ARCADIS US Reviews

Pros

Arcadis' management actively promotes engagement with colleagues both within your home office and throughout the company. The compensation is in line with similar companies. Middle management is good at honestly assessing employee strengths and weaknesses and helps to improve weaknesses and capitalize upon employee strengths.

Cons

Compensation for some positions is a little lower than the average for the industry. Personal time off for entry level positions is only two weeks, which isn't much at all.

Advice to Senior Management

Support middle management in their efforts to continue to evaluate the performance of employees in entry level positions. This feedback was consistently very good and made entry level employees feel as if they were part of something bigger than themselves and that their contributions were worthwhile.

Pros

Flexible hours. The worker bees don't need to be in the hive 8-5, but they do need to be 98% billable.
It's a massive, global company so a future interviewer might recognize the name, which could be good or bad.

Cons

Engineers are a number on a spreadsheet; a percentage of quarterly profits in a big "trickle down", pyramidal money making experiment.

There is a pervasive anxiety, fear and distrust in the air, which may have something to do with unrealistic profit margins and insane billable hour ratios.

Don't be fooled by the marketing. "Environmental" is an oxymoron. You are more likely to be working on a hydrofracking project than a windmill or solar plant.

Since exceeding last quarters profit margins are driven by Wall Street, engineering project design quality tends to suffer, which for engineers is very dissatisfying.

Lump sum projects are popular. Typical design project margins are anywhere from 5-15% at most reputable engineering firms, but you are expected to hit the 25-30% mark.

Advice to Senior Management

Who is "the leadership" at ARCADIS US?

Pros

Some cool projects;
Somewhat flexible work hours; and
Some competent staff

Cons

Utilization is everything;
ZERO recognition when you've exceeded your goals;
Management cares about one thing: themselves;
Pathetic compensation (spot bonuses can take months to be received);
Promotion will not happen unless you "know someone";
Sell work, and watch some other clown above you be rewarded for it;
GRIP. Seriously? Guaranteed remediation? Give me a break;
Uses GRIP to hide current losses for future ones;
Incompetent management in-charge of a bunch of fresh college grads who don't realize;
Turn over. Revolving staff door cool? Try revolving management too.

Advice to Senior Management

Save those bonus checks. You're going to need them when all the losses you've "sold" are finally realized.

Pros

Large company leading the way in environmental solutions.

Cons

Long time to advance. Salaries are average.

Advice to Senior Management

Some Project Managers need to be involved more with the lower staff and be more supportive. If you are advising an employee then ADVISE.

Pros

Internationally recognized and large network potential.

Cons

Management not big on individuality.

Pros

Flexible work hours
Ability to work in various locations (for some)
Comperable salary to the market
Comperable health benefits to the market (although health benefits are not as good quality as they one were)
Great staff/coworkers
401k matching

Cons

Poor experience with company buyouts - ARCADIS buys smaller firms and makes drastic changes the work culture, resulting in the mass exodus of talent.
Staff are treated as if this is the car sales industry - Being a publicly traded corporation, the firm constantly reduces overhead costs which means staff layoffs are a constant occurrence. Staff members are layed off the moment they are nonbillable.

Advice to Senior Management

When purachasing smaller firms, encourage communication among staff members. With so many offices in one location, encourage staff to network internally and offer the means to do so. Management needs to be accountable for their actions.

Pros

Large firm with access to project opportunities worldwide if you are in the right division. Decent health benefits. For environmental scientists in the large business unit catering to provate industry, most seem somewhat happy with sole source work.

Cons

This firm is pretty much a large holding company. They buy companies at a rapid rate and don't integrate them well. There is not an overarching system to link people and service offerings, there is no communication between business units, morale is low, and everything is about the bottom line. Upper management is completely disconnected. The Water Division is what once was Malcolm Pirnie, but the culture is completely different from what Pirnie once was and the Pirnie people are leaving at an alarming rate.

Advice to Senior Management

Try and foster some sort of cohesion between the companies you are buying and promote communication among employees. While most perks of working for the firm have been stripped away, try and offer some sort of value or work/life balance to employees to attract or maintain talent.

Pros

Opportunity for career moves within the organization.
Interesting project work.
Career progress is self-determined.
Numerous office locations.
CEO listens.

Cons

Slow to utilize new technology.
Senior management bogged in stale mentality.
Tiny budgets, oppressively high billable goals.
Missing international communication.

Advice to Senior Management

Foster innovative concepts, practices.
Thin out middle management.
Pick an organizational structure and stay.
More channels to the global firm.

Pros

Supportive environment
Flat organization and open management staff
Open to ideas for improvement
Good communication with employees across divisions
Stable
Smart in down economy - (making tough cuts when needed to keep company afloat and ahead of competition.)
Global footprint and perspective

Cons

Lean workforce (due to lean economy)
Longer hours (trying to do more with less)
Slow upward movement in some positions

Pros

Project ownership/leadership and creative freedom encouraged
Job responsibility increases quickly
Employee stock purchase program and good benefits
Easy to build network and working relationships
Senior executives recognize contributions and have sound strategic business plans

Cons

Constant turmoil due to poor leadership and lack of market specific knowledge. Management always in honeymoon stage with annual acquisition leaders/employees – core staff overlooked and devalued for flavor-of-the-month thinking. Legacy employee problems not managed – massive dysfunction allowed. Promotions promised yearly - none given due to annual manager changes 8 in 5 years. Beyond long hours with no perks or bonuses. Compensation does not keep pace with responsibility growth. No boundaries for vacation or personal time, 24/7 job.

Advice to Senior Management

Step up, hold your managment team accoutable! Step in, manage problems and have a voice to correct a wrong when you know about it - don't just watch it happen. Lead, demand the same leadership values throughout the company.