environmental consultant

safety specialist

inspector

wastewater operator

security supervisor

This was a nice company to work for, but the management has made decisions that have been driving good employees away in droves. After a few rounds of knee jerk layoffs of some of their best employees, other employees are getting out at an astonishing rate. 

Your work life will be about nothing other than maintaining the highest billability possible so the company can meet unrealistic profit expectations. While trying to find your own work to maintain that elusive billable goal, your rates will be inflated so project managers will cut your hours while still expecting you to do the same amount of work...thus lowering your billability through no fault of your own.  Sick days will also lower your billability, as will the umpteen pointless meetings they will make you attend every week.  

Unless you are a field person, don't expect to meet your billability goals with our working at least 50 hours a week.  Also expect to work late into the night and over the weekends on projects for senior people who waited until the last minute to meet a deadline. Your personal life means nothing to them...also, they ate up all the budget for themselves so you can't bill all your time to the project.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part of working at ERM was being able to travel to other states and working on other projects. However, when I was hired, the hiring staff said it was a choice to work in other states, but in practice the only work that my office could provide was at other states

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Management was probably the worst part of it. They a bunch of people just to furlough them off 12 months later. While I was on furlough, ERM then hired a bunch of people

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The environment was pretty good but no one worked in the office consistently. The brain drain was real. Boston's office handled all of the work in the Northeast and would send people down to Connecticut to work. Boston wouldn't let anyone else in any other state come to Massachusetts to work unless it was collecting storm water samples at warehouses because their staff did not want to be out in the rain. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Reaching out to 20 to 60 people looking for work

Goals are made by the company.  Most people can expect to have to be 80-95% billable along with having a sales credit that you need to meet.  And that is the only metrics they care about.  They don't care about the quality of the work you provide.  There is no development plan to move up.  The pay is not good-they'll often say they give you flexibility which industry will not which I don't think is true anymore after COVID.  They also don't help you start up when you get there-they literally expect you just to get clients and go from there.  If you don't meet your billable hours for the year, they up your billable rate (by $25-$60 per hour).  It makes no sense because if you couldn't get work at a lower rate, how are you going to get work at higher rate thus setting you up for failure.  The raises are terrible (if they give you one), the 401K isn't much and it took them until 2022 to final give a few weeks of maternity leave and they tote it like they deserve a pat on the back.  Sick days also counted against your billable work until about a week ago.  You also top out on vacation so past a few years, there is no benefit to staying there.

I was hired as an entry level engineer, with the idea of being multi faceted and being able to help in many different technical groups. However now that I've worked a little while, I can say that this was never really the intention of the partner who decided to hire me. I have instead been put on one project (95% of my time) and do the exact same thing every single day at work. I am so bored that I have to listen to podcasts while working otherwise I think I'm going to go crazy. Not to mention, the office culture for me is the worst I've ever experienced. Everyone constantly complains about how much they want to quit and hate their jobs. Every decision is made by partners and they do not care about anyone else since their bonus depends on the amount of work they sell. I think that the horrible culture is what has me so ready to leave this job. There's nothing worse than a bad work environment, and I personally cannot take it much longer (and I am currently applying elsewhere).

Nice co-workers if u make an effort to get to know them. Everyone operates as a one-man shop with little interaction. You are on your own to figure out HR, IT, benefits, even timesheets/expense reports (all online help).  

Due to the solo culture, I found the atmosphere to be competitive which was good for projects but not for team building. Everyone is so busy and involved in their projects that unless it benefits them and pushing their agenda, they don’t have tome to assist. 

They are lacking technology and accept the use inefficient processes. For example absolutely no social media is allowed for any reason. Not to market the company, events, projects or for hiring talent. 

Could be a good fit for someone who just wants to do the work and does not need a supportive experience.

For the most part, I enjoy working at ERM, however, I would like to pursue a career in my field of study. At this facility, being in the admin position, I am not granted the opportunity to advance into the field that I would like. Job advancement is there for those who have degrees in this line of work. My bachelors is in Psychology and I am pursuing my masters in Legal Studies. My coworkers are the sweetest and most lovely bunch of individuals I have ever met. From the first day I started, they have all been equally nice, helping, and full of support. The hardest part of my job is watching everyone around me work in their career while I am working a job and waiting on my opportunity to advance into my career. The most enjoyable part of my job is that I am in a very friendly environment and I love the people that I work with. I have learned ample skills that will help me in future endeavors.

ERM is a great company as a whole, but it does not value the individual contractors or the support staff. It is a very hierarchical company and the Admin team is expected to assist everyone, but since they cannot always bill work to the client, are seen as burdens to the company and not supported.
I worked as on a contract with ERM for a year and was promised a full-time position for 10 months out of that year, but was then informed that they were going to do away with my position entirely to hire more field workers. The Admin team was already struggling to keep up with the work from all of the current employees. Now all of my duties and responsibilities will fall to the rest of the team.
I was given no days off, no benefits, and very low pay, and very little professional respect.

Leadership is nonexistent. Some departments desperately need a management change.
Partners seem to promote people who are incompetent and arrogant. Most PM's are not very knowledgable in the their field of 'expertise' and play the blame game when review time comes around. Limited chance for advancement with current management. The only performance metrics that ERM seem to care about is sales targets, face to face meetings, and billing percentage. Those are hard to achieve if you are not writing proposals and denied direct contact with clients. Forget about proper training and mentoring. These important development activities are essentially nonexistent and when you can help, it's unappreciated.

ERM is a staple among environmental consultants.  They have shied away from their traditional Oil & Gas services in favor of higher-margin sustainability consulting.  ERM is heavily focused on utilization and revenue, to a point of culture erosion, marked by historically higher than average attrition. DEI has played a strong hand in promoting gender over leadership competency. Career growth is slow and limited once you've attained Partner.  ERM is a decent company to gain industry experience, but it has it's flaws, like all companies.  It's too early to tell if the newish KKR management can move the company in the right direction.  The days of Partners accumulating meaningful wealth in a 3-4 year period recapitalization cycle ended two years ago.

I was hired on with ERM as a Utility Forester with a year long contract with potential for renewal. Unfortunately the job did not even last six months. All contractors on the project were let go with no notice, right before the holidays. This left a bad taste in many of my former coworkers' mouths, including mine. At the time of the lay off, I got the impression that management really did not care about us because we were just contractors. However, from my understanding, it seems that ERM does care a lot about its full time permanent employees. I honestly had a great time working at ERM and wouldn't trade that experience for another, but I felt largely betrayed when the contract was cut short. Would I work at ERM again if I have the chance? Yes, but not as a contractor.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Environmental consultant 5 salaries reported	$74,604 per year
Safety specialist 3 salaries reported	$53.33 per hour
Inspector 1 salary reported	$22.50 per hour
Wastewater operator 1 salary reported	$40.00 per hour
Security supervisor 1 salary reported	$42.50 per hour

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