Fast Enterprises Employee Reviews about "paid overtime"

Pros

I will first preface this review saying… Pre-pandemic, I would have given Fast a 4-star rating, however during the pandemic and post-pandemic, the company has lost their way. Now on to the pros: -Great health benefits -Paid overtime -AGM -FAST Pause -Friendly work environment

Cons

If you are fresh out of college (little to no experience) and get hired on as an Implementation Consultant (IC), which is the bread and butter of the company, you will be paid well. Any other position that requires some sort of experience, you will be paid below the average for that field. My advice to you is to start as an IC and then try and move into one of those other positions that you may be interested in, that way you will be paid more than someone with some experience who starts in that position. One of the perks at Fast is the employee + family yearly vacation (AGM), however during the pandemic they were cancelled, which is understandable. Did Fast do anything as a replacement to still reward their employees, NO, for 2 years in a row, they did absolutely nothing. Work from home… Now, this is probably the touchiest subject of them all. Pre-pandemic, there was absolutely no working from home, which was ridiculous in non-client facing roles. The start of the pandemic, despite the company holding on for as long as they possibly could, they eventually sent everyone home as did all the other project sites nationwide. During the pandemic everyone worked from home, and quite successfully I might add. Now that the pandemic has “subsided”, Fast thought it would be best to try and go back to how things were and bring everyone back in with a hybrid model to start (with very little notice mind you), and soon after, get back to full swing. Have we not proven that working remotely is possible after 1.5 years? Apparently not. Other cons: -Middle management listens, upper management, not so much. -Some upper management use intimidation -Promotions don’t necessarily mean a pay raise -Bonuses received during the year can’t be touched till the end of the year

Pros

Some of the things Fast does is good, but its really all meant to cover up the bad until you burn out and leave. -Paid Overtime -Annual General Meeting (AGM) - Hasn't happened the last two years with no compensating incentives -Fully paid benefits

Cons

-Old technology and ideas -Inflexibility to allow the company to retain good employees -No Remote Work -Few advancement opportunities and if you are promoted, you do not receive a raise for up to a year -Bonuses are small and the PMs and Partners allowed to increase them often play favorites -Management positions are dictated by who has been there the longest, not based on abilities -Flat corporate structure with open door policy to management and partners is an illusion

Pros

- Great introduction to consulting and large government IT projects; the consulting work can be engaging and fulfilling if you are a people person that is curious, sharp, and organized - Opportunity to work on things that actually impact people in real ways - Great pay, especially at the entry level, including paid overtime - Annual company+family resort trip (pre-pandemic, obviously) - Opportunity for frequent relocation, if you're interested in traveling around - Generally great coworkers To make this job work for you, go in clear-eyed about all the below cons for 1-3 years, learn everything you can, and always think about how you can package/market the experience. If you can make time for it, pick up/sharpen some more marketable skills on the side. People get trapped at Fast first because they get hooked on the money (the starting salary is much higher than in comparable jobs, for what you actually do), and later because they have lost their value on the job market. If you can avoid both of those traps, Fast can offer you a good opportunity.

Cons

Company - Top-down culture is cult-like and authoritarian - Leaders are not trained to lead people, nor are they evaluated on how well they do it, and they are all raised from within, so the effects of this compound over time - No processes, tools, or milestones around employee growth and development - Pay structure is inscrutable, arbitrary, and unequal - Org structure and small number of roles prevent meaningful career growth - Mandatory relocations on short notice Day-to-day work - Poor work/life balance: heavy workloads, high stress - Lopsided distribution of work and accountability - Inadequate training and documentation - Little room for innovation, experimentation, or creativity Technology - Aging, bloated, byzantine core product - Very little exposure to transferrable, industry-standard tools and technologies: Fast has built its own systems for source control (no Git/GitHub), issue tracking (no Jira), document management, project management, and just about everything else - Limited scope of development work: most developers are constrained to writing business-layer plugin code (Visual Basic) in Visual Studio, writing database scripts in SQL Server, and editing granular configuration settings. - No automated testing tools, and the architecture doesn't lend itself to building them: lots of time wasted clicking around manually testing One last thing On this Glassdoor page, Fast has listed its revenue (in the Company Overview section) as $25-50M. A single client is likely to pay $50-200M over a few years for one new implementation (Google any press release announcing a contract won by Fast, or see the ones posted on Fast's website); many clients do multiple implementations in succession; maintenance and support fees are billed afterwards on an ongoing basis. Fast's website lists 70 clients total; projecting from all that, this company's revenue is closer to $1B than $25M.

Pros

The people are great. Competitive benefits and salary with paid overtime. You are given all the tools and resources you need to succeed.

Cons

Work/Life Balance can be difficult to maintain during active projects, but FAST does try to mitigate this through employee activities.

Pros

Great benefits, salary, paid overtime, and generally sites have nice sense of community.

Cons

Lots of overtime expected, sometimes felt stretched thin. Not everyone is happy about relocation.

Pros

Feels like you are working with friends and family. The benefits FAST offers are great (employer paid healthcare, sabbatical program, paid-overtime) and compensation is competitive. FAST treats their employees well and your coworkers are hardworking, motivated and dedicated employees. You are encouraged to use your vacation time. It is a team setting, not a competitive workplace.

Cons

Some tasks are repetitive or tedious at times

Pros

Great people to work with Competitive Benefits Involved management Challenging work Paid Overtime Relocation

Cons

Long Hours (Sometimes) Difficult clients (Sometimes) Work in areas that have negative connotations associated with it Relocation