Stay Away. Terrible Middle Management; No HR - Associate Consultant Mars & Co Employee Review

First, let me start by stating that any claim-like statements made in this review are my honest personal opinions, though all statements are derived from truthful personal experiences. Below is a collection of observations I wish had been made known to me before starting at Mars, so I hope they will be useful to the Glassdoor community. - Extreme lack of diversity and representation in every way, with no apparent effort to remedy this. All senior leadership in CT office are white men; only 15% of consultants are female, a fact that persists to this very day. By the time I left the firm, there were 0 (zero) consultants from underrepresented backgrounds and could count on 1 hand the number of non-white consultants. - The above lends itself to a problematic corporate culture despite claims that it is supposedly “meritocratic”. Favoritism from upper management and unchecked subconscious biases dictated promotions. - Abusive management. One manager got away with giving negative reviews for an associate on purely soft skills such as “attitude” and not seeming “professional” enough with weak substantiation, even when that manager himself made sexist remarks, threw unconstructive and verbally abusive temper tantrums (which probably would have constituted a workplace violation at any other legitimate firm), and generally behaved like an overgrown man-child on the job. When asked to provide constructive, actionable feedback instead to justify his negative review, the manager refused and simply said his review was based on an “overall impression”. This occurred in the presence of "HR" (In quotes because Mars does not have a dedicated HR team, which is another huge problem I’ll get into), who not only did not open a case or require that the manager clarify or make specific actionable claims, but even later gaslighted the associate to try to convince them that the manager’s review was fair and unbiased, despite the associate’s deep concerns about clear indicators suggesting otherwise. - Enabling the above, no system of accountability to ensure a positive workplace environment. No training around expectations of behavior, how to report violations of bullying/abuse – if there were even formalized rules/expectations to begin with, they were not effectively communicated. No peer or upward feedback; no dedicated HR team. This means that upper management promotes middle management and middle management promotes associates. Then, if a manager is abusive, they can expect to get away with it so long as upper management is satisfied with their work since associates do not have an HR team to go to with their concerns, just the multi-functional office management team, whose interests appear to be more about self-preservation and keeping upper management happy and are thus disincentivized from actually disciplining errant managers. - Very limited training at all levels. As addressed above, promotions are solely based on perception from above. Nice slides does not a good manager make, but that’s how it works here; upon promotion, newly minted managers are not trained on any leadership / management skills whatsoever. At the associate level too, new hires are expected to hit the ground running – which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t compounded with managers who frankly do not care about their associates. Associates need to be proactive about their own learning and development at Mars; the hard part is knowing what one doesn’t know, and thus what questions to ask. - Project work is consistent. But, unexciting. Many of the clients Mars has today are Fortune 100 companies with long-standing relationships, but that means certain projects are more on the routine and menial side and more to do with maintaining market share / refreshing operations rather than anything truly groundbreaking. Mars knows this is their sweet spot, and that these legacy clients are their ‘cash cows’; upper management appears complacent to collect their dues from these guys and to leave the real innovators at the forefront of their industries to seek the counsel of other consulting firms. Lean companies can be nimble, cutting-edge, and creative. Unfortunately, they can also be lean the same way your neighborhood pizza parlor is lean – like a family-run business that grasps tightly to what they already know and has little interest in learning new skills, attracting new clientele, or growing into different frontiers. Mars is very much the latter. If you’re a talented, self-respecting college senior with any other job offers on the table, in consulting or even within industry – my honest advice would be to take one of those offers and not look back. Contribute your talents to an organization that appreciates them and is invested in you and your growth.