CGI Group Reviews in Ottawa, ON Area

Pros

If you are driven and motivated to succeed CGI will provide you with ample opportunities to shine and succeed.

CGI does not hire employee it hires members (owners) that get to partake in all the benefits the company has to offer - profit sharing, stock options and a stock purchase plan.

CGI's Senior Management are very passionate about the company and they have a clear vision and mission for CGI – it is very inspiring to hear them speak about CGI’s vision and mission.

CGI has some great Managers that constantly provide recognition and feedback for a job well done – unfortunately there are those Managers that seem to forget to provide that words of recognition and thanks for a job well done do not cost them or the company anything.

Cons

It's a great company with many talented people yet they are unable to command the high per diem rates that companies such as IBM, EDS and Accenture enjoy.

Advice to Senior Management

The Business Unit model needs some major changes to get the company acting as one - the days of local IT market are numbers and only the truely global players will survive.

Pros

Good People who make the work environment enjoyable however that does not complete the entire experience with a quality of life matters.

Cons

sub par compensation without a bonus structure to support the successes achieved by employees & contractors.

Advice to Senior Management

engage your people communicate good or bad...knowledge is power and can help resolve issues

Pros

A great group of people on the staff.
Good life/work time balance.

Cons

Middle Management is not trained and lack of skills
No opportunities to develop a real career.
0 training even if it's promised when they hire you.
Technologies used are mostly obsoletes and you'll have problem returning to the real market
Once you are in a project, good luck, CGI forgets about you.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire some real middle management. Directors and managers are a joke and VPs are concentrated on political games.

Pros

Social Club activities, provide a laptop

Cons

not part of the cgi team, feel closer to the gov't client than you do with CGI, they try to pay you but are unsucessfull at doing so, that have so called "market adjustments" that always fall short, no sence of climbing the ladder, you get marked with a skill and hard to move to new things.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay members better, solve people from leaving, if an enmployee says thay are unhappy, listen to them and try to make them happy before thy decide to leave.

Pros

Great projects, good people to work with, minimal bureaucracy for a large company, politics largely absent with a clear focus on the client and business challenges

Cons

Very focussed on the current business, could do more to plan for future market requirements

Advice to Senior Management

Articulate market vision at business unit level more frequently and clearly

Pros

Flexible when required, Compensation is good. A lot of the people I work with are great. They are from all over the high tech community in Ottawa, and the skills some of these people are incredible.

Cons

Pay is lower than other opportunities for some skills. They lock you in to one project, even if you wish to move to others. They don't utilize the skills they have in their employees, many are wasted on trivial matters. They ignore some of the ideas and concepts of these skilled people because the upper managers dont want to appear less skilled.

Advice to Senior Management

Set pay to skill set, and not just to level. Paying a Java developer the same as an NMS architect, seems strange.

Pros

Great learning opportunities, decent compensation, great people. I've never had a problem moving into different positions. If you are smart and ambitious you can move ahead quickly.

Cons

Benefits are not great. There is no pension. If you get a bad manager your opportunities are very limited. The type of experience you have at CGI will depend highly on your manager. Getting into the right organization is very important as movement between SI (systems integration - programmers, architects, etc.) and OMS (operations management - support staff, systems adminstrators, etc.) is rare and difficult. I recommend SI.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management recently hired independent consultants to get them feedback from employees, having seen the feedback I'd say it is accurate.

Pros

Friendly co-workers. Good salary if it was negociated at hiring time. Good benefits.

Cons

low salaries
nobody really cares about your career development
A lot of benefits we had in the late 90`s were mostly removed
If you work at the main CGI building, it's a pain to work in the East end (Blair Place)

Advice to Senior Management

Be closer to your employees
Salaries are just too low
To keep employees, corporate should really think about having a pension plan

Pros

CGI offers an exciting work environment and welcoming innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. It is a competitive consulting company and brings many great consulting opportunities to its employees. The compensation and benefit package is competitive within the consulting industry.

CGI also shows a strong sense of committment to its employees, and is dedicated to their professional and personal development.
Overall, a great place to work.

Cons

As with any consulting company, the employee does not always have choice over the consulting contracts they are assigned. CGI does a good job of balancing this with the overall career and professional development objectives of the employee.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work! I applaud your recent efforts to roll out social computing / networking within the company and to encourage global communication and collaboration among our members. Well done!

Pros

If you know people within the company you can find interesting client sites to work at.
If you are talented and aggressive you can get a good salary.

Cons

Salary increases are never on time - I've seen reviews over a year late.
Although you will get "back payed" for late salary increases - you will not get your stock match on your backpayed salary. Is this legal?
The management is terrible in general with a few bright lights here and there. This definitely comes from the top.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop trying to pocket every single cent you can and open up the coffers to your employees. Make them happy. Do you really need VP approval for almost every expenditure. How about giving some of your managers a budget.