Profit Margins >> Employee Development & Company Culture - Senior Consultant Kaiser Associates Employee Review

The leadership team at Kaiser is so focused on profit (with practices operating nearly independently of each other and practically competing on their profit margins) that employee development is minimal. Leadership does not invest in tools for the work to be successful; at the lower consultant levels, lots of time is spent searching for people on LinkedIn and either using limited InMail messages or connecting with strangers to request that they participate in an research interview. This is repetitive and the kind of outbound work that SDRs at other companies have had automated for years. Consultants are seen as replaceable and not respected by the leadership team. Kaiser laid off a number of consultants earlier in the year and then realized they needed them back, but are still not valued. When consultants bring up things that could be improved at the company, their suggestions are not taken into account nor really even considered. Kaiser touts one employee's success at going from associate consultant to partner as proof of a path upward at the firm, but this has only happened once in the history of the company. The leadership team is out of touch, hands-off, and highly focused on getting the company back in the office, despite many of them living out of state and traveling to DC less than once a month. Pay is noticeably lower than market rate and consulting perks (transportation, meal reimbursement, etc.) are lower than at other firms. If Kaiser wants to compete with MBB firms then they need to pay people equivalent salaries. When you have folks a few years out of college managing projects, pay them as you would an engagement manager at a competitor firm. Kaiser is quite literally taking advantage of employees' willingness to work above their pay grade, and this tanks company culture and employees' interest in staying for more than a couple of years.