More Hype than Help - Project Manager Arcadis Employee Review

Arcadis-US is the result of several mergers and takeovers and remains effectively un-integrated despite constant re-structuring. Re-structuring means repeated cycles of lay-offs. Attrition has been on-going at Arcadis. My office, the largest in a top 10 metro area, has lost around 25% of its personnel in the last six months. Many have read the writing on the wall and left on their own, with quite a few others getting canned or laid off. Then the HR department turns around and puts out ads out for the same positions where someone was laid off because things were slow. Upper management freely gives an indifferent attitude to these situations. Business development is hampered by the higher executives who want to grab the goods for themselves. However, as a large company, the extra layers of management make it tougher to win in competitive bid situations. The various databases resulting from these mergers are scattered and repetitive. You have to be careful who you you work with and how on projects, as a fair amount of personnel can engage in sand-bagging or back-stabbing. This can contribute to a poisonous atmosphere. Often such people are working with you remotely and don't feel the need to treat you with a sense of cooperation as they don't have to face you. Many people have to constantly lobby for work as if they were an outside salesperson. While bill-ability targets are often not unreasonable, you can be frozen out if you don't lobby effectively and are not favored by those assigning project slots. Arcadis' image presents a friendly facade, but you soon learn they're not really there to help. There is an unwritten rule that mandatory training and other un-billable work has to be done on your own time. These observations mostly apply to the Environmental division, including soil remediation, industrial hygiene, and the PM-CM division. However, the Water division seems to be having some of the same issues.