QinetiQ Reviews

Pros

Large diversity of technical roles available.
Intelligent, knowledgeable, helpful and friendly technical staff.
Out of the rat race (Malvern site).

Cons

Lack of internal investment.
Seemingly endless company contraction.
Short-sighted cost savings.
Extreme negativity amongst technical staff.
Senior management and many senior technical staff seem to have conflicting ideas.

Advice to Senior Management

You can't keep all staff on profit making projects at all times. QinetiQ's strength is its diversity of capabilities. Making an underutilised capability redundant means QinetiQ loses that capability. This reduces its diversity, making it weaker, less able to attack problems it could previously tackle. I saw this happen time and again.

Pros

Used to to loads; now can't think of any, except it's a job which where some of the staff have an average final salary scheme - not sure for how long.

Cons

Chaotic.
No training.
Company is becoming increasing ruthless in getting rid of staff.
No annual pay rises - hasntr been any for 2 years; except if you're the very top.
Has laddering and the bottom 10% get the boot each year - now only performing staff left.
CEO wants to get rid of the trade Unions.

Advice to Senior Management

Lead by example - e.g. if you give staff a 3 % "bonus" instead of a pay rise; you need to do the same!
Use carrot and stick.

Pros

smart people
knowledge eagerly shared to new staff
great training

Cons

politics
poor compensation
incompetence and egomania
scientists burdened with unnecessary bureaucratic duties

Advice to Senior Management

get proper managers in from outside business

Pros

Varied work
Good local team spirit, with hardworking, knowledgeable colleagues

Cons

No workable career structure
Pay falling way behind inflation ov the past 5+ years
Senior managers completley out of touch the vast majority of the workforce

Advice to Senior Management

Stop giving yourself huge pay increases and bonuses and alienating yourselves from the employees. You need to truly lead by example, or your credibility will be zero, and the emplyees will no longer take any notice of what you say

Pros

Within the technical teams there is good camaraderie which makes QQ a bearable place to work. Work content is varied and interesting.

Cons

There appears to be at least 2 managers for every "money generator". This commercial overhead is crippling the company. Pay has decreased in real terms over the last few years. Reduction in T&Cs for the people who are below the bonus line make QQ an expensive place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop paying yourself bonuses based on other peoples hard work. Exec pay rises should not have an inverse relationship to share price.

Pros

Test and Evaluation of aircraft, you get to see military aircrafts in action!
Flexi-Time is something that people rarely have. It is most certainly a reason to work for QinetiQ as long as you do your time and don't go overboard with the times.

Cons

QinetiQ have a great workforce but have chosen to neglect the people that actually do the work. Management choose to take advantage of the passion staff show towards their work and therefore bully the unions into agreeing to stupid proposals. As result you will see the best people leave and the rubbish people stay. They rely on people to use their own initiative and create work for themselves.

Advice to Senior Management

If you don't stop neglecting the workers, you will see a significant increase in resignations and then you will truly f'ed. If you take care of the workers, they will put in 110% everyday and be happy that they did it. Ideas like introducing poor performance earphones and ' the little book of big ideas' do not enhance workforce morale. They cost money, money which could be used to utilize existing resources rather than get contractors to do the work.

Pros

Opportunities to move around and work in various fields

Cons

Pay is not in line with other companies

Pros

Very good life work balance (flexible working hours, ability to work from home, good holiday allowance), great people to work with.
Good variety of projects (when I first started there)

Cons

Poor management direction; redundancy selection based upon utilisation rather than where the management want to expand the company; poor pay and reward in comparison with other industries (pay has been going down against inflation for the last five years); very, very low morale; losing the people that attracted clients to the company; IT over 6 years old

Advice to Senior Management

Get the charge-out rates down; QinetiQ is one of the most expensive consultancies around without the pedigree.
Stop marking annual performance against a bell curve distribution - if a team did well reward all of them not select 10% of the team and put them on a performance improvement plan.

Pros

tuition reimbursement program is very good

Cons

un-professional to treat their employee

Advice to Senior Management

n/a - dont want to get the trouble (retaliation)

Pros

great people, great potential, brilliant solutions, just got to find the right problems to solve

Cons

poor processes, lack of focus, need to change culture to be commercial

Advice to Senior Management

keep up wih the change program