Pros
Flexible working hours letting you adjust to personal requirments Great flexibility for work location allowing you to work from wherever you want as long as you deliver your expectations Nice independence and authority by which you can really be your own boss while working on projects and take your own decisions with clients (to some extents) Easy to reach people from across the globe and build a network. While there are no repositories for intelectual capital, you can easily access people everywhere to get their opinion and insights regardless of whcih line of business they are in Some great minds and experts at a senior level who are able to provide excellent insights for some of the most complex matters A lot of flexibility and opportunity to work on projects across North american and even in teh rest of the world when you reach and get connected to the right people A really good market reputation for Health and Benefits and Pension services and related compensation consulting
Cons
Really bad leadership at a local level. Office leadership is bad and the line of business leader is even worse Low compensation compared to peer in the market. Leadership always blame head office in NYC that they don't allow pay increases One of the worst performance management practices in the world. You are evaluated by people who never worked with you and have no clue who you are. People who have an interest in pushing you down to pass their own agenda There is no HR support non whatsoever especially in Canada where the HR function has been dramatically downsized. Imagine that an exit interview is now a survey monkey like survey Turnover is ridiculously high. So you find yourself in crisis mode and damage control mode all the time trying to manage client expectations There is a $ value on your head and nothing you do counts unless you generate utilization and revenues. You can be a guru at what you do, if you don't have high billable hours you won't last long Same for when you get to roles requiring sales objectives, if you don't sell you don't anywhere You can make millions in revenues and sales and still you won't get a good performance review because there are no performance management function in place. Imagine that leaders have the discretion of changing your rating by + 1 or -1 without any reason or cause (imagine how forced the bell curve is) A really bad career management framework. Progression is extremely week. Promotions are given to employees who are close or good terms to local leader(s). You are better off being visible than perform The organization keeps on restructuring and does not provide any explanation for the reason or the principles for the restructuring. What is even worst is that very few people understand what the new structure is all about. Bonuses are tied to company's performance and very limitedly to individual performance. (the individual part is paid should you happen to have a good relationship to the leader). Every year, they come up with a reason to avoid paying bonuses. You find yourself deprived from variable pay because some line of business that you never interacted with did not perform (even if you were a star performer) There are so many better consulting organizations with way better prospects and career opportunities that attracting someone to Mercer is a titanic job. Keeping them is practically impossible and people are probably better off starting their careers somewhere else CEO is very distant and very rude. People come to his meetings just to fill the room but avoid his questions as he can be really bad. In addition, he rolled out a culture of profitability across the company and now everything is contingent on the profits you generate rather than teh value you bring