Pros
Collaborative is a fantastic place to learn and branch out with the Workday software. Starting from the manager level on up, they will empower their directs in many different ways to learn, grow, and take on more responsibility to tailor their career however they see fit. This growth style is encouraged and fostered by the Collaborative Executive Leadership Team.
When it comes to project work, there will be times when it's busy, and times when it's slow. The responsibility falls on the consultant to let their manager know when it's become too much or if they're in over their head, this is not looked down upon, but encouraged for proper work life balance and employee/project health. Collaborative has some of the best leads in the ecosystem and growth happens exponentially at lower levels as you get your first few assignments under your belt. I've seen Collaborative try their best to assign project work to fit the wants and geographic locations of their consultants, but the nature of this business is that is not always possible due to timing and operational constraints. There shouldn't be any issues taking time off or PTO as long as extended PTO is planned. You won't find many micromanagers here, so as long as work gets done you are free to complete it however you see fit (albeit in conjunction with the client's schedule/needs).
In my past years at Collaborative I never felt like leadership didn't care about their employees, I think the rapid growth of the company has caused growing pains that inevitably come up, to which leadership is at some times a little too reactionary. With that said, reactionary is better than no action at all, with rapid growth comes rapidly changing targets and it's impossible to stay infront of all of them at once. Leadership definitely does have an open door policy and anyone (i mean anyone) can ping the ELT, VPs, or whomever to chat about any issues. During the height of the pandemic, the amount of empathy, understanding, and proactive steps taken to keep the company running will be something I'll remember for the rest of my professional career - leadership walked the walk on their core values 100%.
There has been some turnover and leadership churn with the Cognizant acquisition, which is to be expected with any type of event like this. It's not necessarily a bad thing and I feel it sometimes gets overblown with "turnover" rhetoric. Healthy churn is a good thing, especially if individuals in leadership positions have new career aspirations.
If you're looking to get into the Workday ecosystem, kicking off a consulting career, or looking to enhance your project experience/skills, Collaborative is a fantastic partner filled with managers that do care about you. For me, Collaborative was the best decision I ever made, I don't regret working here for one second - overall a fantastic partner.
Cons
Some of the negatives around Collaborative involve Benefits, Cognizant Acquisition, internal communications.
Benefits - They're not awful, just difficult to keep pace with the "Tech" arms race for talent.
Cognizant Acquisition - This was a big deal to a lot of people and I feel that more transparency and understanding in regards to employees sentiment could be handled a bit better. Collaborative does care about employee feedback, which is why they're very big on employee engagement surveys and publishing raw data in a transparent way. However planned actions on that data should be communicated more clearly once they're identified.
Internal Communications - Collaborative has struggled with this for a while, which isn't too surprising. Any company that experiences such rapid growth with so many internal initiatives, communication gaffes are bound to happen. People Services and leadership really do try to keep people updated on happenings, but you can always strive to be better.
