Unprofessional and overly political - Senior Consultant BAE Systems Employee Review

Generally negative work atmosphere makes even interesting work a chore. Managers routinely criticise their team members without even bothering to check their facts. This generally happens in one of two ways: a verbal attack in front of other staff, or a whispering campaign within a management clique. Quite normal to be sitting in the same office as a group of managers and listening to them run down a person or project for between 1 and 2 hours (knowing that you may be the next target as soon as you leave the room). When I joined I thought I had been unlucky with my project team, but then saw exactly the same thing with my second project. A high proportion of managers have never worked at another company, and seem to lack a sense of perspective, or, for that matter, a sense of basic professionalism. Lots of large egos mean that attempts to suggest alternative designs or methodologies are often construed as personal attacks (sometimes your suggestion may be quietly adopted later). Constantly refuting malicious rumours and defending every small decision becomes quite draining after a few months, and morale among non-management is generally very low. Work/life balance is on the spectrum between mediocre and dreadful. Unrealistic cost/time estimates are the order of the day, with the project team left to pick up the pieces. Bid teams are completely unaccountable for their cost estimates, and project managers generally take the blame for any overspend. It is almost universally acknowledged within the company that the performance review/pay raise system is badly flawed; arbitrary, heavily politicised, and the source of even more bad blood between individuals. I have not suffered too much from this personally, but the number of times this has been mentioned in other reviews confirms what I've heard from colleagues at all levels of the organisation.