1. Pay is below average and the company has a tendency to freeze salaries so that it can post good results to the market. Bonuses are not worth bothering about unless you are at a very senior grade.
2. Promotion (apart from junior grades) depends on employees producing a justification and then arguing their case in front of a panel. It is not based on Capgemini recognising effort.
3. Annual review system is a joke. There are hugely involved HR systems but ultimately all ratings are normalised to a bell curve which means virtually everyone gets a middle of the road average rating.
4. Poor job security. Company will happily shed staff at regular intervals with no obvious rationale (staff on fee earning assignment can go whilst staff between assignments stay). This has become less transparent: there used to be public twice yearly redundancy rounds in the summer and winter (famously informing employees on christmas eve one year) but although the redundancies still go on it is no longer public knowledge.
5. Massively unwieldy internal systems which are hard to use, poorly integrated, and sometimes just don't work very well.
6. Review process is very dependent on review manager. A good one who will fight your corner makes a huge difference compared to one who just follows the process. But that's luck of the draw.
7. Increasing emphasis on outsourcing which is all about delivering to the letter of the deal and minimising cost. That doesn't make for a good place to work.
8. Seems that the long term view of Paris HQ is reflected by the fact that half the organisation is now composed of offshore divisions (often acquisitions of local companies) from some of the poorer parts of the world where labour is cheapest.It is not clear where or even if this will stop.
