Layer of managing directors, area VPs, VPs lack creativity, thoughtfulness, only concerned with numbers. Tone deaf. Don't listen. Not aware of actual work going on. Good and bad.
Billable bonus plan is horrific, leads to inverse incentives, rewards quality over quantity. Contradicts messaging around professional development, mentoring, administrative responsibilities. Borders on unethical.
Our group lost of lot of quality people over last year. The "strategy" was to hire at market. This led to some pretty bad pay inequities. My area VP response was to "bill more hours to get accelerator in the bonus plan". I had a hard time understanding if he did not understand base vs rate or thought I didn't? And which would be worse.
I made a professional effort to stay. I liked the project I was on. I was working with a great customer and a group of consultants from another company and it was interesting, and going well. But I was also compensated greater than 25% less than recent peer hires. We were losing good people. Two directors I both respected a lot left. Management did not acknowledge, communicate or demonstrate any plan on going forward after this loss. It was just BAU. My adjustment was way short, and again consisted mostly of a lecture on billing more hours.
The final decision was difficult but felt no choice. When I announced my resignation it was the customer and the other project consultants that were at a tremendous loss. I was offered opportunities to work with them! They all made sincere efforts to communicate how much value I had brought, how much they enjoyed working together. This was a theme over the entire transition. And it was very personally sad to say goodbye to the project, the customer, and my peers at the other consulting company. On my last day the last person I talked to was the customer.
Through out all this I never had a meaningful conversation with anyone in the management line I worked for at Perficient. My peers reached out. No one in management. It was all just a bit very odd. It's almost like no one in management knew what I had been doing or cared? Or ?? On reflection this was not uncommon on some of my other projects. I was pretty much left to sink or swim on engagements. While it was nice not to be micro managed, someone should know what is going on? Help when needed? Recognize value?
In the end the best two word description I could come up with for the experience, as practiced by the middle and upper management layers, was "billable meat". That's the game. It might work for some folks for a bit, but unless you go up the ponzi ladder or are very junior and just looking to prove yourself, it gets old after a bit.