Hewitt Associates Reviews in Chicago, IL Area

Pros

- Slightly better than industry average pay and benefits
- Could be considered a stable place to work for some, but this may change due to the acquisition by Aon

Cons

- No transparency from leadership
- Flat team structures with little to no opportunities for growth
- Clueless team management with a hands-off approach
- Untrained, ill equipped project leads are thrown in to projects with no clear direction
- Workloads have more than doubled since the acquisition and associates are not compensated for overtime
- Difficult to reach office location in the far Northern suburbs
- Working strange hours and twice as hard to communicate with the associates in India (which represent 1/3 of the company)
- It seems that associates who have been there for any significant amount of time aspire to nothing more than finding new ways to do less and less actual work

Advice to Senior Management

Train your team leads and associate managers, or better yet, hire ones who are qualified. Each and every one that I worked with were utterly lazy and incompetent.

Pros

flexibility at work , proffesional attitude of co workers

Cons

very little to learn , dumbed down methodology , limited growth

Advice to Senior Management

invest in your ppl and techonology

Pros

The company used to be a 'stable' and 'safe' place. Very good about 'work from home'. Good bonus structure - when paid

Cons

Layoffs are indiscriminate. People Management and Project Management are such separate streams that the people manager doesnt even know what you do for the project. My project went on hold, and 2 months later, I was riffed. The stakeholders, product-owners were not consulted; the decision seems to have been made by one person. A company that lets their architect and senior Tech staff go just because the project roadmap was a little slow is losing more than just an employee; they are losing talent and experience that took years to build.
Company has a rule that you have to be employed as of Dec 15 to get profit sharing; and layoffs were on Nov 30 -- sounds awfully convenient.

Advice to Senior Management

People with no prior experience are put in to lead 10-member teams; and there is little to no oversight of how the people-manager is performing. With complete separate people/project management streams, the people manager doesnt know anything about the associate's performance, unless the associate goes and brags to people-management. People Managers should do more than performance reviews.

Pros

It's a good atmosphere to work at. The associates are friendly. I like the fact they cross train so it allows you to grow. That's a plus.

Cons

Hewitt Associates does not seem to compensate like it's competitors. I feel they underpay their associates. With the recent merger w/ Aon they are cutting a lot of jobs and personnel.

Advice to Senior Management

With the recent merger with Aon they have done a great job keep the associates informed however, I'm not to impressed how they just cut associates from teams. It wasn't handled professionally.

Pros

Flexible work schedules - ability work from home/remote locations as needed. Exposure to a large variety of technologies. Highly adaptable and dedicated employees and middle management workforce.

Cons

Signifcant challenges to moving forward with projects due to a near constant state of organizational change for the past 4 years. Recent acquisition of Hewitt by Aon will over the mid-long term (2-3 yrs) will hopefully address these issues, however, the short term (1 yr) impact continues to prolong project freezes/reprioritization negatively impacting Hewitts' bottomline and its' employee morale at all levels.

Advice to Senior Management

Move more quickly with organizational/leadership changes to reach a point of stabilization such that the workforce morale can be restored. "An organization is as good as its' people" - and its' people perform best when they are happy and secure in their jobs and are enabled to perform at their best.

Pros

Good place to work. laid back env and it dep on which team you're in I have been here about 4 years...

Cons

very minimum growth oppt... lot of politicas but if you have the right connections you'll go far..keep in touch with management

Advice to Senior Management

very minimum growth oppt... lot of politicas but if you have the right connections you'll go far..keep in touch with management

Pros

Seldom internal competition
Offices intead of cubicles
Not much feeling of hierarchy
People are so willing to help out
Relatively young population
Allowed to wear jeans everyday!

Cons

If you are working in the 98 building, be ready for the fact that the cafeteria is disappoiting;
Not too sure how the merger with Aon is going to affect the excellent culture of Hewitt

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the home like culture and the jeans dress code; Keep the office set up and do not move to a new campus

Pros

some days its better than being unemployed I guess; its easier to get a job when employed but thats about it

Cons

I wonder if upper management is aware of all the shenanigans that are going on...adults are treated like children by team leads that are not qualified to lead anything--they have zero management skills and are very condescending and rude, not even equipping their direct reports with the tools necessary to complete on the job training. Every day is nerve wracking as you dont know if you will be there the next day, unless you are one of the pets of the team leads and even then who knows. The work is arduous and appreciation is a dirty word there lest the team leads fear that they will lose control by giving any compliments for a job well done. By shenanigans I mean team leads that party with their staff( I have witness this directly) and participate, rumors have it, in all sorts of 'extra curricular' activities with their reportees if you get my drift. I have never worked so hard and been unappreciated like this my entire career, I cant wait to get through my 6 month temp to perm stint there and get to a real job that isnt as degrading. I cant believe upper management isnt aware of all this nonsense; they must not care.

Advice to Senior Management

Some of your people want to do a great job for you, not because you are motivating, but because thats how we are wired. Is this the best you can do with the team leads you chose? One of them cant even use proper grammar and English-his emails are embarasssing. You act like people are fortunate to have this job and should just take it--its obvious you dont care and are running a burn and turn operation. Shame on you for acting like you care during group meetings but acting like arrogant taskmasters on a day to day basis . I cant wait to get out and almost everyone I know feels the same. Shame on you for mistreating some good people that are trying their hearts out.

Pros

The hard working employees made it more bearable to be there. The lack of a work/life balance seemed to be the tie that binded everyone. Free food and drink..... oh wait. The experience overall was a pro because I learned there are much much better places to be employeed where management listens to you and doesn't treat you like a second rate citizen of no value. The work experience looked good on a resume which was probably the best pro.

Cons

Where to start! Horrible hours. No praise for work being done or long hours or dedication or "work pail" ethic. They chew you up and spit you out. Being there for 8 years was about 5 years too long. Management are the pawns of upper management and they are all corporate goons with no hearts. Each employee is just a number... literally. You logged in with it each day. Run... don't walk... away from this place like they have the black plague! And for those of you that are there, the grass is neon green on the other side!!!

Advice to Senior Management

To those of you that have hearts and a mind of your own, please don't rot your life away there. You can be happy and in a similar position elsewhere. And for those of you who are mindless, heartless goons, may God save your sould because you're already gone.

Pros

The benefits are amazing, especially if you work at the Lincolnshire office - there's some additional perks to be at a corporate headquarters. The hours are typically you standard 8 hour days and it's usually never an issue requesting PTO, as long as notice is given about a week in advance. The environment is friendly.

Cons

The pay is below market value. I know some employees who have been passed up on promotions even though they know their position inside and out, and have obtained a Master's degree. I feel career advancement can take longer than typical.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote from within and do it on a regular cycle.