A sad place to work - Associate Innosight Employee Review

Innosight as a firm is largely out of touch with its employees in a way that is surprising given who the firm is. We have an effort focused on developing or redefining the employee value proposition (a good thing), but it is being led by the most out of touch Senior Partner at the firm. The result is that there is a filter on communications where they only hear what they chose to hear and ignore anything that challenges their beliefs. Communication becomes very frustrating. Salaries at Innosight start close to on par with other consulting firms (maybe 15% less of around $120K vs. $135K at other firms), but this gap widens as you move up. A promotion at Innosight is typically an additional $10K per level. Bases for promotion are unclear and random - with decisions often in contrast to our espoused values - and a chaos or randomness to the process despite the 50 or so dimensions of performance we are evaluated on. Tradeoffs used to make sense given better lifestyle, but that has now gone away. Recently, we've undergone a brain drain with a number of people departing Innosight for Red Star Ventures, and more of us likely on our way in January. Other folks have left too at a pace far exceeding industry norms (as in the denominator is # of consultants, not # of personnel total) Unfortunately, we are not particularly good at recruiting to replace this talent. For example, we frequently promise new talent rapid promotions (6 months) only to conveniently forget at the time and most people will be asked to take a step backwards in their career to join. Best career advice for outsiders - become a partner somewhere else, then lateral into Innosight since that seems to be the best way to accelerate your career. The firm is built around the partners in a way that is unlike any other consulting firm. We have a consultant to professional staff ratio somewhere around 2 consultants (from all levels) to 1 professional staff. We also have two planes and two pilots on staff. Collectively, this creates an outsized overhead that cramps upward opportunities. We are asked to all be leaders, but the firm doesn't really understand what leadership means. At Innosight, leadership means conformity; there is an Innosight Way that is rightly or wrongly not up for debate. The funny thing about Innosight is that when you are here, you surprisingly won't find a company that feels like it is going to double in four years - but more like a firm that is plodding along - it sucks the energy and creativity out of you.