They aim to entice young people to do “meaningful” work, especially climate change work, and then leverage that youthful earnest to underpay them.
They love to say they are “employee-owned” but really this just means employees have an opportunity to purchase shares. ICF is like any other consulting firm that exploits its employees for the benefit of external shareholders.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone (in my unit) worked remotely but maintained the same job responsibilities. If you moved to a different area that ICF deemed to have a lower cost of living, they all of a sudden found the work you were doing to be less valuable to the company: they lowered your pay. This was not true for the inverse- if you moved to a more expensive city, well that was just your own responsibility to figure out. They even attempted to justify this with HR legalese, stating they had a responsibility to their shareholders to align with the “regional cost of labor”. This should tell you everything you need to know about who ICF values most, and it’s not their employees.
Turnover is high at all levels below senior management due to the exploitative conditions and people burning out.
