High staff turnover accelerated by poor firm decision making
Pros
-People - some (used to be all) are great people to work with, however recently the firm has taken to hiring some appalling people and firing some good workers (through central HR decision making which local partners have no say in) -Flexible working - the firm in Bristol has definitely taken to this and it cannot be faulted. A great approach to flexible working, but for the first year don’t expect to work as flexibly as you want as you will require coaching. Some people abuse(ed) this privilege. -You will learn a lot about a lot of great businesses across the South West. Most clients have interesting engaging businesses and you are thrown in at the deep end.
Cons
-Real problems with under resourcing and lack of staff being perpetuated by an excessively high turnover (EY used to bank of 50% leaving each year- now we are at approx 95-100%). This means that good people are overworked whereas poor hires (that for some reason we can’t get rid of) are shuttled around engagements like undesirable commodities. EY used to attract a lot of the brightest and best, however they are going to different firms for better packages and we are not getting enough people through the door to staff audits. Compensation has always been historically woeful at the Big4 however now there is an audit wide labour shortage, when will we stop benchmarking our salaries against the other Big 4 in Bristol and start taking into account other businesses that are getting in the best grads? -Appreciation of staff is probably at an all time low and this is affecting quality output of work. Audit relies on a guilt trip culture: if you don’t do it and put in overtime/extra work on clients you are not booked to, your senior or manager will have to pick up the work. This worked to some degree when the seniors/staff/managers had a good rapport with each other, but now that no one knows who anyone is anymore (driven by headcount churn) why should people put the hours in for zero appreciation? A colleague of mine (with a fanatical work ethic) has recently expressed concerns to me that make me worry about his mental health and stress due to how much he is under appreciated and over worked.