| Topic Name: |
Free cheese to go with your whine. |
| Message Name: |
I Totally Agree |
| Date Posted: |
02/28/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
I think there are a few of us that strike a balance on this board and don't have to face angry rants for stating our opinions.
Personally:
Hewitt has helped me quite a bit. I arrived at the company a cocky, straight-out-of-school slacker and have been able to learn at Hewitt how to be a productive and valuable employee. I've learned to have a head for business, to lead others, to convince clients of the importance of my viewpoints. Hewitt has offered classes to help me with these in addition to a few fantastic managers. I have advanced my career and the careers of others along the way.
On the other side of the coin - Hewitt has done a poor job of change management... perhaps because too many of our decision-makers think that their employees are just "whiney-babies." They've also used some justifications and explanations that seem disengenous.
I'll use the example of the free lunch here since it's fresh in everyone's minds. Last Spring there was a Source posting regarding the free food program at Hewitt. It had a FAQ section that specifically asked the question "Are we going to lose the free food?". The answer was "No, we are commited to keeping and even enhancing the quality of the free food benefit." Less than 10 months later we announced that the benefit was going away. Giving the greatest possible benefit of the doubt this means that our leadership was woefully unaware of the challenges that our business would face (if eliminating the benefit was necessary to remain competitive) within the next 4 quarters. This means in a best-case scenario our leadership cannot effectively predict their expenses and needs for a coming year (let alone long-term direction). In a worst case scenario they were merely lying to us... indicating an active disregard for their employees' concerns (enough so that lying to temporarily stave off criticism would be acceptable).
I'm not a Hewitt-hater... I'd probably be an assistant manager at some retail outfit without the lessons that I learned at this company... but I'm not willing to put blinders on in an attempt to whitewash my company's shortcomings either.
The ONLY criticism that I've gotten for posting these sorts of opinions has been from the "rabidly support Hewitt" front... the "whiners" don't seem to care about the positive aspects of my statements. |
| Message: |
As one of the "whiners" who regularly posts on this board, I find your postings to be quite refreshing. There's no rule out there that says you can't find positive things to say about Hewitt while still being critical. I agree. Hewitt has done good things for me as well. But, as you've illustrated by your example, executive leadership is either horribly ill-equipped to manage the firm, or they have such disregard for associates that they will sell us on anything to cover their asses. Exult was the exact same way, and that firm did a lot for me as well. Your voice of reason lends credibility to many of the things many of us complain about.
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