Freddie Mac Reviews

Pros

I worked with very talented people. Smart folks. Work life balance is very good. Did some cool stuff there with some good intelligent employees and consultants.

Cons

Management make very poor decisions in choosing initiatives, projects and (cots) products. No backbone. Cronyism reins. My VP is a smart hard working man but did not get promoted to lead the IT in re-org. Strange.
You can expect lot of drama and news in FM for sure. 1. There is constant re-org. 2. Rumors around it. 3. Peoples predictions around it.

Need more progressive thinking. Management need to be more creative and support creative employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Pls retain Ed Haldeman, CEO. I really trusted him and nice genuine person. He his trying to change the cronyism and in-competent management. It takes time.

Pros

Freddie Mac really does stress having a solid work life balance, where they base they're work week off of a 38.75 hr work schedule.

Cons

Not exactly the highest salaries around but they are great in a sense that someone coming out of college will recieve exposure to aspects of their field that can be carried with them.

Also in 2011 out pay increase will only be 80% of what it will normally be.

Advice to Senior Management

I believe that Freddie Mac leader should should work to get our company from under government consorvatorship as quick as possible.

Pros

The benefits are wonderful and there is much flexibility with working. Special work arrangements can be made such as teleworking and part-time work depending on the work you do and your deadlines. Good professionals work there and there is great diversity within its employees.

Cons

The downside to working at Freddie Mac right now is that the company is in transition with it being under government conservatorship and senior management is not necessarily the group making the decisions and changes. The future of the company is not certain at this time.

Pros

pay and benefits. No accountability

Cons

changing direction from management. No consistency

Advice to Senior Management

close down the company. No longer necessary to have a Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Wall Street could do a better job.

Pros

Good benefits- able to buy vacation time , telecommute, flex hours

Cons

Silos
Poor management who are hired based on friendship and not skill
poor salaries compared to the industry

Advice to Senior Management

Care about the employees who do work everyday and not about just G and A reductions

Pros

-Great amount of leave - can buy and have up to 29 vacation days. Sick time is given separately and is generous as well.
-Most people are talented and great to work with. However morale is very low so even the best are feeling beat down a bit.
-Great facilities with cafeterias, fitness centers and wellness center.

Cons

-Under government control so morale is horrible. No merit increases this year because the government workers aren't either. Guess they think we're government too, I suppose.
-Terrible work/life balance options in IT. I see many reviews saying work/life balance is great but I haven't seen that in IT at all. Working from home, flex schedules, 40 hour weeks, compressed work schedules do not exist in IT or if they do, it's on a very limited case by case basis.
-Terrible bureaucracy, no trust in employees, work is over controlled.
-IT projects are almost always too large and get re-planned several times. It's very inefficient. It's hard to work so hard to meet a deadline only to have to redo the work again because something huge was missed in the beginning. Deadlines are no longer seen as very important o many employees because it's like the boy who cried wolf.
-Managers seem to become managers because they know a lot about the jobs of the employees - not because they know how to manage, lead and motivate their people.
-A lot of lay offs all of the time. They seem to re-org a lot.

Advice to Senior Management

-Do not promote an employee to lead unless they can prove that they are good managers of humans, not only a good manager of a process or skill.
-Stop coming up with all of these 'top priorities' that then die and go away after many people have worked themselves to death.

Pros

Good compensation package, work is often interesting, many bright people work at Freddie Mac. Work has been of vital importance to propping up the housing market.

Cons

The future is unknown, and management still spends a significant amount of money guessing what future needs may be for the company. Periodic downsizing efforts are badly impacting morale.

Advice to Senior Management

Conduct 360 degree reviews to better understand who truly adds value to the organization, and who is just taking up space or only managing upward.

Pros

The work life balance is incredible. The company offers in-site physician and free use of the wellness center. Options for working remotely exist and the company is very generous with new mothers.

Cons

Freddie Mac offers a great benefits package: health/dental, vision, 401(k). However, salaries lag behind other industry players and career advancement opportunities are limited and unclear.

Advice to Senior Management

Career paths need to be clearer, specially for new hires. The company needs to communicate better with its employees, and senior leadership needs to be more visible.

Pros

pay, international presence, people from around the globe, resources, dynamic environment, pretty good technology, quite a bit of freedom, good collegues

Cons

There was no global plan to plug into

Advice to Senior Management

stay out of jail

Pros

Good contractor rates if you negotiate well

Cons

Desktop, no laptop
Landline, no mobile phone
Lotus Notes for email
No wireless in buildings
Word 2000 and Excel 2000 - in the year 2011
Dollars are spent on people 'walking around' building to building
Paper intense, hard copy is the norm
No VPN for off hours work
No on-site parking
Clear distinction between W2 salary employees vs. contract workers (CW)
Jurisdinctional battles among management peers in same department derails efforts
Projects too large in scope and too aggressive in timeline to be successful
Unproductive meetings

Advice to Senior Management

Go work for other organizations and see how others are doing things. You are decades behind.