Work-life balance is a lie. It's all about hours during the year. If you want to be successful, complete the hours and then you'll be able to take vacations. If you fall behind, you'll never be able to take a vacation.
The employees, on all levels, lie about hours. This is the only way to make it in this company. Management knows this, but will not say anything as their whole company is based on this. One guy had clocked in over 12 hours every day for a single month (358 hours which includes Sundays) . He got promoted.
Promotions/raises are no longer about how long you've worked there for. You can be skilled and work there for years, but if the partners and managers don't think you're worth it then you won't get that raise or promotion. This has been said in the buyout meeting as well.
Leadership and Management being helpful use to be a thing a few years ago. Being helpful is no longer the case. I've seen managers and partners avoid a specific individual and load up work to someone else just because they don't want to write as many review points.
They are outsourcing everything. Sikich India is a bigger issue to the staff and seniors. Beware.
Staff and Seniors are the only people who help and communicate together. It's hard to get a manager or partner to read an e-mail.
The toxic work environment is real at Sikich. This will not be fixed and will continue to be like this. It's a selfish mentality amongst managers and partners. They want themselves to look the best and at the expense of staff and seniors.
My advice for anyone who's reading this. Use this job as a stepping stone to get out of here. A few years will get you enough experience to hop into another firm or private practice. Given the situation now, the hours are built into the revenue and if you don't reach that, you might as well just look to be fired. If you put too many hours into a certain project, they'll lose out on money and it won't be a good look on you. That is the toxic culture that Sikich has produced and will stay like this until they fix the hours situation.
Good luck.
