Gartner reviews

An unclear direction is causing change fatigue. The best part of Gartner has always been the people, but the talent is leaving in droves. Employee retention and morale have been declining over the past few years, especially in the services organization due to politics, micromanagement and poor leadership. The sheer volume of meetings (that should have been an email) are exhausting, and primarily done to checkboxes and micromanage. Leaders, especially mid-level management, are ill-equipped to make decisions and are in place to take marching orders and do what the top executives direct them to do. No one challenges, or even clarifies asks that come from SVPs and above, which creates a culture of frantic, reactive firedrills (verses strategic, thoughtful impact). Also it seems management is not onboard or familiar with the actual mission of the organization, and how they should be supporting the associate experiences. Basically, your time and experiences at Gartner will vary greatly from manager to manager, and that can range from excellent to an absolute nightmare. Workloads are unrealistic and high pressure, and pay doesn't match the market. Although they tout "people first", it's really all about metrics. There is little work/life balance, and you're typically always "on". If you're good at your job, you will get additional responsibilities outside of your role, and they'll sell it by saying they "hire top performers" who "go above and beyond", yet growth opportunities and advancement are minimal. You will need to apply and compete for promotions verses being elevated on merit and extra workload. The annual ratings are based on a distribution so even if you go above and beyond, do the right things, and work countless hours, you will most likely receive an average rating and small merit increase. Your best hopes lie in being a part of the "in crowd" (or good ole boys club).

Generally speaking, it's disappointing how they've planned to keep employees motivated and prevent burn out during Covid. They have all this research about how to address this, but they do not hold managers accountable for it. Communication between managers and recruiters about how to get promoted is abysmal. You really have to bust your butt for years to get any kind of promotion or recognition; making the day to day work you do seem unappreciated, unnoticed, and unrewarded. They're not a software company, so I don't think they have a strong grasp on the need to keep technical talent and good technical recruiters. There are multiple recruiting program teams to support recruiters, but ultimately they seem unuseful as it's up to the recruiter do most of the heavy lifting for anything like sponsoring events, etc. (again, fine, but why have them as a partner?) Recruiting tools and internal systems are very clunky. They also seem to make recruiting decision without thought to the impact of current teams or have a well-thought out plan to make sure changes don't have negative repercussions.