ICF reviews

Unfortunately, I think the people that run the company at the upper levels are completely out of touch. Communications to junior staff are often dishonest and can be condescending. Senior management likes to pretend that they consider staff feedback before making a major decision, but in reality, big changes (such as getting rid of sick time) were sprung on employees without any notice and the direct effects on staff were obfuscated. When it comes to issues that affect the day to day lives of employees, management is not interested in our feedback (see: eliminating compensation and benefits as a category on the employee feedback survey entirely rather than soliciting feedback). Despite the recent focus on direct hours billed, many managers do not have the ability to allocate work and plan ahead for employees effectively, leading to unbalanced schedules between staff and poor utilization of staff skills at times. It can be difficult to work across divisions despite qualifications and relevance of the work. Despite being competitive with other companies as recently as several years ago, management has decided to make some big changes to benefits in order to cut costs--it is easier to squeeze employees than change the underlying issues with the company. Sick time has been removed, the formerly-good health care benefits have been slashed to your choice of an HMO plan or a CDHP ("Don't get sick") plan, lots of pressure to work overtime.

Pay is terrible. It shouldn't be a joke among management (but is) that in order to get your worth, you need to leave ICF and then come back. Management is non-existent. Raises are allocated across groups and not based on merit. As has been told to us by upper management, promotions are only given once every two years... ergo, they are not based on merit by instead by years of service. I'm not what's worse: the fact that this is policy, or the fact that this policy is talked about. Interestingly enough, there is little room for career growth. Middle managers are well compensated and thus hold onto their jobs. Everyone else leaves for all the reasons previously mentioned.