Pros

The people are nice and helpful, Equifax is a brand name and there is a lot of flexibility. The benefits and wages are decent but it is not worth the daily aggravation.

Cons

Equifax is not a sales-driven culture. Their environment and business philosophy is not conducive to motivating sales reps. They are process driven to the point of being absurd and the amount of time spent on administrative tasks is ridiculous. They constantly have conference calls and meetings to discuss the same topic over and over. It is the most political company I have ever worked for. Multiple reps and channels call on the same customer, which makes your job very challenging and causes tension because there is not an easy way to determine who is doing what. It is a bureaucratic nightmare and they have too many layers of management who try to look busy. There is no rhyme or reason how they distribute quota other than based on favoritism. Every time you have some momentum going, they will change direction again and move reps and accounts around. Commissions are supposed to be paid quarterly but it takes much longer. They do not release goals or the comp plan until many months after the year begins, which most people believe is by design to control how much they pay you. The comp plan is also not easily deciphered. Management does not appreciate employees who perform and have work ethic and instead reward undeserving people. Performance numbers are rarely received so you do not know where you stand. I only wish someone would have told me all this. I would highly recommend you think about working for one of the many great organizations out there that have leaders who understand what motivates sales people. The hard reality and truth is that is not the case at Equifax.

Advice to Senior Management

Fresh ideas are good, and should be welcomed, not punished. You need to listen to feedback and fix your broken model.

Pros

Fellow employees are great (for the most part)
Very interesting industry to work in
real desire to be an innovative company

Cons

Lack of senior leader understanding on how essentially fully outsourcing IT will impact long term ability to innovate and grow revenue.
Tolerance for missed commitments is far worse now than with previous leadership
Senior leaders allow themselves a level of extravagance that is laughable when you see the extent of the cost cutting that has gone on elsewhere. Total disconnection to the environment that the Equifax world off the exec floor are forced to work in.

Advice to Senior Management

Hold your leaders accountable - for the good and the bad. M&A Strategy and talent need an overhaul.

Pros

Pension Plan was in place when I was there - great
Benefits were very good
Independent work environment - outside sales
Encouraged Family time
Training was excellent

Cons

Upper Management - Ivory Tower Syndrome
Ostrich with a head in the sand approach to a lot of problems
Drink the koolaid mentality of IT - nothing can be wrong - it makes me laugh when I see the IT awards they get undeservedly and makes me wonder if the employees of the IT mags in Atl that are always ranking them so high are in bed with Equifax - or just want a job there.
Legal and any department for that matter will kill a project if they don't like an employee that is working on it - see it done - heard em laugh about it.
Internal support employees are always walking around or not at their desk - makes it impossible to get anything done
Will run a sweat shop if they think they can get away with it.
Blatant disregard of the consumers whose information they "steward". They aren't concerned about errors in their data base they just want business from the commecial sector.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop drinking the Koolaide the employees are giving you - Really - any given day, Please call random phone extensions during the day of your corporate and tech center for internal sales/service support and see how many people actually answer their phones or are at their desk -It will be eye opening!

Pros

If you are very good, you will stand out. But, little room for advancement, salaries are competitive. You can easily stay long at this company if you want to coast by.

Cons

Management does not allow you to do your job. Very micro-managed. Technology team is not top rate for a technology company.

Advice to Senior Management

Act on your words to develop your people. Keep pay good, but get rid of those who don't add value, make managers make tough decisions

Pros

A vast array of high-end hardware and software technologies
Well positioned in the information markets - for consumer and small business
Quite innovative in their usage of technology, creation of new markets, and creation of new products
Strong financial position - cash and assets. They have a good operating margin.
They have strong operations around the globe, the US of course, but also Latin America and Europe

Cons

Very hierarchical, not collaborative
Finance, purchasing, and legal constrains organizational agility and delivery of quick business results through slow, bureaucratic processes - even though they have integrated ERP systems
Outsources every position possible - your job may be next

Advice to Senior Management

Let the good people below you do their job. They're smarter then you, they'll run the business, and you'll make more money

Pros

Fair pay and benefits. In addition flexible work schedules are often permitted.

Cons

In years past there was usually a shared sense of loyalty and common purpose between management and employees. That has been completely discarded under the new management imported from GE (Rick Smith). Morale has truly bitten the dust. The new performance review forces ratings onto a bell curve per group. Only ten percent are eligible for an outstanding rating. If your group is small, say 10 people, then only one can be rated outstanding. That also means that one person must be rated poor. That person's name is guarenteed to be on the list for the next round of layoffs should they occur. Imagine how this affects the morale of a group if they are all above average.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect for employees costs nothing but can yield large payoffs.

Pros

Good salary, flexible work schedule

Cons

TOP DOWN MANAGEMENT, No input into decisions requested from worker bees, Fear of layoffs constant, administrative nightmare, disparite systems, silos with no communication or coordination between departments. Only a self reliant and resourceful person can survive

Advice to Senior Management

Where do I start ? How about that you all should lay yourselves off. Um, try speaking with the employees once in a while that helps, how about having layoffs face to face with an HR rep present. Also, completely reorganizing processes yearly never brings results. Good luck with all the customers you are going to lose by having telephone reps cover 90%. Thats a guaranteed $5 to $10 million in business that will walk out the door in 2009 as the other bureaus cherry pick your accounts.

Pros

Flexible place to work. Availability to telecommute. Good pay and benefits.

Cons

Senior management takes a short term view of things. They make decisions in a bubble without getting input from the people who actually have to do the work. Decisions are made and no differing opinion is tolerated. Too much outsourcing of work, senior management believes what we get from the outsourcing groups is great, while those of us in the trenches know that most of it is terrible and of low quality.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest more in your workers who have the knowledge about how the business actually works. Take a more long term approach to retaining workers who have this knowledge.

Pros

Stable company, good benefits, good work - life balance, some ability to work from home

Cons

Slow to change, lack of technology investment, not honest with clients. Often there is a lack of communication with clients for important changes that happen to client services

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in technology to be best in class for security and disaster recovery

Pros

Great telecommuting benefits
Very diversified group
Employees extremely knowledgeable and intelligent

Cons

Too many reorgs have created gaps of management and knowledge
Senior management is very isolated
Senior management is focused on bottom line and short term financial gains

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more attention to customers and their needs
Look more to retaining experienced employees for longer term
Get rid of some of these mid level managers that have been brought in with the over the wall mentality