Serco, Inc. Employer Reviews

This is not just my opinion but the opinion of everyone on my team and the group for whom we provided services. Management was terrible. Our supervisor was inexperienced and prided herself in being non-supportive and mean, She degraded employees at meetings on a regular basis and harassed employees she didn't like personally. Employees were encouraged – more...  to spy and rat on other employees to accumulate dirt for our supervisor to use. People I supervised were told directly they did not have to listen to me, but I was held accountable when they refused to do work. My supervisor and manager bragged about how they worked 70 to 80 hours a week and felt anyone who did less was not working hard enough. Lying was rampant. After two years of very hard work and winning over the client, we were rewarded by SERCO with a 16% paycut. Our supervisor resented our good relationship with the client and accused us of "being too intimate" with the client. It was so crazy and poorly run it was very hard to believe. Turnover at 3 years was 100% in an economy where finding a job was tough! – less

Serco-NA bought SI International in 2009. Since then corporate policies have increased workload and reduced compensation.

Not to bad to work for, they did have program management favoritism going on alot. And leads who can choose who they want on their team. So if they were Mexican and wanted mostly mexicans working for them the project manger would allow them to have just that, etc.

Good support by immediate supervisors but limited support between projects by Serco.
Most of my time was spent at customer site where I managed the SOA-RICE team for a large ERP transformation program.

The company: The company is a defense contractor. Money (for the company) and keeping the contract is the bottom line. The company has no idea how to care for clients - they have just started implementing mental health contracts here in the US, as a result, there is zero support, zero training, zero care given to staff, every movement is micro-managed – more...  and then micro-managed some more- via teleconference.

The job: travel and presentations (twice a month), weekly presentations (on site), cold calls (weekly), reports (weekly), resourcing (weekly), case management (weekly), meetings (client management 2 a week), staff meetings (1 a week) - meetings last approximately 1-2 hours via teleconference, 3 monthly meetings (approximately 2 hours)

Working Environment: You will enjoy 2 hour teleconferences sometimes twice daily, unfair and often racist and sexist treatment of staff (in my experience African Americans were given obvious preference), you will enjoy walking on egg shells because at any moment anyone at any time can make ANY complaint against you and the company doesn't bother to investigate or defend you, they just pressure you to quit (or they will terminate you.) You will enjoy absolutely no personal space. You will enjoy a hot bed of a politically charged environment in which everyone seems to be your enemy and you can trust no one to even have a simple 2 minute conversation with. The environment is absolutely toxic.

As mentioned before, these are the first mental health contracts, so the company has no idea how to actually care for people. The motto is "do as LITTLE as POSSIBLE." This was said to me on more than one occasion. Any real mental health professional who actually wants to do real work with people and actually help them will have no idea what to make of this job, this company or these people.

In addition, because the company has never had a mental health contract before, they have zero idea how to do reporting or even do professional presentations (which is central to the job). The paperwork alone will drive you insane. These folks have no idea how to set up a SharePoint, a viable database, or even a excel or PowerPoint that works. You are responsible for vetting out all your own resources, there is NO database that is maintained. They are not hooked in like the Vet Centers, so it's like reinventing the wheel over and over again.

In addition, the sites are considered "virtual sites." Therefore, there is no rhyme or reason to how training is implemented, email "blasts" are sent out and training is often outdated and confusing, there is no employee handbook on how things should be done, things are quite often done arbitrarily and at the whim of the manager, HR doesn't follow up on complaints. It is highly stressful and chaotic.

Travel: Staff must set up all their own travel. The paperwork for this process is immense and mind blowing. It is submitted in 4 separate steps twice. The cost goes on YOUR corporate credit card for which YOU are responsible for paying. You will be stuck in an airport for an 8 hour layover simply because it's 40$ cheaper, and NO you don't get paid or compensated for it or allowed to flex it off, the current cap is 16 TOTAL hours...yes....total. They will attempt to completely mislead on how you will be compensated for your time while traveling, (you will actually work MORE and get paid LESS than if you worked in the private sector...I know that I did). You will also be told that you will be able to set up your travel schedule as it works out best for you. NO YOU WILL NOT. Often you will have to set up weekend dates that are back to back and then you will lose your time off. They will tell you that they are sorry for your luck. Because it's a government contract, you will stay at base housing, not nice hotels. You do get "per diem" but believe me when you have lay overs both coming and going, it doesn't even cover your food. FYI- you only get a percentage of the per diem the first and last day of travel, so you don't even get the full rate, regardless if you are traveling 12 plus hours (which I did numerous times).

Stability: They've been serving the contract 4 years...there is NO guarantee that the Navy/Marines will renew. They are currently trying to renegotiate the contract now. The Marine contract is up. The leadership knows the services they provide are worthless. They pad and manipulate the numbers to make it seem like the program is viable but even when they do that it still doesn't hold water.

As mentioned before because money is the most important thing, if YOU make a mistake, YOU are the one that pays for it. You will have no support, no back up, no one to call on. Consider yourself terminated...or "allowed" to resign. And, although the staff are only considered consultants and "resource and referral specialists" you will endure constant veiled threats against your license. BTW LPC's have absolutely no advancement in the company.

Bottom Line: If you choose to go forward, proceed with caution. – less

Great Company to be employed with. I have learned many things relating to training development and instruction.

Day started at 9am to about 6pm. I dealt with different IT information officers, Directors and even Army Generals (VIP); delivering IT Liaison services to their agencies. This job helped me broaden my diversity portfolio. What I like most about the job is, it never feels monotonous, there is always a new challenge for you to undertake.

Great benefits. Need better trained managers and more diverse group of people.

Very professional organization and great pepople to work with.

Review systems analysis before automated reconfiguration process is performed.
How to evaluate,inspect and transform electro - mechanical equipment.
Great managerial team support
Professional staff of co-workers
Rigid travel schedule
Traveling all across the U.S.

We are working in a safety critical job. Everyday we should be competent to do safety critical things that are not expected. In this kind of job I have learned how to be focused in your job specially in your task. My job is not only for customer service, it's include everything, how to rectify faults, observe the security of the people and the station, – more...  attends customer needs. Now I am working in a wonderful group which I can tell my team. In this kind of job I learned how to balance everything, that it's not all about me... it's about how to deal with different nationalities with different beliefs and culture. The hardest part of my JOB is that it is in your HAND is the safety of the People that once they step in our station, it's my responsibility to take care of them. The enjoyable part of my job is I gained lots of friends and I learned lots of languages. – less

Travel is the same as with CACI 100%, only difference is that SERCO will pay you when your not our on a job site, because you will be in the 32nd street offices handling trouble calls.

great company to work for, managment, co workers and other staff are very helpful.

Loved the type of work but company culture doesn't foster caring for employees. The library type work environment does not allow for employees to talk to each other.

I learned a lot from this job, a typical day at work was fun and very informative, I loved working with all my co-workers,

Great place to work, just a temporary position. They have great benefits, I was a previous employer and was not a temporary employee so the benefits were great.

A great setting for a senior Social Worker. Autonomy is welcomed and encouraged. The mission is do-able and important.

Serco provides excellent possiblities for job flexibility. A very personable company and they truly make you feel like part of their family.

SERCO was an excellent company to work for. They are primarily a services / contracting company with good job.s

Not that great of a company to work for. Management was not knowledgeable and often held double standards.