Pros
Coworkers make the job enjoyable.
Cons
Software Developers - stay far far away from this company... unless you love spending 60%-80% of your time documenting everything on Jira, arguing with other senior managers, and sending emails. I would never recommend any person working as a developer to come to Alfa, especially since most senior technical folk are leaving or have already left. Overhead: Any development or enhancement you will design will be initially rejected (guilty before proven innocent?), and be sure to defend whatever it is you are pushing for because it will take at least 6 -12 months to get it thru after arguing with at least 3-6 different managers, likely even more than that. This company has a strong bureaucratic system for pushing any type of change to code. You can definitely challenge people, but no one will listen, and will definitely not approve. With the necessity of external approval, it is often development suicide to disagree. "Empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers, and undermine managerial credibility," strongly applies here. Rude managers: There are specific managers who make everyone hate their jobs. Everyone knows who they are, but yet nothing is done. The more you bully other junior consultants and soft-spoken managers, the likelier it seems that one would receive a promotion. There are specific people who have personal habits which is to be extremely rude and disagree with everything that is put forth. Management promote these "managers" who have no people skills. Before departing, it was specific managers (CA) which often blocked worked, so much so that no one gets anything done within reasonable timing. Specific people watch and wait for issues, and write comments that block work. Much of the technical steering committee will likely not change their mind on an opinion if it differs from theirs. Jira trolling prevents innovation. The organisational habits of this company incentivise the Operations Board to promote people who bully other individuals. Similarly, specific senior technical employees are able to push thru commits thru self-approval. When others try that, they are berated for not following workflows and processes. Human Resources: As a warning to future employees, HR does not care about employees or their families. In consulting standards, it should be that employees are able to request or discuss the ability for changing roles or locations. Alfa management move employees with very little consent for their own benefit. It is common that people are told they will be moved with a few days notice, sometimes even less. It is very often that HR does not respond to any enquiries on location changes until very last minute. This is very common for client based consultants/managers after overhearing many discussions from current/former employees. It is most likely consultants find out they are being moved to other locations from discussions with other employees via word of mouth. "The person being relocated or moved projects is often the last person to find out," would be a sufficient paraphrasing for the way HR operates. Localisation: From former discussions with employees who moved to America, there were many decisions made by executives that personally harmed many individuals, inclusive of very senior management and directors. Tax implications were not considered or acknowledged for the employees with equity in the company. The reason for this is two-fold: PWC which files and maintains tax records for the expats does an awful job, and the due diligence that HR should have done for this was inadequate. More specifically, an email was sent out by ensuring individuals that there were no tax implications on the shares that were distributed. This was a blatant lie. There was no apology for this. Most employees have to manually verify and validate their own taxes because PWC makes significant mistakes. Executives decided to change the contracts, which should generally not be an issue... but it was the way in which Alfa went about making changes that personally affected the livelihoods of these individuals. There was little to no discussion, then the changes were implemented within one or two weeks. Employees were not given a chance to negotiate the changes being made, and were essentially either forced to sign the paperwork which would result in loss of insurance and benefits or face immediate departure back to the UK. Some individuals did negotiate personal terms of agreement. This is gross mismanagement. Few employees spoke up in disagreement. Some families were forced to move back to the UK. Some families decided to sign the contract with little room to negotiate, if any. These employees will never forget the way they were treated. Advice to current employees: Open your eyes - other companies will pay significantly more.
