Perot Systems Reviews

Pros

Better managers, not jerks, a very good campus, wonderful co-workers, there is no hierarchy, job distribution, opportunity for growth, all in all a wonderful experience

Cons

Not transparent, high handedness, benefits package could be a little better, compensation is just normal, nothing to talk high about.

Pros

There are great growth opportunities, great pay, and good people to work with. I started as a EA and ended as a project coordinator.

Cons

With the great pay came long hours, and the work would sometimes be stressful. There was a lot of travel involved as well.

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership were very knowledgeable people who unlike other companies shared their visions to others and subordinates. They would help others achieve their goal in their career.

Pros

Good work life balance in the organization

Cons

No scope for growth in the career

Advice to Senior Management

Take the issues by the neck. Have a vision

Pros

Perot Systems aka Dell Services, does practically all the IT for Harvard Pilgrim, whose business is very very solid. The pay check will not bounce. There is not much separation between the Harvard Pilgrim people, the Dell people, and the contractors. I was a contractor. The company is very parent friendly, and has a much larger fraction of technical women and technical members of minorities (such as Black and from India) than other places I have worked. Colleagues are very friendly and help one another.

Cons

The commute to Wellesley is stall-and-crawl almost every day. Most people I interacted with were contractors and the change in personnel was rapid and ongoing. It's a job, not a career. Computer software was viewed very much as a commodity. Knowledge of any particular system was not valued. Rules for health insurance are made difficult and complex for no good reason I could determine. If I were a doctor trying to comply with what insurance would support it would drive me nuts. Security was managed as an impediment. People usually were not given the access they needed to do their jobs, for many months and years. The software was archaeic. Windows XP in 2011! The machines locked up multiple times a day, possibly due to some of the disk encryption software. Lots of essential knowledge was never written down. You had to know the right person to ask, and often had to ask them more than once in different ways before they would admit to knowing what you needed to find out.. Since most people expected to be laid off, having exclusive knowledge might save a person's job, but that made it hard on anyone else who needed to know.

Advice to Senior Management

Upgrade to a newer version of Windows, or better yet, move entirely to Linux. Solve the problem of PCs that freeze up.

Don't hire someone pretending you want them long term when you only want them short term. Be honest on that.

These people who keep adding security impediments should be forced to have their cell-phone number used all night all year including week-ends and their vacations, to be the on-call person for the problems this impeding causes. When they have been woken up in the middle of the night or interrupted in the middle of a meeting or a thought for the umpteenth time, they might decide that not allowing people the access they need to do their jobs is a bad way to run things. When someone requests access and it is appropriate to give them access, you need to debug the system that gives them access, not bury them in incomprehensible questions. There needs to be a way to appeal to a more senior person when the current level appears unable to understand what access is wanted or how to provide it.

Force the "Center of Excellence" to answer questions with a 2 week time limit. Having the answer 6 months after it is relevant is not a good use of resources and tends to lead to solutions nobody uses.

Reward people for writing down what they know, and not by laying them off.

Rethink employee retention. It is cheaper not to retrain a new person every 3 months. I would only recommend working for your company if someone needed a job for 6 months of less and had other plans after that.

Pros

Its a decent place to work for a relatively less experienced techie who has no preference of technology, type of project, domain and offshore/onsite.

Cons

Primary downsides among others are scarcity of projects, lot of politics to deal with, not enough work and career opportunities and poor employee recognition

Pros

Health benefits are competitive; work-life balance is good

Cons

Been here 3 years and no one in the department has received a raise

Pros

A compancy that understands that its people are centric to its success!! Wow, in this day and age, that is awesome.

Cons

Like most companies (I think), once you're in the dorr, the compensation/rewards become static and changes very little. However, the culture, environment and people compensate.

Pros

The campus is nice and conveniently located
My co-workers were friendly and competent but they were usually overworked and exhausted

Cons

Encouraged to be dishonest with customer
Far too much work, too many hours, too much travel for one person to do
Not enough support from management and other departments to do a job we were contractually obligated to complete

Advice to Senior Management

The financial success of the company was based on a name and was probably a lot of dumb luck. I hope the Dell purchase improves conditions for some really good people.

Pros

As long as you do your job, you will always have a job...unless management can find someone in India, China, or Mexico to do it cheaper. Great 1st and 3rd company to work for..meaning the pay is more after you quit and come back even for the same job. Endless work, Challenging environment, good overall senior leadership.

Cons

Do more with less. Long hours, sometimes hard to get support from other teams. Positions can be outsourced very quickly.

Pros

PTO, benefits, wonderful colleagues, good supervisors

Cons

do more with less mentality, request to do OT and "cherry pick" work then use the exceeding the standards as a reason to up standards and make bonus unattainable, upper managment out of touch with the needs of the business and that of the employers, promotion of individuals with limites education to save money.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the employees who work the work day in and day out. When you send some VP from Plano to speak with us advise him that he is not in the same boat as the common worker. We don't travel 1st class or can relate to his children's private school raising tuition to build a 2nd computer lab. Promote people who have dedicated time and money on education.