Pros

The people are great!

You need to think about the role and what kind of people are going to fill it. I went for a Telesales role, and so the people that went for it were uneducated people, first jobbers, gap year and older people who wanted pocket money.

The money is not great, for that type of job its excellent. We had an hourly rate plus bonus on the number of sales. On top of that there were random events and prizes as incentives, like paintballing, trips to amusement parks, tv's and even consoles!

Also they actively try and get you involved in outside events. For example Friday nights in the pub and you can get together with people from other ICT teams. They don't mind if you bring extra people out, the more the merrier.

Cons

Progression. I went there and was 'overqualified'. I had 2 degree's (some people there didn't even finish compulsary education).I was good at sales and enjoyed that and the company. I primarily joined because it gave me flexibility to apply for graduate positions while having an income to pay off my student loans. However, when positions came out, I did apply but was rejected for them all. I mainly because the roles were made for people specifically. For example 'experience of monitoring calls' was required, there was only one person in the company who had that as part of their role... and they got the position.

However, since I have left, people that started in the same 'batch' have gone on to become supervisors, team leaders etc. so maybe its not all bad... you just need to stick out the time.

Advice to Senior Management

You need a career framework. Although I worked in the telesales environment, there should be a clear progression for everyone. At present if you are an agent, you will just be given an hourly raise every year. That's not great because people are there for 3 years and they are still doing the same job. If you carry on like this you may as well get monkeys and train them on the phones.

Pros

The best reason to work at ICT Group is great if you are in the call center business. However, ICT Global Interactive is an 8 year startup within ICT GROUP, and will remain in that pattern until they get off their duffs and start promoting that business. They don't advertise, they don't go to trade shows, and the Group has no Vision.

Cons

Spineless management, no backbone or leadership and without the ability to support your fellow employees it just another corporation without stability. I feel sorry for the people that work under ICT Global Interactive.

Advice to Senior Management

Get direction, make some sacrifice and support your employees

Pros

ICT is great if you are a college student looking for part time work. There is no manual labor required. You sit at a computer the entire time you are working.

Cons

Managment is not flexible with your schedule. The time you request off 1 month in advance is never excepted. There are no benefits. The supervisors (your leaders) are often rude and some are incompetent. You deal with angry customers all day. You can expect to be cursed at or called outside of your name at least once a day.

Advice to Senior Management

Train supervisors and management on the importance of a "team spirit" and leadership.

Pros

A fast growing, promoting from withing company with hands on supervisors and managers, detail information on job performance provided weekly. Workers are rewarded with bonus they earn each month, and also paid lunches, snacks and gifts. Free coffee. Paid training. Training provided on daily basis if needed. Close team mates. Hours are really flexible depening on what team you are on. Generally friendly and supportive atmosphere. Close parking. Buses nearby. Many handicapped workers. ICT seems to welcome the handicapped. Security. Breakroom. Vending machines. Covered smoking area. Pinic benches. Supervisors seem generally interested in you. All equipment provided at no cost to you. Causal business dress code. Sneakers and jeans on Fridays and weekends allowed and permitted many times during year. Open 24/7 so you can really work whenever you want. ICT attempts to accomandate when you want to work.

Cons

Overtime not generally available. Health insurance tied into how many hours you worked. No cell phones allowed in building. No inside smoking. Lockers are provided but some are hard to get into. No electric appliances allowed at desk. No place to plug anything in. You cubicle is shared by others who sometimes leave it messy. Have to go to big cheese supervisors to get otc meds. If you lose you badge it takes forever to get another one. No work sports teams like softball are available although there doesn't seem to be rules against it so if you want to start one you could ask. Suggestions taken but acted on slowly. Some supervisors are better informed then others.

Advice to Senior Management

While it is wonderful to reward your 100/100 people. What about people who make their goals?

Pros

It's local. I don't have to travel far to get to work every morning. I get along great with my coworkers. I've made a lot of new friends working here. That's about the only good thing I've gotten from working at ICT.

Cons

What are some of the downsides? Where do I start!? First, this company is as cheap as they come. I agree with the other reviewer that the computer equipment is outdated. That's because the systems budget is so small, there's never any money allocated to buy new equipment. The only time this company upgrades their equipment is when the clients demand new equipment or threaten to leave. Any time anyone suggests ways to improve the infrastructure with new technology, upper management shoots down the idea because they don't want to spend the money on it. They would rather be cheap and deal with old technology than to stay competitive with other companies.

This company is too top heavy. It seems like every other day, someone is getting promoted to Vice President of something, but then upper management turns around and says there's no money in the budget to promote any of the hard workers. They think of us as grunts that are easily replaceable and don't feel there's any reason to pay us better or keep us happy. They would gladly get rid of talented workers in exchange for fresh, young people, right out of school that are willing to work for half the price. Whenever a spot opens up, they'd rather fill that position with some cheap labor overseas than hire someone that's knowledgeable and local. Pay is below par across the board. Nobody is making what they should be making. Employees are often leaving to go to another company to do the same job for much more money.

As for the call centers themselves, the inmates seem to be running the asylum here. The computer equipment is often moved around, missing, or outright stolen without any disciplinary action taken. The other reviewer mentioned the computer equipment is in terrible shape. That's mainly because of the people using the equipment. If the reps didn't ruin the equipment, it wouldn't be in terrible shape. Perhaps if the supervisors actually supervised their reps, they would be catching them in the act of defacing company equipment and those people would be terminated.

Those are just SOME of the downsides of working at ICT.

Advice to Senior Management

First off, stop hiring so much senior management. We don't need 15 VPs in the same division. Spend that money on more workers. Everyone is stretched thin because there's no money to hire anyone new. More people means quicker service and shorter turnaround times. Second, do something to improve morale and make the real workers happy. Improve pay, benefits, maybe let us actually see a bonus from the profit the company makes. Finally, actually read these reviews and see there is a problem with this company. Don't just shrug it off as disgruntled employees that are unhappy. Use this as constructive criticism and change these problems to improve the company.

Pros

The best reason to work at ICT Group is that many of the program contracts held by ICT Group are those in the medical marketing field in the form of customer support operations outsourced by other corporations. The work can be truly fullfilling when assisting representatives and customers with their needs.

Cons

The company does not offer vacation or sick time benefits to their employees that match any of todays standards. The company has to their credit offered better medical benefits to their employees on SOME programs, but generally their health insurance offered leaves much to be desired as well. For a Fortune 500 company, the vacation accrual offered is horrible. Another downside to working within the company is that the computer network is not serviced in a reliable manner and the equipment provided to the work staff is often in terrible shape or extremely out of date. Yes, we see the quarterly profit reports and often wonder when some of that revenue will actually reach the employees that support the programs that the company is based on.

Advice to Senior Management

Better computer systems with more access to the programs needed to perform daily functions means better productivity, as does actually having sick time so employees are not forced to come in when sick, thereby making everyone else sick. If you want to increase morale, increase the vacation time and give sick time. There will always be abusers of these policies within any company. Those are employees that need to be terminated.

Pros

In our department (Market Research), we don't have to betray our morals or even be conniving, as employees in marketing call centers are often encouraged to do. The atmosphere is more relaxed than other call center environments, and the work is not particularly hard, though it does require a certain temperament. The local management is pleasant to work with, and understanding of personal issues when necessary. In the long term, there are MANY opportunities to move upwards within the company; short term, there are hours available for any employee who chooses to do so; some employees work 60+ hours a week by choice.

Cons

I sometimes get the feeling our center is something of a "red-headed stepchild." Our requests for supplies and equipment often fall on deaf ears, as do our communiques with our HR department; this often means that entry-level employees are able to get away with a great deal more misbehavior than they should be able to, while our local management is largely powerless to chastise them. Since ICT Group policy states that any suspension must be paid, we are unable to even send employees home for non-production. Plus, since the System Administrator for our center left for greener pastures, we are unable to replace production-floor PCs that break (and we're talking about 8-year old PCs that tend to die frequently).

Advice to Senior Management

Spend money to make money; give us the proper tools to do our jobs, not the cobbled-together el-cheapo solutions we have to put together for ourselves. After all, we can hardly produce without the proper support from IT and HR.