Capgemini reviews

Weird and de-motivating HR policies. They tend to bring people in at or near market rate and then quickly erode salaries by giving 0% pay awards until you reach the Capgemini median. This is despite getting a 'succeeding' rating in annual reviews. The performance management process is very odd. You have a billable target of 95%, but are billed to the customer 100% but only about 20% of your annual review is based on the project you are assigned to, creating an odd situation where you can get top marks for your project performance and how your time has officially been assigned but have it averaged out to the median because you haven't done enough 'other stuff'. What I also find odd is that your overall performance grade is not based on your actual performance. You can ensure you get a succeeding rating by doing well in projects but anything above that is actually based on how much other stuff you do compared to others. Project delivery is not enough. They bell-curve the grades and only let so many above average grades through, probably because if you get a succeeding grade any form of pay raise at end of year is far from guaranteed. Sometimes the justification for why you only got a succeeding feels like gaslighting too. Often people are reviewed as exceeding and then pushed down to succeeding during calibration because they have 'too many good people'. Cap is great if you are below average or happy to coast because you will get pushed into an average. Its not so good if you are above average, but not in the top 5-10% or focus on your project because you will get pushed down to an average. This seems to be downside of being a number in 350k employee company. The practice management is decent, but they are hamstrung by HR.

Oh where do I start.... From my experience, your skills will not be appreciated here. It does not matter how good you are at what you are doing. Say, they hired you as an amazing cook with years of meaningful experience. However, if their client needs a mechanic, they will assign you a mandatory auto-repair training, force you to take it and start working fixing the client's cars. You don’t want to fix cars because you like cooking and you were hired to do exactly that? Welp, no bonus, no pay raise for you then. The organization is either a total mess or carefully planned system on how to pay people less. Remember that mandatory training I mentioned before? It will be scheduled for 4:30am of your time and you will be notified about it a day before it starts. You cannot make it? Welp, no bonus, no pay raise for you then. They will come up with mandatory learning hours that you need to complete within a year and will tell you about it 2 months until the year ends. Good luck cramming those 60-hour worth of online courses while working diligently on the client. What did you say? You have family and life outside work? Welp, you guessed it right, no bonus, no pay raise for you then. The management will talk to you only if they need anything from you, not the other way around. Make sure you apply for your well deserved PTO 6-8 months in advance, because that’s how long it will take you to finally get a reply from your manager after many-many-many messages, emails, calls bagging to approve your leave… Oh, and don’t even try to make vacation plans for all your deserved hours, because you will need them to accommodate the difference between the client holidays and Capgemini’s holidays. Yes, when the client has a holiday and Capgemini doesn’t have one, you are forced to take PTO. You might hear about their fair survey system to get feedback from employees or the platform that accepts complaints about mistreatment in the workplace. It does not work. The managers will treat you any way they want (and yes, I had to set boundaries more then once). They will take your complaint, mark it as resolved without any explanation, without letting you even know if something was done about it. Last year I constantly heard only positive feedback from the teams I worked with (clients), and got recognized in sprint reviews multiple times. Not to brag, but after more than a decade of experience in my field I got pretty damn good at what I do for a living. However, my year end rating is below average this year. Why? Managers don't say, all they say is that there are many people involved in the review and they cannot know exactly at what level I failed. Is it because I put my family first and didn't spend the last 2-3 months of the year cramming those online courses every evening instead of spending time with my kids? Is it because I didn’t want to switch from “cooking” to “fixing cars”? OR is it because the company is trying to save some money by not paying their people (people who make their profit) bonuses and not giving them pay raises? No way to know…but the main question is why work so hard if in the end I am below average. If you don’t have any other choice and you can close your eyes, breeze in, breeze out, and say “as long as I am getting paid at least something…” then this company is ok I guess 😀