Baker Tilly reviews

Downward spiral: earlier this year(2012), Baker Tilly was sued for negligence by a former client, Aqua Finance, and lost resulting in a $50M verdict. For a $250M company, the result will be very negative especially because the insurance company for Baker Tilly has refused to pay the fee. Much more can be found by simply googling the case. High turnover: all within a few months, an Executive Managing Partner, the Managing Partner for DC and the Chief HR Officer all resigned. In DC this summer, 6 of the interns were sent home in the middle of the internship. Many more in specific groups like Risk Advisory Services have seen large scale resignations due to poor leadership at the top of the business unit. Micromanagement: very few managers are actually good at delegating work. A couple individuals within the firm are great, but they are the exception. Most have a difficult time mainly because there is almost no training in any area aside from maintaining CPA certification credits. Many managers are focused on protecting their own jobs and too territorial to allow others the opportunity to flourish. There is a large leadership skill void and there's no tolerance for mistakes. You are expected to know everything coming in and if you don't, you'll be reprimanded and quickly terminated. Dim future: the firm in December 2011 issued an email to all employees announcing the rumors of a three-way merger with Reznick and Cohn was in fact in discussion. The email claimed the announcement was for transparency and honesty, but the real reason, employees soon learned, was because someone at one of the other firms leaked the information. Leadership at Baker Tilly tried to spin the message as being open to their employees, but most saw through the disguise. The final result was a two-way merger between Reznick and Cohn as the combined 11th largest accounting firm leaving Baker Tilly out. Again, the message to employees by leadership was that it was our choice, but after everything, that seems unlikely. Innovation only a tagline: the office culture does not encourage individuals to have original thoughts. Many managers require you to carry our projects precisely how they would do it and want to have full control over every decision point. If you have a great idea, the company does not reward it. The firm fears change and development but prefers to keep the status quo.

People are very clicky and our office is not very social. Definitely have to adhere to strict preferences of your manager or managers, and it definitely isn't an atmosphere based on independent thinking and creativity. Practices towards towards social media are antiquated and stifling--doesn't have a FB presence, and blocks FB in the office. Mentoring program is a good idea but not structured well. Surprisingly high turnover. In the past 6 months, at least 9 senior level people left. Also, not very transparent or consistent messaging when people do leave--sometimes there are announcements sometimes not. I'm alao convinced that they need to retrain the performance counselors, as I've witnessed inconsistent approaches to feedback. Culture can definitely definitely be described as stuffy and political--a winning combination.