Pros
- Interesting work - Friendly team - Good learning curve for juniors
Cons
- The pay is way below market standard. The Strategy3 leadership claims they've done a salary benchmark and concluded that our pay bands align to industry standard, which is not true. When inflation hit 10%, some consulting companies offered a pay rise to mitigate the impact of inflation on their employees, while S3 offered a 300 pound voucher. The grad starting salary remains 26,500 (same as a few years ago) despite cost of living has gone crazy. Pay rise almost doesn't exist unless you get promoted. - Super high attrition rate. Juniors on average stay for 2 years, get promoted once or twice and leave for a better job. For the juniors who have left in the last couple years, everyone received roughly 30-50% pay increase, which agains proves that people are massively underpaid. High attrition rate means S3 is inefficient. Losing people means more investment in recruitment. This business model is unsustainable, but leadership doesn't seem to care to change. - No longer goal or strategy. S3 doesn't have a clear sense of direction of our capabilities and services. If you check other consulting companies' websites, they could tell you what exactly they do. S3 claims to work in corporate strategy, but during my time there, I've barely seen any corporate strategy projects. S3 takes whatever is thrown to them from clients, as long as it makes 50k here and there. Strategy3 is an Ipsos global service line, but within Ipsos UK, S3 sits in a service line called Advisory. This kind of org is extremely confusing, making this all very difficult to navigate. - Some other cons are: secretive culture, favouritism, unprofessional behaviours from individuals...
