Pros
The Wood Dale headquarters has some good amenities. - An on premises exercise room that is well equipped. - An excellent cafeteria that serves breakfast and lunch at very reasonable prices. - A recently remodeled office with modernly equipped meeting rooms. They have pizza, snacks and drinks to celebrate the end of a successful quarter. Everyone is very nice to work with. Some departments allow remote work a few days a week. They do offer benefits, but nothing special. They also have a pretty generous bonus structure.
Cons
The company has been around a long time and shows with very archaic management styles. Also in many ways it’s very much an ol’ boys club and if you’re not on the inside you’re likely to be passed around. I’ve heard remarks from upper management that are borderline harassment and unappropriated for a workplace. Employees have been called idiots by management. Titles are thrown around among management. Everyone is a director or VP of something. Employees are expected to work 9 hour days. Even if you have nothing to work on you are expected to stick around. Management is so concerned to see butts in chairs they will ditch out early and come back in or call just to make sure their employees are still in the office. Management has no respect for their employees’ time. Meetings are juggled constantly. Sometimes expecting employees to come in early or stay late then eventually cancelling the meeting all together. Working weekends is also common is some departments. There is a severe lack of leadership. Any true leader either has their authority handcuffed by upper management so they eventually leave or let go. There is so much turnover and restructuring that it's normal to have a new manager at least once a year (I've seen up to 4 times in a single year). There is no employee engagement. There are team members that have very little or nothing to do at times. There is little done to challenge them or help grow their careers. People are brought onboard and then their skills are never fully utilized. Because they deal with government agencies the company has some huge securities in place. It’s above and beyond anything I’ve dealt with to the point where you need to go through the help desk and get manager approval to install anything. Even if it’s critical for your role. Security by obscurity. The company has entrenched themselves in a legacy oracle system. They are so deep in it that it would be too overwhelming to try to modernize it. This coupled with pulling resources from IT causes many headaches in new developments. There is little to no training. The company has online courses you are required to take to cover ethics, and the organization’s history, but not much beyond that. I personally did not receive any training on the industry or on the projects I was working on until I raised a concern. Even then it was well after that knowledge would have been most useful. In my position I’ve seen management treat sub-contractors very rudely. Expectations are unrealistic and when they are not met (not surprisingly) discussions get very heated. Very unprofessional. The company wastes money. They are constantly making new acquisitions and out sourcing projects where they are paying way too much for the final product. The irony is that they could bring those projects in house from the beginning, pay a fraction of the cost, and get a better product. I never understood why they are opposed to investing in their current employees and infrastructure. I saw the negative reviews before joining and thought it would be different for me since I was joining a brand new department. It was not. This is not a good place to build a career, period. Do yourself a favor and STAY AWAY!
