Dimensional Fund Advisors Reviews

I would give this place negative stars if I could. Where do I start? Animal farm (George Orwell) really sums up DFA. Basically, senior management tells their employees how everyone is replaceable and dispensable so that you would feel small as an employee and be eternally grateful for the below market rate they are paying you. The senior managers and some high-level VPs ensure that they get all the best, “most visible” useless projects that would bolster their positions in the company and allow them to put more resources (read: employ people who don’t have actual jobs) into their fiefdoms. By the way, almost everyone there is a VP; the less you do, the higher the likelihood that you would get VP. As one reviewer puts it so eloquently, if you curry favor with the flavor of the moment (employees who are having their moments in the sun and are on a rising path), you are more likely to be deemed a rising star… And those are definitely “more equal than others”. There is no basis for how some people get Chosen. I believe it’s sheer luck. If you have read the “Luck versus Skill in the Cross Section of Mutual Fund Returns” paper by FF, you will understand that the same logic applies to DFA managers and Chosen Employees as well. Most of them are there by random luck and not because of talent, intelligence or integrity. For example, one of the Senior Management personnel may take a liking to a certain employee because he or she likes what that employee was wearing that day and simply say that person should be promoted. And indeed, that person will get promoted. There is just no rhyme or reason for why someone gets promoted and others are not. There are some good managers but those are few and far between. Decisions are mostly made by the top echelon of PM and Research. The deputy heads of PM would be considered Administrative Officers in other companies because they execute the desires and wishes of the few 0.1% who hold true power in the company. Everything is micro-managed. Email to clients to answer really generic questions are overseen by the CEOs and the various heads of department. This is probably why the company hasn’t come up with real research or innovation in a long time, the management and the Research department are too busy scrutinizing responses to generic client questions. Let’s talk about the Human Resources Department. The letters “I, N” should be added to form “Inhuman Resources”. This department is there to make the employees’ lives as miserable as possible and offer little support. If you have a problem, they would add to it. If you are facing discrimination, instead of listening to you or helping you, they are more likely to remind you that you cannot sue the company because you have signed an Arbitration Agreement. I believe the department is there to protect the management and the shareholders (really, just one shareholder who mostly owns the company) and to make their employees feel as weak and powerless as possible. Are markets efficient and do prices reflect all available information? DFA will tell you that they think so unless the market you are talking about is the labor market. They don’t believe in paying fair market rate wages and when they saw that there was significant turnover in the ranks because of better pay or better work culture at other companies, they decided that instead of paying more and improving work culture to retain staff, they would rather put in a No-compete clause so that they can continue to make their employees’ lives miserable even after they have left. Isn’t it, er, the opposite of efficient markets? What about this new push for Diversity and Inclusion? Well, this was pushed by the rank and file and denied by senior management until they realized that clients actually care about fund managers’ efforts to increase D&I. DFA then did a complete switcheroo and put the same people who have denied the need for D&I initiatives all along to head up the D&I committee. And are these committee members qualified? Are they passionate about the cause? Nope, these are the same Chosen few. They are on all the committees. Only them and no one else. There is so much more but I will just conclude with this: I would rather go on unemployment than work in this toxic environment.

While the Firm is impressive, the employee experience in the marketing department was not. There is a serious lack of transparency between senior management and the middle managers (and the people they manage). Anyone below the senior manager level is not empowered to make any independent decisions or implement any processes or policies. All decisions have to be vetted through the department head who is a road block because 1) she’s never available due to her schedule and 2) she has no operational or marketing experience which results in no valuable direction and a lack of execution. Other departments are hesitant to collaborate with marketing due to this road block. Roles and responsibilities across the department are ill defined which leads to confusion and frustration among the staff. Input from anyone below the senior management level is not received well. I’ve personally cringed on numerous occasions watching as someone presented to the department head and was ripped to shreds in front of everyone. Lastly, I never received a single performance review in 3 years or any opportunities for career development. When I escalated this issue, I was told that everyone is busy and to develop myself.