Hard work, low pay, no prospects for career progression or salary increments
Pros
Some good people working for Open Text, though communication is not that forthcoming There is an option to work from home sometimes but in actual fact it's much less then you might expect from the job descriptions. Some good software products sold by Open Text. HR benefits like health cover and pension contribution is good
Cons
Pay is at the bottom of the lowest quartile and there is a strong resistance culture to increase an employees salary package. Many people have worked for many years and not received any pay increase despite working hard and having good utilisation, and both their departments and the company doing very well in the market. As a result people often leave the company dissolutioned. Little or no recognition for good work and certainly no financial incentives. Consultants are expected to be fully mobile and as it's a software company and not a consultancy organisations, they havnt yet mastered the organisation aspect required for a consultancy. Open Text resourcing between regions is done only at a last resort, there is no encouragement to work for other countries as the home country would not get any of the revenue. Consultants could be with 3 different clients in a week travelling in their own time up and down the country, so this can be quite exhausting. Employees are sold to customers at high rates but themselves may have very little support or none. This is very little co-ordination between the project management and resourcing / planning is therefore messy. Employees may be resourced to projects for which they don't have the skills. Often no communication from the project managers to the resources until after they have been booked on a project, could even be done the day before. A lot of penny pinching even from employees, and the company will try to do all it can to minimise it's outgoings ruthlessly. For example if it's possible to not give employees recognition for utilised days in any way possible they will not, therefore by cutting expected bonus payouts. Holidays are added to the utilisation measures so taking holidays could seriously reduce or nullify your performance related bonus. Many open text products are specific to the company so working for open text you could lose other mainstream skills, making you less valuable over time and less marketable outside open text. Three month notice period. Little communication between resources from different regions. For mobile workers, the car allowance is way below the industry norm. Travel is done in your own time, unpaid. Unpaid overtime is expected, and you could easily be working 60 hours plus per week as you would most likely be on a number of projects simultaneously and be expected to service their requests on days when you are not billed to them to. PM's will happily give customers non-billed days not appreciating that non-billed means non-utilisation and hence employees could suffer by losing or reducing their bonuses. Equipment given to employees i.e. phones, laptops etc are often substandard e.g. most staff do not get blackberries even though it would improve productivity. Extreme penny pinching doesn't work when you look at the bigger picture, but Open Text not in touch with that.
