Unisys Reviews

Pros

I was able to work at Unisys on a contract that permitts really good telecommute privileges. Salary was pretty good and I never felt micro managed by any manager in my group.

Cons

Working for Federal Systems I felt very detached from the rest of Unisys corporation. There was never initiative to ask me if I wanted to continue training within my career. Sr. Management never communicated changes down to lower tier and communication between upper management and employess was totally disconnected.

Advice to Senior Management

Have a christmas party or some type of team gathering within the company. In my three years at Unisys we never once had a company outing and I never met anyone from other branches of Unisys.

Pros

they are good making sure you get your pay checks every two weeks
most of the employees are nice to work with
you do learn a lot working here (good or bad)

Cons

The favoratism is this place is astounding. If your not part of the boys club, you dont get anywhere. You can be lazy and do literally nothing for most of your shift and still get offered promotions as long you are best buddies with the management. There is no line drawn between the professional relationship and the personal relationship.

Management also cannot seem to make up their mind about how they want to do things. They are constantly changing what your job duties are and what is expected of you, often times in the same day. It leads to mass confusion.

There is no real threat to those who cannot perform up to the standards one would expect would be required in this job. People are allowed to continuously mess up and claim its because they didnt know, even they got the exact same training that I got and I knew better.

Nothing worth while is offered to those who actually have the talent to do this job. There is no reward system in place at all (especially for level 2 agents). Management does absolutely nothing to boost morale, there is no motivation to do any better then what you absolutely have to in order to keep your job.

This place is treated like a call center rather than a help desk. At a call center, they hire anyone that has a pulse rather than hiring people that have a brain and can actually use it. This creates major frustration because you then have to constantly clean up other peoples messes because they havent got a clue what they are doing. Whats worse, is those agents that are constantly causing the frustration are the ones that get the promotions.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire people that actually have talent for job they are applying for.
Ask for feedback from the employees on a regular basis.
Give feedback to your employees on a regular basis.
Stop the favoratism and reward employees based on merit.

Pros

The pay is decent for the job, co-workers for the most part are not bad.

Cons

Unisys promotes an environment of favoritism. If you feel that hard work, dedication and knowledge should be rewarded with promotions this is NOT the company to work for.

Management picks and chooses who they give 'special projects' to, when it is brought to their attention that their favorites are not doing anything but sitting around talking all day and not getting their work done, you're told to basically mind your own business.

When promotion opportunities on other queues is a possibility, they will find ways to 'gate' people that they don't want to see advance, write ups for inconsequential things that their favorites can get away with.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of the environment of favoritism, disallow managers from sending agents out to get food for them daily, make it a conflict of interest to allow a manager to accept food, drinks, 'gifts' bought for them by agents. Reward agents for hard work and dedication, not for how well they suck up to the boss.

Pros

As a contractor, I was given great benefits and a steady pay. At first, never working an inbound phone job before, you can be a little antsy when the phone rings and you have no idea what this new (or even old) client will need, but after a while you settle down with all of the tools and work becomes pretty easy, outside of the few odd / high severity calls.

I gained a lot of experience that would otherwise had not been given to me, just getting out of school. There is a very diverse mix of propriety and open software used depending on the client you work with. Depending on your position, you may be working full time with one client (high call volume) or with many clients.

The people I worked with were very nice and fun to talk to for the most part, on the phone and around my cubicle. There will always be angry users and you have to understand that they are angry at the software, not at *you* unless you give them a reason to be.

Cons

Very little to no training. When I first started my manager briefly introduced me to various ticketing systems, and after two weeks of listening to calls I was given a desk and a few clients. I mentioned before that there can be some anxiety when answering calls for a client you have no idea about, and before you ease into the client it can be very stressful when you don't know what you are doing.

With my position, it was understood that I would be working with a lot of accounts. Toward the end of my resignation, we had gone from at least six or seven accounts to twelve or thirteen. There has to be a limit as to how many accounts you can throw at a technician, especially with the lack of training. Especially when it was a client that hardly called in, the anxiety would go through the roof as you asked yourself if you even had that Helpfile open when the phone rang.

As a contractor, you are not given very much room for time off while employees signed onto the company can work up a week, two week vacation, etc. While I lasted as long as I could, I noticed that with a majority of technicians there was a negative viewpoint on contractors. Some would even use the word "contractor" as some sort of slander. It got to the point that, unless I knew the coworker well enough, I would never bring up the fact I was a contractor even if they asked me.

My main concern with contracting is a loophole within the contract. I was given a three month contract, as in after three months of work I would be evaluated and be either let go or hired onto the company. I do not know how the in house hiring process goes, and I can't blame my manager directly as I believed him when he told me he was trying. The problem was that there is a loophole that allows senior management to renew my contract as many times as they see fit (if this is a loophole I'm not sure, but it sure feels like it). After nine months of being told "we are working on it" and seeing my coworkers getting better pay with new accounts, bonus packages I'd miss out on, denial of vital security protocol/software because of the contract status, and lack of time off, I eventually had to make my leave.

Advice to Senior Management

Please make the transition from being a contractor to a onsite employee smoother, or make a new process altogether as I wasn't the only employee I'm aware of that have been contractors well past their evaluation period. Also, if there is any way to get rid of the bad stigma attached to contractors please do so. I understand that there are some bad apples out there but not all of us are bad.

Pros

Flexible work/home balance
Ability to telecommute if not working on customer site
Ed Coleman's 3 year Strategy has resulted in corporate improvements

Cons

Newly formed Federal Sales organization has not lead to any improvements
Sales leadership is too internally focused rather than customer focused
It has been such a long time since Unisys Federal has won new business, they no longer have a culture of winning.
Too many internal processes that are not benefiting customers or employees

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on retention of staff working in the field. Hire sr management that have a history of success leading and building new business. Establish programs that reward and recognize employees that are performing well on customer site vice rewarding senior management.

Pros

Very nice work life balance. Company has some really good, competent and knowledgeable SMEs across a variety of technical areas.

Cons

The management is struggling to steady the operations as they are chartering into newer territories of managed services support as well using global pool of resources to deliver the services.

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce the bureaucracy. There are just too many people trying to do duplicate jobs and are simply pushing the paper or creating more work for others in the process.

Pros

- multinational environment
- lot of opportunity to learn

Cons

- no real career path
- low level of benefits

Advice to Senior Management

- provide more attractive benefits for the employees

Pros

Good Work-Life balance
Best Pay
Cab facility
Nice cafeteria
Best Pay hike

Cons

No clear direction from middle management
No vision

Advice to Senior Management

Please have a control on middle management

Pros

Management very accessible. Medical benefits good, many resources available to improve physical and mental health. Retirement benefits good, 401k matching reinstated. Good comradare among coworkers. Lots of free online resources available on the interal network for career growth covering everything from project management, security, new technology etc.. Good intranet tools available for career related "networking"

Cons

Payscale lags behind smaller "startup" companies. Company is in rebuilding mode so salaries are "frozen" in many groups.

Advice to Senior Management

Good communication from executive level regarding company performance. Groups that perform well are acknowledged and recommended action is given for areas that need improvement. Keep up the good work.

Pros

Young working enviornment. Good oppurtunities to advance and develope.

Cons

Implementation of projects could be stronger.

Advice to Senior Management

stop cost cutting and start billing for what the client is not paying for