Freddie Mac Reviews

Pros

Everything is made so complicated. It takes a long time to get anything done.
Because of that, one could never get bored.

Cons

The future is unclear causing low morale.

Pros

Located near Tyson's corner. Rates are reasonable but inconsistent.

Cons

Last minute cancellation of contracts (day before joining) due to lack of ownership. Constant management changes lead to lack of long-term ownership. Focus on short-term deliverables, red tape.

Advice to Senior Management

- Lower management needs better training in professional behavior towards consultants, junior
- Project methodology is very heavy. Needs to be tweaked.
- Management overhead is high due to reporting needs.

Pros

The work environment is low stress

Cons

The government froze salaries, which were not competitive in the first place

Pros

Good benefits, on site parking, slow pace enviroment, if preference. Other then that not a good place to work.

Cons

Grandfathered in middle management needs replacing, innovation not welcomed. act like should be gald to have a job,government like.

Advice to Senior Management

Teach tenured leadership people skills. Assign people to run areas they have knowledge of not just to place, hold accountable

Pros

The people you work with, for the most part, are pretty nice. My thoughts of that are somewhat skewed, however, because I knew a lot of people that were there from a previous job that I was with. However, even people that I didn't know, I have come to enjoy working with. Management is very approachable, at least in my department. Working out at the gym provides possibilities to meet and greet with some management level people as well.

Cons

There are concerns that need to be addressed that I feel sometimes are not. This includes, unfortunately, concerns that are often brought up, and just not addressed. It's not quite to the point of being ignored, but just more not addressed. I guess it is more like being ignored.

Pros

Highly knowledgeable and helpful co-workers
Competitive salaries and benefits
Our work impacts the US economy
Support of diversity initiatives
Lots of complex and interesting assignments

Cons

Frequent senior management turnover (every 6-18 months)
Difficult to advance career with frequent changes in project direction and management changes, not uncommon to find people with 2-5 different supervisors in a year
Bureaucracy in getting simple tasks done
Too much paperwork distracting from getting substantive work done

Advice to Senior Management

Acknowledge staff for their value and contribution. In this challenging environment, many are planning to leave when the economy improves.

Pros

Great pay and benefits. Coworkers tend to be very bright.

Cons

Bureaucratic place where there is more meetings than actual action. Departments do not work well together.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay and benefits are great but I had the least fun there of any company that I've worked at.

Pros

Good benefits, good people. Lots of diversity

Cons

lots of bureaucracy, some inconsistency

Advice to Senior Management

Quit changing direction

Pros

pride of company name brand

Cons

Less engagement from Senior management, no recognize for hard work

Advice to Senior Management

more engagement

Pros

Depending on who is your manager, the flexibility can be very good and work life balance is stressed. I've heard from some people that they are very limited in their ability to work from home or the flexibility of their schedule. I am a manager here and I am very flexible with my staff and as long as I can reach them and they are dependable and available, I have no problem letting them work from home. I get the same thing from my manager.

The overall pay package, for mid level management is good. Salaries were lower a few years ago but HR implemented a market based compensation structure and, at least in the manager pool and higher (I believe), compensation is good. However there has been some recent murmurings of changes to bonuses and long term compensation amounts, so who knows what will happen.

Other benefits such as the on location Wellness Center with doctors, on site gym and multiple cafeterias make the downsides of working here ok.

Cons

The IT department has recently had layoffs and there is a great uncertainty on what will happen to the future of Freddie Mac. The future of Freddie Mac is outside the control of the company but it's a big headwind to overcome. Recent layoffs and G&A reductions even build to the uncertain environment.

There also is bureaucracy here and to get things done is always an effort. Freddie Mac has gone way overboard in segregating what you can and can't do. You used to have people who knew entire systems and how they interacted with other applications, but everyone's been broken up and can only do a small piece of things. It makes it hard to get your job done when you have to call 3 different groups because they each have a piece of something.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on employee engagement during this hard time.