CGI Group Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

Professional and Friendly environment
Fair opportunity for growth.
Provides Commensurate compensation and benefits. Good health care benefits.
Has many offices worldwide.

Cons

Lack of Brand name recognition in the world.
May have limited industry exposure.
Leadership doesn't go after new business. They rather stick to repeated business.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to hire more sales people to go after new business.
There needs to be better coordination of internal staffing across the company locations.

Pros

good management. good work environment. respect among members. good health plan.
good company to work for. world wide presences. member satisfaction.

Cons

compensation is not high as expected. not much importance given to growth of the members.
less opportunities to work in the area of liking.

Advice to Senior Management

look to increase the size of this company. more advisement will help company to be known in the US. organic growth is important.

Pros

100% travel is not likely in most practice areas but don't consider yourself too safe during today's economic conditions - flexibility is a must. Close interaction with senior management; senior management are typically working managers.

Cons

Centralized business units make it difficult to experience work outside of your sector. Tendency to become pigeon-holed into a certain role. Highly likely to that you'll eventually do some type of staff augmentation role.

Advice to Senior Management

Most business are not aware of who CGI is and there is a considerable need for US branding and identity.

Pros

It's a good place to start off if you'd like a company with name recognition. Other than that I wouldn't stay here longer than you have to.

Cons

lack of recognition, management is not up to par. Unless you are a lifer, you'll never see any advancement, but really who wants to put in 30+ years to move up 3 or 4 levels, you'll just become another part of the useless middle management. They say you should feel like an owner of the company, I guess they forgot to mention that to everyone they laid off. Management should really look at who is actually bringing in revenue and not who's the easiest to get rid of.

Advice to Senior Management

be more truthful with your employees, they work hard for you.

Pros

Great people.

The management understands you have a personal life and is willing to work with you to find the best schedule for you. It's project-based work, so busy times can be very busy, but downtimes are a great opportunity to recharge and retool using many of CGI's knowledge resources.

The management also is willing to work to retain good people. I earned an out-of-cycle pay raise by producing good results and some luck. CGI was re-evaluating salaries and trying to stay competitive in the market.

Cons

Depending on your project, you may be working with the same client for a long time. My job almost seemed like I was part of an outsourcing team.

Advice to Senior Management

Large engagements and clients are bread-and-butter, but do not become complacent with just the cash cows. Try to develop more business opportunities.

Pros

CGI provides extensive training for employees with a variety of educational and professional backgrounds, allowing each member to enter the field on the same level, while gaining experience in their new area. The company also has an excellent leave program, and encourages its members to have a life outside of the office. The company takes into consideration the individual needs of each and every employee, and makes adjustments that best suit their separate lives. I've been most impressed with their consideration of personal plans for growth and the sharing of knowledge. More specifically, lunch breaks are long and encouraged, vacation time is considered to be as important as office time, some employees have the option to work from home due to personal circumstances, and all upper management maintains a positive attitude, even when projects hit rocky places. The company has an extremely active Social Club, and provides fitness benefits as well, to make sure that the social and health areas of their employees' lives are at their peak.
More than anything, the environment is focused and professional while being relaxed and personable at the same time. My background is in English Literature and Journalism, and I am honestly and pleasantly surprised at how much I find this position as an IT consultant to be satisfying and challenging. I fully intend to remain with this company as long as possible. The company is respectful of its employees individual backgrounds, cultures, and personal goals. The hours are flexible, the atmosphere quiet and encouraging. For a college grad, there are few positions that provide such a promising start to a career in Consulting!

Cons

The biggest downside is perhaps the different degrees of difficulty from project to project. Some employees end up with assignments that require longer hours, deal with more persnickety clients, and have more restrictions on working conditions. For example, some nights, overtime is required, or employees are asked to remain in the office instead of working from home. In other cases, employees are required to work at certain times to accomodate their clientele. These factors are not typical of the general CGI position, but they do exist. While CGI takes many factors into consideration when assigning employees to projects, the project may be suitable for the employee's skills, while the employee may not be as partial to the project. I have been with the company for a full year, and this is the only complaint I have heard from fellow employees. However, this has not been my experience at all, just one that I have observed from others around me.
But again, allow me to reiterate that management is very flexible and truly wants the employees to be happy-- and they often make arrangements as needed when these difficult projects become too much of a workload for some.

Advice to Senior Management

The only feedback I would provide to Senior Management is that many employees, especially those new to the company, look forward to feedback from their superiors. With the exception of the annual review, employees need the reassurance of knowing they are doing their job well and successfully. Not knowing if one's work is poor, satisfactory, or above average makes gauging one's success in the position more difficult. Also, employees right out of college are used to being 'graded' on their performance on a regular basis. Noting these milemarkers of productivity would not only encourage morale on an individual level, but it would increase the overall quality of work that the company offers as a whole. The company promotes an individually responsible atmosphere, but touching base when a job is done well shouldn't be just a once-a-year occurrence.

Pros

Flexible about working from home, or even from another city. Fairly laid back environment. I hear it's easy to move between projects and offices. I also get the sense that things vary a lot between projects and offices. Company stock share plan that is matched 50% up to 2% of salary. Reasonable vacation time, as well as other personal leave as needed. As mentioned below, sometimes things are very slow. During those times there is flexibility about coming in a bit late, leaving a bit early. There is a social club, and their events tend to be worthwhile. Many of your co-workers will be fairly young.

Cons

Variation between projects can be frustrating. Some teams have very little to do, while others are putting in 80 hour weeks. If you're not working from out of office or traveling, you will be working in a cube. Some technical consultants end up in relatively un-technical roles. For example, developers who do very little coding and spend most of their time support existing systems, upgrading third party software, etc. Working mainly or exclusively from home can be a drag, and some complain of missing personal collaboration with their team. Sometimes management's expectations are unclear. Sometimes the laid back attitude leads to simple tasks taking longer than is necessary.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more flexible in moving people from low activity teams to projects with more work to be done.

Pros

Flexibility in assignments and workplace location. A lot of different domains one can work in.

Cons

Little or no work life balance as with almost all consulting firms. The travel can also get to you after a while. So, know that you may travel up to 100 percent for some assignments.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve employee retirement options and benefits. Make available better placement options for those consultants who cannot be deployed internally.