Electronic Data Systems Reviews in Herndon, VA

Pros

great Company to work for if you want get global exp on variety of technology implementation projects across multiple industries and verticals. less consulting more implementation centric .. great colleagues - excellent people care leaders.. decent benefits

Cons

promotes complacency .. limited growth if you are a techie ... used to be top heavy .. too many resource mgrs and project maangers - not pay masters! extremely process oriented .may get frustrated if you are a high peformer and loking for a faster growth in consulting career!

Advice to Senior Management

strongly recommend getting rid of mediocore performers and middle management and incent technical folks with business acumen towards consulting leadership positions

Pros

I work at a contract site. For me the best reasons to work for EDS are the professionalism and competence of local management. Management, locally, was always fair and they always recognized the work of others and compensated for it. I worked hard and received good raises of about 4% a year for two of the years I worked there. I came on as a sub-contractor and received a good salary when I came on board. I was pleasantly surprised to get 2K more than I asked for, but I frequently low ball myself when asking for compensation. Your millage may vary.

I believe the best reason to work for EDS is that it is...at least was, a place that put professional excellence first and did it's best to satisfy it's customer. A company attitude of help the customer to help yourself was prevalent and almost infectious. It is a good atmosphere to work with and bond to people.

In my personal career of over 17 years in the industry, it was my second favorite place to work.

Cons

There were very few downsides to EDS before the merger. Benefits were good, atmosphere was comfortable, and management was gave you leeway if you were performing well. Compensation was adequate.

Under HP, Senior EDS management is dismantling the company. Just before the merger, our health care was cut from better HMO's to Blue Cross Blue shied. This was apparently done to make the company less expensive and more attractive to HP and the cost to the employees. After the merger, Pensions were frozen and cut. This was a major blow for me, since EDS is one of the few companies left to have them. Still, I liked my job, my mangers and pay was decent. Then HP announced that it would cut salaries for all employees by 5%. Most were shocked. I have never been subject to a paycut in my career. I was initially angry, but decided that if I liked where I was at, the environment good, etc....why rock the boat. I learned a long time ago not to jump ship if things were good and you didn't dread going into work everyday.

Then the last straw happened. Senior EDS management decided to cut all EDS salaries by 10% for April, on top of the HP 5% pay cut. Most employees were livid. I decided I had had enough and found another job.

To sum it up, the downside for working at EDS is that now it is an HP company and HP has a track record of dismantling companies it acquires.

Advice to Senior Management

None, I don't give advice to people I don't care about and they obviously have shown that they don't care about their employees.

Pros

Great benefits, and the people are genuinely good people.

Location is also nice, further out west keeps you out of the beltway traffice.

Cons

Zero upward mobility. There is virtually no career growth with EDS. All they care is that we stay billable and don't want us to even consider looking at a new position on a new contract.

There needs to be a better plan for career growth and some focus on upward mobility for those who are interested. As far as I am concerned there is no plan available.

Advice to Senior Management

Because of the nature of our work employees in my group feel disconnected with HQ Reston. There needs to be a better plan for career growth and some focus on upward mobility for those who are interested. As far as I am concerned there is no plan available.

Pros

If you are in the right place at the right time, you have the potential for fast promotions. But this requires all the stars to be aligned just perfect, not to mention you have to be competent enough to handle the promotion.
For those who aren’t so competent, if you can fly under the radar until these 24,000 job cuts are done, it is easy to spend 25 years with EDS giving the bare minimum. EDS management seems afraid to fire unless you really screw up big, and even then, you would probably just be re-assigned to a different project. If you look around the office you will see tones of low performers, that have been around for a long time, and probably make more then you too. EDS is afraid to get rid of them, because you might sue.

Cons

You can be an all star, or you can be a dud, either way EDS doesn’t care about you. In addition to doing your job and doing it well, you can work an extra project, whose outcome saves the company $8.6 million, but when your performance review rolls around, you have only “met expectations.” In EDS you are taught that meeting expectations in your review means you rate a pay increase every 12-15 months, unless of course you are in the middle of an HP merger, in which afterwards all raises are cancelled for a year and a half, when you are already 15 months over due. 2008’s first quarter, Hewlett- Packard who just recently acquired EDS saw a revenue increase over 50%, and shortly after, announced that all promotions and raises were cancelled for the rest of the year and all of 2009. The common phrase heard all over the enterprise is “Be glad you have a job.”
EDS also doesn’t mind placing you 5 grand below your pay scale and leaving you there for 2 and a half years, even if you are consistently getting positive performance reviews. Don’t bother telling your boss you found a new job expecting him to try and counter offer. This isn't coming from a below average empolyee, I am a top performer, and EDS still wouldn't blink an eye if I left.

Advice to Senior Management

EDS First Line Leaders program teaches that employee's don't leave because of money, but because they feel like they aren't being cared for. But with the economy the way it is, we can't leave if we wanted to, you have us by the balls, and you are taking advantage of it. The job cuts and lack of moral boosters will reflect in your customer sat and service levels. Don't fool yourself into thinking your bad metrics are caused by anything other than lack of good judgement from you.

Pros

EDS is a good company for someone with a technical background in the information technology field. You will learn and growth technically on areas that will make you more marketable in your profession and career path.

Cons

Like most large companies, EDS is very bureacratic with multiple layers of management chain and processes. It has a very centralized decision making from the corporate office whereas managers at the client account level are not empowered or trusted to make business decisions.

Advice to Senior Management

I would recommend to the senior management at EDS to decentralize the decision making process on issues that should be managed at the account level.

Pros

EDS, an HP company, is very good at communicating with employees. Sure there are complaints that we receive too many corporate newsletters, emails, global broadcasts, etc. In the long run those forms of communication are necessary to keep employees aware of what's happening in a global company with 120,000+ employees. During the recent acquisition of EDS by Hewlett-Packard (August 2008), the senior management of both HP and EDS have been very open and communicative about what was happening. A website portal was launched immediately giving EDS employees an opportunity to delve even further into the ramifications of the acquisition--everything public related to the acquisition was put in a single location (press releases, internal broadcasts, transcripts of speeches, FAQs, email address to ask questions, etc.).

Cons

EDS still embraces the "good ole boy network." It's about who you know and not what you can do. There's very little opportunity for growth and advancement. Investment in employees' professional development is practically unheard of and subject to the whim (and budget) of the managers. Also, the concept of work/life balance at EDS is totally foreign. It's all about the bottom line and doing whatever it takes to get the job done regardless of personal sacrifices. Your job should come first in the eyes of senior management at EDS, with family and health way down on the list.

Advice to Senior Management

At the heart of every great company is the mental, physical and spiritual well-being of its employees. Consideration and investment in your greatest resource--the employees--would be the greatest benefit you could provide to the people who work for EDS.

Pros

The pay and benefits were good. However new incoming employees are subject to HP policies which are slightly less than what EDS used to offer. Existing employees were able to keep their existing benefits.

Cons

There is not much communication from management as to what is going on within the company. Also, there is not much emphasis on employee morale, mentoring, and career advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to focus some on employee morale to increase productivity.

Pros

At my location and in my postion, I have a lot of autonomy, flexibility, and good benefits.

Cons

Unfortunately, the culture here pratically shuns innovation and creative thinking. As a young professional, I am treated like a naive baby by the grey and white haired coworkers that dominate the place. EDS managers behave as though it is 1980; I believe they need a fresh infusion of modern thinking from a younger crowd (I know, I am biased, but it's what I think).

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more young people, promote those with leadership potential, and be open to innovation. Your ranks will be depleted in five or ten years when most of the older employees retire, so plan for that now.

Pros

There are very little reasons to work for EDS, the only thing I can think of was the plenty of vacation time up front . Most employees get 3 weeks of vacation on their first day. EDS tries to advertise to their employees that they are one of the best places to work, but they are wrong. They even try to get their employees to vote them into an external online poll for best places to work but most people just laugh at it. Overall, EDS sucks and I would not recommend anyone work at EDS since filling out this portion of the survey was very hard for me.

Cons

Raises are very far apart, most employees get it after 18 months and they are very little, which is ridiculous. After 3 years of working you barely get 2 raises. EDS should learn how to compensate their workers. There is no way to grow within EDS and they do not care what kind of education you have when considering a promotion. You have to jump through hoops before anyone would even inform you how to get a promotion and then they basically tell you its no way it is going to happen.

Advice to Senior Management

Give raises and promotions more often

Pros

The benefits are good and pretty flexible with leave. It's a paycheck.

Cons

Hard to get on a good career path unless you are on the "right" project. Higher ups have pet projects they love and other projects they treat like red-headed step-children. Also, working offsite at client locations sometimes you are left to fend for yourself. Seems like the only time you get any communication is when you are late on submitting your time card or they require you to travel to Herndon for a meeting when they could let you dial in. I know someone who worked on a commercial contract, and they got no respect from the customer and no support from their manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Actually make a career path viable. Not just have people complete IDPs and stuff with no feedback by management.