GLG reviews

GLG is a toxic workplace, with terrible management and an upside-down business model. For any ambitious, driven, intelligent, hardworking and independent people, this company will be your kryptonite. A few points that I observed/dealt with during my 3+ year tenure with the company. Not a Performance Based Culture: No matter what management pretends to tell you, performance and talent are in no way linked to who gets promoted, who gets the biggest bonuses, etc. Promotions are given to tenured employees who are low/average performers who do not get burned out. The top performing employees and driven professionals quickly burn out, leave for new jobs within 1-2 years, or leave for grad school. The ones who stick around are the average performers who “drink the kool-aid”. Despite being a high performer, I was legitimately told by several people at the TL, VP and SVP level to “drink the kool-aid” if I wanted to progress and get promoted. They want people who follow orders rather than ask questions. Quickly touching on compensation, bonuses were cut smaller and smaller every year I was at GLG. Senior managers gobbled up the financial gains while over-working the revenue generating associates. It’s no wonder employee turnover exceeds 30%+. Terrible Management and Business Model: Nearly all of the revenue generated at GLG is by the new associates (0-2 years tenure). Once you get to the Team Leader level, you stop taking any client work and start “managing” a team of people. Managing has become a 1984esque structure where e-mail time stamps are tracked (i.e., being scolded for not responding to a Sunday client e-mail over a holiday weekend, etc), managers can send pop-ups to your screen to make you complete tasks immediately, and every possible metric that can be tracked on employees is viewed by 2-3 levels of managers above you. Meanwhile, TLs and above have no client responsibilities so they do not have to work late into evenings, on weekends, and operate under 30+ metrics every time they open their computers. Changes are terribly communicated to new hires, and almost always increase micromanagement and automation (i.e templates to e-mail clients rather than human responses, checking boxes when setting up projects rather than creative brainstorming) Council Member Management: One of the most disheartening things to see during my time at the company was how it treats its 'Council Members', or the primary product, the network of expert consultants. New employees are required to bring in dozens of high caliber, successful business experts to our network. Once brought in, GLG treats the experts like absolute garbage. For example, a switch to only paying them in gift cards rather than cash. Inaccurate 'rate setting' polices to undercut their hourly rate, systems that encourage/force employees to call/email professionals 10-15 times a day about 'urgent' client work, and rolling out tech buttons to deceive them to consult free of charge, lower rate and any other cost cutting mechanism you can image. At the rate this is going, I doubt GLG will be able to keep/retain experts based on how poorly they are treated and how much of a hassle it becomes. HR Policies: Unlimited vacation policy is a scam, new associates are inadvertently told not to take any time off in order to hit impossibly high targets, while senior managers are known to take month+ long vacations. The company boasts “an average of 15 days off per employee”, do the math.

There are more than 10 things I hate about GLG, but I thought the title was witty and it about sums up my feelings towards this pathetic organization. This company makes themselves seem like the God of all corporations. They place themselves upon a pedestal and present themselves as people who value a healthy work-life balance and a positive work environment; this couldn't be further from the truth. You are indoctrinated from day one of training to be nothing but a little GLG-bot; the training period is 2 weeks long and 85% of it is upper management telling new hires how amazing GLG is and how impactful the organization is. They show you video after video (how much money do you guys spend on those pointless "promo" videos by the way?) about how edgy and cool GLG is. Yeah, false. Not only are you a step above a telemarketer, but you are nothing more than a cog in one giant GLG machine. You will not be seen as a human being with feelings and a life outside of work, but only as a CRP producer. And Lord help you if you don't produce high amounts of CRP in your first 4 months. They claim it is a 9 month program, but they don't mean it. They move people to the ever elusive "upstairs" starting at 3 months and negatively pressure those of you who aren't progressing at the ridiculous rate they want to work from home. Oh, but don't clock those hours! They are S-T-I-N-G-Y about their overtime despite offering it to you in your on boarding package. Oh and one more thing--you had best clock your bathroom breaks too because if you dare step away from your desk, management is all over you. Heaven forbid you miss a single phone call. Like I said: you will not be of value to these people. They only care about your metrics and that is it. Speaking of metrics, those people who have high CRP amounts in the first few months? They are free to do whatever they wish. The behavior that high performers get away with is atrocious. One person wears crop tops on a daily basis and once opened weed inside the office. Another openly breaks company policy and does work from home (despite it being against GLG policy, they imply that you need to work from home in order to perform) without clocking the time. High performers can wear stained baseball jerseys and caps to the office, but if you dare have lower CRP than they would like, you best wear a 3-piece suit every day or else they'll ask you to change. GLG is a master bait-and-switch. They show you a vague job description with an inaccurate job title (I was hired on as a Research Associate...) and entice young graduates with decent pay and """"unlimited paid time off."""" Heavy emphasis on the quotes, they don't actually mean unlimited. You'll be lucky to get a morning off for a doctor's appointment. In addition, they changed our job title and the job description about 2 months after hiring 100 new people. You are NOT researching, do NOT let them tell you that. They also blatantly lie about their views on a healthy work-life balance; they expect you in the office from 8:30am-6:30pm every single day. Oh but fear not, they offer you gross IPA's and Goldfish every Friday so it's totally worth it....not. Want a day off? Better request it a month in advance and kiss up to your supervisor until they approve it or else it won't be. Lastly, everything that goes wrong WILL be your fault if you are hired in as a junior client solutions associate. We seriously got emails about steps we can take to improve our numbers when people neglect to answer their phones. Yes, you read that right. You are somehow in control of whether or not someone answers their phone. You are also 100% in control of whether or not a client chooses to speak with your recruits (that's how you get CRPs), and you are also in control of whether or not people respond to your emails and InMails. You know what else you're totally and completely 100% in control of? Hurricane Michael. At least GLG would expect you to be. TL:DR: Don't work here.