Publicis Sapient Asia-Pacific

Vault’s Verdict

A leader in the digital business transformation space, Publicis Sapient is a firm that seems to be in strong demand across the APAC region at present. While that is typically a recipe for a litany of complaints about overwork, Publicis Sapient seems to have cracked the code in work life balance, with insiders noting that reasonable hours, ease of taking vacation time and protected weekends all help to make their jobs that much more enjoyable.

In addition to a positive culture, the company also offers the ability for consultants to develop a range of skills, as befits its position as a provider of end-to-end solutions. And, with a wide variety of clients and industries at its disposal, there may be no better firm to gain rapid experience across a range of project types. If digital strategy is your thing, Publicis Sapient may well be worth looking into further.

Firm Culture

• “A dedication to human impact. Every organisation has the potential to have a positive impact in people’s lives - employees, customers, consumers, citizens - humans. Our work aims to unlock and realise this potential for our clients.”
• “Culture, the willingness to do what is right by the client and truly partner with them and co-create, avoiding templates or sticking to project approaches and then selling the right work only after completing what was on the plan to begin with.”
• “Great chance to gain early responsibility, which is difficult to attain anywhere else. Coming to a smaller firm has the obvious disadvantages, but also provides the opportunity to better integrate yourself within the culture (which is fantastic) and develop skills.”
• “What makes Publicis Sapient unique is our entire focus globally on helping our clients transform into digital businesses that positively impact people's lives. For us, this means our success is not about the ability to implement a program or tool; it’s inextricably linked to the ability to drive specific business outcomes and evolve products, services, and experiences over time so that the business can be ever relevant with their increasingly digital consumers.
  We unlock value through a start-up mindset and modern methods, building solutions that fuse our SPEED capabilities: Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering, and Data.”
• “You will learn about more than just strategy consulting here—we live and breathe a holistic and end-to-end approach to business transformation.”

Quality of Life

• “Best: Great culture and work life balance. All project leaders and managers are welcoming and good to work with.
  Worst: Low complexity projects result in a low numbers of hours required to work. Would like the opportunity to work longer hours in order to develop. More leadership support needs to be given for organising company-wide events. Currently driven by the employees themselves.”
• “Everyone in the company works together to bring the best out in each other. For the most part, management treat us like people rather than employees, and are very considerate of personal lives and other commitments outside of work. Our org structure is very flat, giving us access to the most experienced minds to guide and develop us. I sat next to the CTO in the office today who is more than happy to have a chat about work and life in general. Work life balance is well-maintained, with the exception of some busy project periods which are well managed, keeping stress levels to a minimum.”
• “Strengths - support for flexibility, balanced hours controlled by you, irregular travel, very easy to take time off.
  Areas for improvement - Struggling office culture due to office location.”
• “The culture of truly flexible work, very good hours for 90+% of projects, and a very flat hierarchy with a more tech start up feel compared to stiff old school corporate feel. Honestly the culture is why I chose to work at PS and it has not disappointed so far.”
• “They really try to allow for work life balance and do so by hiring empathetic and flexible people. But sometimes our work and deadlines are demanding and therefore this becomes the blocker to work life balance. PS is still getting their project resourcing right, sometimes it is under resourced or we over commit. However on the whole they are pretty amazing for a consulting firm compared to its competitors.”

Career Development

• “Promotion process is transparent and consistent, however some levels can be a bit complicated, requiring the individual to coordinate things like bill rates with Finance.”
• “Flexible approach to development that is continually developing and being able to respond to individuals requirements.”
• “Heaps of training and courses available if you want, clear promotion processes, highly diverse and inclusive.”
• “Opportunity for career development is dynamic, allowing us to move up exactly when we are ready. It's based on a clearly documented, structured promotion cycle which is highly connected with our core competency framework. If we do a good job and hit our goals and targets for our role level, we will be recognized and rewarded accordingly.”
• “Strengths: Clear promotion process, regular opportunities to get reviewed. Focus on promoting diversity and offering training for both quantitative and qualitative skills.
  Areas for development: pathways to provide upwards feedback, and more critical feedback.”

Compensation

• “Best: casual dress, hybrid working is very easy and flexible.
  Worst: Barely any perks / discounts (removed our perk app without finding a replacement), free food and drink in the office is relatively limited, no free parking for employees is a significant pain point.”
• “In terms of equality, Publicis Sapient is committed to reduce the gender pay gap and the company has made some steady progress. One of the main reasons for the gender pay gap is that men are more likely to be in the consulting and technology sector and the lower representation of female leaders in senior roles.”
• “Lack of transparency is a downside, however the pay is very good for the hours we work especially compared to big 4 firms.”
• “Salary is good and bonus is generous!”
• “We are paid above average compensation for the level of experience and role being performed.”

Diversity

• “Everyone is equally respected and provided the same opportunities.”
• “Firm has initiatives in place for all of these D&I efforts and actively reviews their effectiveness.”
• “Overall fairly good inclusion, but not an overly diverse workforce. There is a great diversity of socio-economic background though, whereas I feel a lot of firms have high diversity on certain metrics but not on overall ‘privilege’ or relative wealth that someone comes from. Publicis Sapient Australia have a large range of employee resource groups that we have access to, for LGBTQ+, Women, Indigenous Australians and people with a disability.
  Regarding access to work and promotions, I have not seen or heard of any apparent bias or lack of opportunity. Our processes for promotion at least make it very clear on what is required.”
• “Yes, I feel that our firm is supportive of all people and operate a number of initiatives, including:
  - Business Resource Groups - Pride for LGBTQIA+ individuals, PAC for Asian and Pacific Islander Communities, EnAble for people with disabilities, as well as a Women's network.
  - Transgender guidelines that support and protect our transgender colleagues.
  - I feel that leaders within the business would be supportive in the event of discrimination by a client.”

Outlook

• “A lot of growth opportunities and a growing team and client base is promising. Availability of the right talent (those who are capable but also embody the unique values of our company) in the market may be a limiting factor, particularly for mid-senior management.”
• “Publicis Sapient is positioned for growth over the next few years, primarily as a result of our SPEED capabilities, working together to solve problems for clients across the end-to-end Digital Business Transformation spectrum.”
• “We continue to see strong growth as we look to the rest of the year and going into 2023. A key aspect of our differentiation that continues to drive that growth is our ability to bring our SPEED capabilities together to drive strong outcomes for clients. This is all possible through a combination of the company culture, ways of working, and the investment seen in bringing in and nurturing talent within each of these areas.
  Our priority for the next 6 to 12 months will continue to be on advancing these areas so that we continue to build the strongest digital business transformation offering in the market while nurturing the kind of environment where the best talent can thrive.”
• “Well positioned to grow, lacks some brand awareness for pure strategy jobs despite having the people to execute the jobs as well as anywhere. Morale quite high overall. The market in general has transitioned into Sapient's strength of end-to-end digital transformation, so in that sense it is good, but there is also work to be done to convince clients that their legacy consulting go-to firms aren't set up to execute that type of work as well as we are, since we have been doing it for 20 years. So well placed, but some more marketing required.”

Hiring Process

• “Efficient interview process, time intensive for consultants to interview. Seeking smart, social and curious learners.”
• “Interview process is rigorous and challenging, ensuring candidates have strong values aligned to our company and company culture, as well as have the ability to solve problems on the spot, communicate and relate to people quickly.”
• “Three rounds, behavioral, case study and final round with Head of Strategy. Rigorous but not daunting. Could perhaps be more selective, especially with graduates. Ideal candidate is not a cookie cutter, no selective schools or MBA programs etc., just someone who can think, has some kind of interesting experience, and wants to do impactful work rather than prestigious or high paying work.”

Interview Questions

• “Case study questions are market sizing and go-to-market-themed behavioral interview questions. We ask a candidate to show their capabilities by offering an example from their past (STAR-style questions).”
• “Market sizing, growth projection case interviews.”
• “Tell me a time when you worked in a group or team to achieve an outcome that you could not have done individually.”
• “Tell me about something from the past year or two that you are really proud of. How did you approach this and what was the result?”
• “Why do you want to work for us?”