SI Group Reviews

Pros

Coworkers and supervisors were very nice and friendly. Relaxed atmosphere made for a low stress environment. Has the feel of a small company with the success and relevance of a Global enterprise (which it is)

Cons

As an Intern, there is a lot of downtime and not always something to keep you busy with. Some employees are required to work starting at midnight (to correlate with the time zone differences overseas)

Advice to Senior Management

Prepare more projects or activities for Interns to work on. Other than that, it's a great place to work with great people.

Pros

Good benefits, decent hours (typically 40 hrs), global company, decent pay, low turnover, financially sound.

Cons

Very slow upward mobility due to low turnover.

Advice to Senior Management

Upper level management should be more respectful to lower employees. They many times are not recognized for their accomplishments and feel discouraged to be able to move up. Similarly, I feel leaders at SI Group should be more aware of the talent among their company, even though I do realize the benefit to acquiring employees from outside the firm.

Pros

The company is one of the only ones in the Capital District of NY which is both global in scope and also has its headquarters located in the region. Most other large companies are headquartered somewhere else, or they are headquartered here but are relatively small in scope. Until recently the company had direct involvement from the owning family (privately held) in daily operations, but that has changed and the family now retains positions on the board of directors only. The atmosphere is one of congeniality for the most part and people get their work done efficiently - many people have been with the company a very long time.

Cons

The company is global but it is fragmented - leadership is "soft" and allows a tremendous amount of lateral decision-making to occur in each region. Recent changes of adding a VP level position in South America, North America, Europe, and Asia may alleviate this - some things are OK to leave to the regions but there are many aspects of corporate strategy which could be tightened up or standardized to both make the company more efficient and to focus the brand for customers worldwide. In many ways, the leadership at the top of the company is very inexperienced and has been too slow to make important decisions.

Advice to Senior Management

There is no advice or feedback that will replace experience. SI Group deserves seasoned, experienced leadership and while the company will not fail without it, there will be less opportunities for growth and their success will be lessened as a result of their inexperience. A recent change of President and CEO has been very positive.