Perkins & Will reviews

The following applies to the Chicago office. Although they will say otherwise, the words are frequently not backed by corresponding actions: the focus is on profit and not on providing the support tools to the staff that they need. Management is sometimes in denial to how/what support the staff needs, and would rather ask existing staff to work overtime than hire people who may be less billable but could ultimately improve the quality of work. People leave because they either relocate away (understandable) or accept promotions and salary boosts to take a job at a competitor. This is because PW is generally slow to promote. Favorite people can advance quickly but many other equally talented folks won't - especially if they aren't in front of clients all the time. In some departments there is a strong bias against promoting women. Leadership doesn't accept sexism is happening because they have a hard time being objective about the firm's own shortcomings. The result is a general ambiance of bitterness and a gap in the middle experience level in staff. Young staff takes a few years to notice all of this (it can be subtle), and the oldest staff have already "made it" and coast along without any concerns. There are a lot of those coasting old staff too... some of them horrible mentors, for a variety of reasons. Young staff is frequently not honest about that fact because they don't want to pass negative things to management. Pay is slightly below average. Bonuses help a bit. When you combine these cons together, you get a culture that needs to be overhauled, but it will never happen because there are too many senior leaders who don't understand the issues, or feel unable to fix them. Many people who recognize the issues aren't in a position where they can fix them.

If you aren't willing to dedicate all of your time and energy to work, they will see you as replaceable. They would only recognize people that worked nonstop during the week and weekends. It often felt like it didn't matter about the work you did, is was more about "how many hours are you in the office?" There are no career opportunities unless you work at least 60+ hours a week and do whatever management wants. There is SO much turnover and employee unhappiness because lower-level employees are not respected or given opportunities unless they agree to being overworked and underpaid. A top designer was told by management that he had to give up his community service volunteering so he could stay at the office longer. A few employees got married and had kids and were intimidated by management for taking PTO. Somebody couldn't stay late one night and was called a "p*ssy."