ATC Associates Reviews

Pros

Flexibile work schedule, with a hands off approach from corporate management. Relaxed work environment with friendly coworkers and subconsultants. Diverse projects.

Cons

No room to grow or progress, benifits are minimum, no match on 401k and health insurance can be bought on the opend market for same price. Current company wide pay raise freeze allows no room for any kind of raise.

Advice to Senior Management

Create more of a team atmosphere, encourage employee training and advancement. Take a look at possible reasons for high turnover.

Pros

Can come in whenever you want as long as you commit to your 40.

Cons

Branch manager comes in at 10 and is absolutely clueless every day, and Business development manager wins zero work. In manager meetings, Branch manager has clearly indicated that he'll have no problem casting blame on others and take zero accountability for his actions. Finally, they laid off marketing staff and a senior manager who actually brought in work to make numbers look a little better before we were bought by Cardno - seems like a pretty poor business plan of success for our futures. Our Branch manager manages from a spreadsheet, has no clue how to manage actual people, clearly not the person for the job.

Advice to Senior Management

Cardno needs to seriously look at how well the senior management is running each office, try speaking with the people that are doing all the work in place of patting each other on the back.

Pros

Time off when needed. Other employees seamed nice to your face, however god knows what was said behind your back.

Cons

No respect for lower level employees. No room for advancement. No increase in pay unless you are management. Benefits with the exception of life insurence are terrible, can be bought cheaper on open market. Low employee moral, the people who are the slick talkers and office kiss a**es get ahead while the worker who is simply there to do their job and go home at end of day are treated as "slackers" and get blamed for things they had no involvement in. Many times projects were not completed as required and would see managers and slick talkers "forge" data to make things look ok.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to have management more involved in the way the office is run. Perhaps you would see what is really happening.

Pros

Good experience for entry level employees. In terms of field work, you will learn everything there is know about the environmental consulting world.

Cons

Long hours, lack of respect and communication from upper management, low pay, low moral from pretty much all employees, poor benefits...

Advice to Senior Management

Improve communication between senior management and entry level employees. Find ways to improve the moral within the company. Treat entry level employees with respect.

Pros

As an entry level person one is exposed to a wide variety of experiences

Cons

No chance for advancement, little or no training, low stagnant wages, absolutely no respect for the field staff

Advice to Senior Management

Respect and develop the talent you have.

Pros

The staff and office management are exemplary. When there are concerns or issues regarding performance, good or constructive criticism, they don't leave you guessing. You are always rewarded and appreciated by management. Time for everyone to find such a great company to work for and know you are appreciated. There just aren't enough good things to say about them overall!

Cons

There are occasions when you can't get your full forty hours in and there are times when it is difficult to reach them. These times are rare and really not cons for the Birmingham branch.

Advice to Senior Management

Put your Full time employees first on the schedule! We are the backbone and the reason the company is a success.

Pros

If you are loyal to ATC they will be loyal to you. In my opinion they realize that people are our product
so they do what they can to promote from within and mentor employees by cross training them in as many service lines as possible. ATC has a variety of positions within the firm from entry level to those requiring advanced degrees.

Cons

Well due to the recession ATC Associates curtailed its 401 K match. I hope as the economy improves and the company begins to grow again they will be able to resume contributing.

Advice to Senior Management

I'd really like to see the company stay private and under the same management group. I think it's been a difficult couple of years for everyone but the worst is behind us now.

Pros

Self-managed schedule, plenty of out-of-office duties, nice variety in work. Moonlighting in other departments gives good exposure to industry. Professional work environment. Will learn to produce a very good product (especially Phase I ESA's)

Cons

Training is adequate, but never thorough. No instruction/career planning on how to advance within ATC. Overwhelming majority of Staff transfer to competitors for promotion. High-ish Staff turnover (although I suspect this is true for all consulting businesses, not just ATC). A department manager once stated to me that the Phase I ESA group was a "report mill".

Advice to Senior Management

ATC's work is definitely quality. However, the training is very poor, only "monkey see, monkey do". No theory about why certain sampling/inspection techniques are preferred. The problem arises when Staff do solo field work w/out proper training. You turn in your report one week later and the Project Manager asks "Why did'nt you do X ?", and now there is no time/labor budget to return to the site and complete the task correctly. This was a common occurrence at my branch for Phase I and Phase II Staff.

Pros

Work Life Balance was good. Job wasn't strenuous.

Cons

No Room for growth. Decision makers didn't think decisions through. Don't care about employees only the bottom line.

Advice to Senior Management

Do a little for your employees and try to build moral. Moral is in the toilott and try to discuss issues and concerns rather than letting the rumor mill go wild and leave everything up to assumption.

Pros

Opportunities for entry-level work such as groundwater sampling and tank removal projects.

Cons

There needs to be more career development opportunities for workers.

Advice to Senior Management

Continued communication for local branches is necessary.