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Grant Thornton

Engaged Employer

Grant Thornton reviews

3.6

65% would recommend to a friend

(6,990 total reviews)
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Seth Siegel

65% approve of CEO

56% positive business outlook

Ratings by category

3.7

Diversity & inclusion

3.7

Career opportunities

3.5

Culture & values

3.3

Compensation and benefits

3.2

Work/Life balance

3.2

Senior management

Grant Thornton has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 6,990 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Grant Thornton employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.7 stars).

Ratings by demographic groups

Reviews by job title

7K reviews
3.0
Feb 9, 2019

The "flexible" time off policy is a misnomer

Senior associate
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I needed a new job due to my former employer losing a major contract and having to conduct layoffs, and I appreciate that GT gave me an opportunity to break into data analytics when I was mid-career and had not worked in the consulting world. The people I worked with in my brief time there were all smart and eager to help out, and the company really emphasized collaboration and working as a team. HR was really on the ball at getting me a decent offer and staying on top of my paperwork.

Cons

I knew by the end of my first day orientation at GT that I was going to need a NEW new job when I learned about the flexible time off policy. At GT, you can take as many weeks of vacation as you want, as long as you put in the 1870 or so billable hours for the client and another 300 or so hours towards training, writing proposals, and schmoozing at GT events. Excluding ten holidays per year, that means that you are expected to put in about 2170 or so hours over 50 weeks of work. Do the math, and you are doing nearly 44 hours per week even if you take zero weeks of vacation. Add an hour a week of additional work for each week of vacation that you would like to take. So yeah, you can take off half the year if you like, if you can get your team leaders to approve it and want to commit to working 70 hours per week for the other half of the year. Not for me! I'm too old and cynical to believe that I'm going to make partner if I work my tail off. I also hated that the clock reigned supreme. We had to enter our hours down to the quarter hour, and the ADP software was programmed to send a reminder to you to enter your hours for the day by 10 am the next morning, and if you fail to meet that deadline, you get a warning or a demerit or something. I stayed on top of it, but it all fed into my perception that I was just a revenue-generating unit within an impersonal bureaucracy. I was working in the federal practice at GT, and before I came to GT I had already worked as a contractor at federal agencies where I worked 40 hours per week and would get paid overtime if I was asked to work beyond that. I also contributed to proposals, but it was considered an optional activity. And I didn't have to schmooze constantly to get put onto new projects. I left GT to accept an offer with one of these smaller companies that offered me a much better opportunity with higher pay and more flexibility on the lifestyle items. Also, this may be a pro or con, depending on your background: I was in the data analytics practice, but culturally I am a techie, not a business major. I felt that business majors would feel much more at home at GT than techies who are used to being less buttoned-down. Everyone was smart and helpful, but it wasn't really my tribe, and I didn't expect that over the long term I was going to fit in very well, which was ultimately going to hurt my ability to get staffed on teams.

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Grant Thornton Response
7y
Thank you for sharing your feedback - We’re grateful to hear about your experience, both the positive and practical areas for improvement. Our culture and career initiatives focus on offering our employees the resources to have flexibility, grow personally and professionally, and make a substantial impact on others. We value your opinion and will use this feedback to help make Grant Thornton an even better place to work.
5.0
Jun 5, 2017

Associate

Associate
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Culture: GT takes a very active approach to making sure the culture here is a great experience. I have worked for a few companies with horrible culture. GT goes above and beyond. We have monthly culture meetings, firm wide events, etc. It is almost too much, but it is what makes GT stand out. Work load: GT give a nice steady work load. I am rarely bored. On occasion I ask around the office for work, but I am always able to find something substantial to do. Experience: I am getting to work on a variety of different projects. I have worked on everything from a tax provision to a NFP project. People: most of my co-workers are willing to help and answer questions. There are those who are nonstop irritable but they wont last. All of my managers and partners are team players and team leaders. Client contact: I have had substantial client contact within the first 90 days. Work/Life balance: Very good. During busy season expect to work a lot. But during slow season, expect to work average hours. GT is good about letting associates with families spend time with them. During my kids baseball season, GT let me come in early so I could leave at 4 to get to my kid's game. They also let a employees work from home.

Cons

Pay is not ideal, but the culture and opportunity make up for it. FTO Policy: I hear a lot of complaints about the new FTO policy, I don't mind the changes because the FTO policy is still great compared to other companies. But they do make you jump through a ton of hops to get approved.

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Grant Thornton Response
9y
We’re so glad to hear the many positive things about your experience as an employee at Grant Thornton. It sounds like we are lucky to have you on our team! We value your opinion and will use this feedback to help make Grant Thornton an even better place to work. Thanks again for your feedback!
2.0
Sep 23, 2016

No Work/Life Balance

Advisory associate
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- A lot of people there are caring and hard working - Being in the Advisory sector, the client work was enjoyable and not time consuming

Cons

Utilization is a horrible system that is common in many consulting firms. Don't be fooled by the unlimited PTO and the boasting of shutting down the company during the holiday season. The utilization rates are very high and does not take into account vacations. Last year, I did not take any vacation. I had to take off the required days for the holiday season and I ended up having to work 10 hours everyday until May to meet my utilization. If the firm is going to close down, then don't hold it against the employees. What's worse is the employee does not have control over their utilization. If they are benched for some reason, it is almost impossible to catch up after a certain time. If an employee is on a contract where they can only bill 8 hours max, then they can never take off any days because they can't make those hours up. Another issue I had was that GT expected everyone to do extra work on top of their client work. This business development work does not count toward your utilization. A lot of people are workaholics and I simply am not. I received emails during holiday weekends and I was expected to do business development work. There are many other things that bothered me about the company. The fact that I have to pay to park at the firm is crazy. I was at the client site most of the time so I had to use public transit to move around. It added up to a lot just to get to work and back. I paid for parking at the metro, paid for the metro and had to pay when I drove to the GT building for anything. Many people seemed delusional about what work/life balance really is. I've heard people say they have multiple nannies to take care of their children because they work 7 days a week. I've heard people spending their family vacations in the hotel rooms taking calls. I've heard people boast that they leave at 5PM everyday and have dinner with their families, just so they can work until midnight and wake up at 4-5AM to do more work. I tried very hard to make sure I had work/life balance but people seemed to be disrespectful of my time. I've had managers knowingly call me on my anniversary weekend getaway to see if I could skip some scheduled events to work on a proposal. I had managers ask me to participate in business development calls on Saturdays and Sundays. I've had people call me after I left work to assign me business development work without consideration of whatever plans I had that evening. Working at GT means being "on call" 24/7. The final straw for me, personally, was the year-end review process. It was very time consuming. I received many positive reviews and was told I was highly valued and highly regarded in the company. Employees were receiving many emails about our record-breaking revenue. Yet, my pay increase and bonus was minuscule. Several co-workers and I thought it was a typo. I definitely did not feel appreciated after that.

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