TechTeam Reviews

Pros

-Open door policies
-Good communication on major changes
-Fair Benifits

Cons

-Pay is not adjusted for locality. So the same job receives the same pay no mater if the cost of living is 20% higher in another area.
-Promotions for remote workforce are near impossible.
-Program Managers have too much responsibility and as such are unable to meet deadlines or be as effective as needed.

Advice to Senior Management

Higher additional Program Mangers or Senior Team Leaders in order to spread the work load out. As it stands now the Team Leads are getting beat up by the customers due to the Program Managers not acting quickly enough.

Pros

greeat place to get a start- it beats fast food- but it's close

Cons

Hard work is ignore in favor of political motivations, middle manangement lacks training and guidance from upper management. management is borderline incompetent. Great place to get your start in the IT field. Bad place to stay.

Advice to Senior Management

more management education, more employee education, more employee centric as opposed to being soley customer driven while ignoring even basic employee needs and concerns. There is a high turnover rate for a reason. Management knows and ignores this in favor of meeting contractual SLA agreements at the expense of the employee.

As this company is in the process of offshoring the majority of core operations, this problem will move with it. Sweeping the problem under rug does not address poor management skils at all levels. This company needs better leadership

Pros

It provides experience for a resume. That experience is basically how to work in a call center with everything being measured rather than measuring the quality of your work. The management team has no regard for their employees as people or for those employees' skills. This provides for entertainment as you watch the constant revolving door of people from every walk of life (skilled and gifted support technicians all the way to people who would be lucky to be working as parking valets) constantly on a spin.

Cons

Lack of respect, horrible pay.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to effectively manage people rather than numbers.

Pros

The only thing I give TechTeam credit for is Hiring a well rounded employees, best staff I ever worked with! A few managers stand out

Cons

It's like working at gun point. Twitch wrong and your fired! TechTeam doesn't motivate employees with incentive for doing your job correctly they hold you hostage with the fear that if you job is done incorrect there is a consequence and you maybe fired.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire managers that are able to do the jobs of those they manage.

Pros

- You will have the opportunity to try out several different positions within the company, providing you experience with a range of different peoples, corporate environments, and technologies.

- Depending on what position you hold, you will probably find yourself in a casual, familiar, close-knit working environment. If you are competent, you will form quick friendships with the other competent people who occasionally grace the company. If you're NOT competent, you will probably enjoy playing video games and drinking with the many other people like you who work there.

- They do have benefits (health/dental/vision insurance, 401(k), etc.). I can't speak to how great they are, but they're definitely there.

- Things are pretty flexible. They are usually willing to work with you if you have child-care issues, school commitments, family engagements, and so on.

- They do at least try to instill some sense of community. The company organizes team sports and other group activities and they offer community-service opportunities.

Cons

- The company is VERY poorly managed. There is little to no communication between different teams, there are frequently misunderstandings about benefits, and the people in charge of empowering the grunt workers are the least qualified for the job. Decisions that affect the core everyday business are made by people so far removed from that aspect of the company that they have no concept of what they're really doing. Budgets for the different teams are confusing and frequently too small.

- The company has no concept of priorities or focus. People who are good at their jobs but have made a few mistakes like having minor attendance issues are dismissed, while others who are outrageously incompetent and should never have been hired in the first place are let to stay on and on and on and on.... Management is constantly looking for solutions to problems that don't exist, while outright ignoring those that clearly do.

- Equipment provided is of poor quality (with only a few exceptions). Most of the computers are old and slow, to the point where it directly impacts the work being done. Small, cheap accessories like optical mouses are hard to come by. Even the furniture is shoddy, with broken chairs and desks being quite common.

- Competence and ability have no value. Anybody who can tell the recruiter what "RAM" is or how to save a Word document can get hired, and someone being let go because they're later found to be technically unskilled is an incredibly rare, almost nonexistent, occurrence. Training and documentation are also totally inadequate, which only exacerbates this problem.

- Pay is far below the market average.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees! Obviously you can't run the entire company based on the gripes of the "lower-level" workers, but their input surely should be considered. When you have the entire body of technicians complaining about the same things over and over and over and over, it is a clear sign that something is broken.

Also, pay more, or offer incentives for more skilled technicians. Paying $15 an hour instead of $11 might sound more expensive, until you consider that if you were hiring people who were actually WORTH $15, you would be paying LESS of them.

Pros

The Benefits were great. That was about all.

Cons

For an I.T. standpoint 1 out of 30 people had an I.T. background. And everyone was the same. Now my self was a point of reference from everyone on my team but TechTeam did not want to move me up the lader. The exact words I heard from my bosses! We can't promote you because we can't loose you off the team. After getting a $.03/hr raise when I had a year in fought to get it higher. well Finley they gave me an extra $.47/hr. Still treated me like poop and by then I was a reference for everyone in the building.

Advice to Senior Management

Next time you get someone that does the Job better than everyone; do what it takes to keep them there. Don't treat them like trash. That is why half of your staff knows nothing about the systems they are supporting. Also stop the racism. Its like the white people get stepped on by the black employees and if we said anything it was because we were racist. The truth is the white employees tried hard not to offend anyone while the black employees just didn't care

Pros

You can work here even if you don't know anything about computers. Pays a little more then fast food and walmart, and many "technicians" move from exactly those places into this as their second job. Most positions let you transfer to other areas relatively easily. Gives you hand on experience and skills which will help you land a better job.

Cons

Pay is mediocre - most other jobs with the same skillset pay more then 200% more then Techteam, does, and for good reason - Techteam is the McDonalds of IT support. Keeps costs down by using outdated, poorly maintained, and often broken equipment. Management is extraordinarily inept - clueless employees rise to the top and are promoted far, far above their abilities. If you cross an invisible red line of salary, you will be fired unexpectedly at the end of the month, so you have only a few days of healthcare left.

Training is poor and like most everything else at techteam, is slapdash, on the quick, and cheaply done. You're on your own after a few days.

Advice to Senior Management

Most of the middle management is clear in their requests to their teams: they don't want to know about problems, which then fester instead of being resolved. This position needs to stop - it leads to a "who cares" attitude among the technicians, since reporting issues is not only futile, but actively discouraged.

Although the strategy at techteam is clearly to underbid everyone by as much as possible, it would be more cost effective to hire less technicians that are more qualified.

Pros

Promotion of creativity. Interest in new approaches.

Cons

Salaries are in the market medium. No real benefits for extraordinary work. Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,vBla, Bla, BlavBla, Bla, Bla,v,Bla, Bla, Blav,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Blav,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, BlavBla, Bla, Blav,Bla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, BlavBla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, BlavvBla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, BlavBla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, BlavvvBla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, BlavBla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, BlaBla, Bla, Bla,Bla, Bla, Bla

Advice to Senior Management

Sell your tasks instead of imposing them.

Pros

One can work ridiculous hours to fit around a college schedule.
TechTeam has contracts with some very big names/companies and you will get exposure to a very diverse IT environment using any and all esoteric systems you can think of.

If one has served their time at TechTeam you have an instant in with many people in IT. It is a common occurrence where people in other IT fields have worked at TechTeam once or have heard all about it.
If one is looking to get hired somewhere else, there are managers that will see TechTeam on your resume and want to hire you just to get you out.

Cons

TechTeam refuses to stand up to a customer and tell them their idea will not work.
They do not seem to understand that they get what they pay for in terms of employees.
They continually lower standards so they can get warm bodies on the phones for what they are paying.
They could be really good if they tried at all. Unfortunately doing things well is not their business. Making money is their business and you can make more money if you spend less on equipment and people right? There seems to be a balance they are not willing to find in terms of spending money to make money.
Techteam could improve conditions or improve pay and attract/retain good people.
Frequently things are understaffed or staffed with less than competent people.
Knowledge is frequently slim to none and horribly outdated/nonsensical.

The new CEO is Gary Cotshott, VP of Dell Services.
In a similar fashion, TechTeam is opening up offices in the Philippines, great for all your Tagalog and English speaking customers!

Advice to Senior Management

Tell the customer "No!" when they have a bad idea.
Also, if one invests in good employees one can get/keep good employees.