Pros
+ The people: at GLG you will have the opportunity to meet great peers who hopefully will go on to become some of your closest friends. When I started in February 2018, my class was around ~55 people and some of those people have gone on to become some of my best friends in Austin. + FTO: flexible time-off means there is not a cap of days off you can take per year. However, this benefit is tricky in that it varies across the different team managers on how much they let their employees take advantage of this perk. There is no consistency across teams, so highly encourage you to be as vocal about your time off as possible and request in advance as much as possible and whenever possible. + Ability to work remote: similarly, the job we do at GLG really only requires the laptop they give you, internet connection and a working phone. As such, theoretically there is opportunity for employees to work remotely as needed; however, this is another perk that is highly inconsistent across teams in GLG and it will be something that if you really want to utilize, will highly depend on the relationship with your manager.
Cons
+ Poor leadership and management: at GLG you will find a lot of "leaders" who have acquired those roles due only to their tenure in the company, lack of other candidates and a minimal review process; there are multiple, if not the majority of leaders, who manage smaller teams and business units whose only experience managing people is from having one "direct report", which is a new member in the team they helped ramp up, while they were an individual contributor. The lack of experience of most leaders at GLG, in combination with the almost non-existent Learning & Development arm at GLG, results in an environment in which employees are managed poorly and unprofessionally. At GLG there is a culture of "managing up", which means to be as vocal to your manager about what you need/feedback/etc.; however, after having been there almost two years it is my opinion they need us to manage up because there is very little management that would take place at all otherwise. I experienced first hand the poor leadership of a leader who had seven years of experience in the company and because of his tenure had fallen upward to leadership. This team lead's ability to manage was poor and unprofessional, he was unreliable, lost his temper in front of the team, and lied to our faces about completing certain tasks. + L&D (Learning & Development): this kind of doesn't exist at GLG. I was promoted to Client Solutions Manager almost six months ago and I did not receive even a 15 minute training on "Managing People 101." Immediately after my promotion I was given a new hire and was responsible for ramping her up and managing her on the day to day and I had to figure it out one day at a time with virtually no support. It is a shame and one of the most important reasons why I decided to leave the firm - at GLG you will not find a leadership team that prioritizes its people in any way. Their development, success and growth is not a priority for anyone at GLG, you have to claw your way through promotions and growth and even then you achieve very little, as even as a Client Solutions Manager you are a "manager of self" first (one of the latest initiatives of leadership in the Professional Services Firm team and something I don't believe exists anywhere else.) After nearly two years at GLG, I learned leadership will always prioritize absurd commercial goals first, expect people to deliver against these most outlandish goals, and pay no attention to its employees' well being and mental health. If you need to take time off, do it - but know that taking a day for your mental health or just because you need a break is frowned upon. I tried to always eat lunch away from my desk but often times management and the demanding client work we are subjected to handling imposes having to be online (working) even through meals and well past 9 PM CT. + Day to day expectations: one of the most prominent themes at GLG is inconsistency. You will find teams that work 8 AM - 4 PM CT every day and can almost leave their laptops at the desk (although no one does this) and not have to worry about work after they leave. However, my experience in Professional Services Firms was far from this. Our Leadership expected and demanded we worked until every little thing was done every day, even if that meant staying up until 9 PM or 10 PM. In 2018 holiday season, I had to work through Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day because I had a client who continued to request things on those days, and despise me celebrating those holidays dearly, my direct leadership expected me to service the client in a timely fashion. I believe from the beginning GLG started with people who put client work above all (as it should be) without giving its employees the support and tools needed to be able to take care of themselves. Fast forward ~20 years later and you find a culture at GLG of people who hesitate to go to lunch without their laptops because client work has been idolized to an unimaginable, almost inhumane standard. If a client emails you at 8 PM you are expected to respond and act accordingly and ensure they get what they need as soon as possible. Of course as project managers grow and develop they can choose to set clear boundaries on what they will do and what they will not; the challenge comes when these boundaries are perceived as so against the norm and represent such an immense clash against what leadership wants from its employees. It becomes a constant, exhausting uphill battle having to every day justify why you want to leave before 6 PM even if you have no work, to justify why you want to take your one hour lunch, justify why you are not going to set up a new project at 8 PM after you've worked all day - it becomes exhausting fighting a battle where you are trying to put yourself first, you want to put your well being first, and you are constantly battling against a leadership that utilizes employees in a harsh, insensitive, transactional way; you are fighting a leadership that is pulling revenue-making levers expecting cash to come out. They don't take care about the levers, and when it breaks, they'll just replace it with a new one.
