Pros
The role of a business manager is challenging. Having said that, it can be a great learning path for anyone who is transitioning from technical role to a managerial role.
Cons
There are too many. Will try to keep it as concise as I can. The attrition rate in this company is so high that it shocks you. Last year, more than half of the employees have left the company in their first year of joining at ALTEN. Employee wellness and satisfaction is a major contributor to a company's success and growth . If I were to run this company, I would have had this fixed as a top priority. The company treats their employees as commodities that they can easily replace and hence don't have a care for them. The recruitment model that they follow is so unprofessional and unethical. Company proactively hire a large number of engineers with zero visibility in to the projects that they can be deployed in to. Candidates are promised a variety of projects that they can be a part of. Many a thousand times, they hire engineers and cancel their contracts/postpone their start dates as projects fall through. The interviews are conducted by business mangers who have absolutely no understanding of technical requirements or project knowledge and are trained by the company so as to offer employees a highly misguided view of employment and career growth path within the company. As a business manager, I had fallen in to the vicious business development cycle and had been forced to fire a few engineers as we were unable to find projects for them within a span of 1 month. I mean how sad is this... especially when you are just luring engineers to the company overpromising every damn thing! They say this is business but I completely disagree. There is no respect or regard for the way they treat their employees across management. I have seen managers or so called directors/leaders who deliberately exclude themselves from any friendly conversations at work because they think they are just too powerful or busy for their employees. For goodness sake, it's OK to travel in the same elevator as your team members !! The leadership team lacks diversity and come with the same level of assumptions, principles and ethics which hardly can be of any value to the wider team of engineers and managers. The pay is ridiculously low for both engineers and business managers. So the logic is very simple! High turnover of engineers -> Lack of skilled resources -> depreciating quality at work they deliver -> and hence in no way can they demand a higher price from their customers ! Therefore their only way to hit their margin percentage is by exploiting desperate engineers and managers at a surprisingly low pay. There is no work-life balance at ALTEN. Zero flexibility! Zero empathy!!! all they care about are their numbers! If you don't hit your numbers in a particular week, your work and ability is scrutinised to an extent where you can even be put on a performance improvement plan to eventually get fired. Micro management is very common across the various business units and functions within the company. I'm certain nobody enjoys it but in the end everybody is just trying to save their skin by doing whatever they can ! Can't really blame anyone except the few countable number of senior management team! I'm also aware that they have asked their graduate employees to upload positive feedback on glassdoor just to get their rating high. Despite all those efforts, the rating is exactly what it was when I joined three years ago. Pfft! There are several posts here on glassdoor that echoes everything that I have written here. So there is no surprise. Why am I writing it here ? Well, just to let prospective candidates know that it is extremely important to do background checks on the company you interview just as they do background and reference checks on candidates. Also to any senior management team who reads this if ever! It's not too late to make a good change. Please remember that unethical and unprofessional practices is only going to increase the cost of doing your business!
