.
The most recent change has been to our benefits - in short, more expensive healthcare with high deductibles. For example, my plan cost increases $150 a month, and my deductible went from $0 to $2600. Healthcare will cost me $4400 more this year than it did last year; or if I got a $4400 raise, that would put me at zero.
Booz Allen used to be a high line product at a high line price. We used to be able to command a high price - from clients who wanted more than simply getting the job done, they wanted it done well - and thoroughly, by the brightest and best. Clients would choose Booz Allen for the same reason someone might choose a Mercedes-Benz over a Toyota. In our recent years, this race to the bottom of how cheap we can possibly make operations, how little can we pay our staff, has caused a loss of top talent, and hiring just-good talent as opposed to the sharpest and most impressive applicants. I'm imagining management wanted to cut operating costs, but retain the Firm's reputation - that's just not possible. They got their wish - they made the Firm cheaper. We're just another contracting firm now - a glorified staffing agency.
