analyst

software engineer

project coordinator

client representative

director

Engie

When I started with the company 2 years ago I had some reservations after realizing the company had a big disconnect between their training and their expectations of team performance and procedures, combined with horrible communication between departments. However, my team and manager were amazing and the work from home flexibility combined with the great PTO was a perfect fit!  I have to note that I learned having a great team and management were not a universal Engie experience, but it was common enough that I met a lot of coworkers who’d been with the company for years partly due to it. I also have to point out hourly pay, retirement and healthcare were lacking compared to any other employer I’ve had. I took the position anyways because the work from home opportunity was what I needed. With all of that said, the company has gone through an overhaul the last year which has not gone over well. We were led to believe the overhaul would improve the broken system and procedures we were working with to make us more efficient which had a lot of us extremely excited, but it was a lie. The goal wasn’t to make us truly efficient by improving the broken processes we had been complaining about for years, it was adding responsibilities for some positions while using that same broken system so that they could lay off as many people as possible. Engie’s steps towards efficiency were to simply drop a whole department and downsize others then send a part of the dropped departments duties overseas while adding the rest of duties to the current employees plates, all while leaving us with more or less the same broken processes and procedures. That choice has also snow balled and negatively impacted the departments who did not receive new duties. A third of the team I began with have left Engie in the last 12 months, all of them had 6 to 18 years with the company. They noticed the trend and jumped ship which should have been a sign. More work, less support when it was already lousy, a lack of competitive compensation, and a lack of accountability and stability when it comes to the very top of Engie’s management. Not to mention the low ceiling for advancement unless you branch into management or jump departments within Engie. The company did give us a significant pay raise recently as they initiated layoffs, a voluntary exit program, and locked hiring. The pay bump was a well played choice by the company which led to some of my peers staying that I know were ready to leave. I also need to note that the significant part of the pay bump was NOT for the new duties, this pay bump was across Engie because they were facing lot of backlash about not being competitive over all. Now we’re hitting another patch where that’s starting to not be enough for some employees. If you’re coming into their remote work as a new hire one day it might not be as bad. You’ll most likely still deal with the lacking retirement and healthcare, the low ceiling for growth as well as internal procedure issues, but you’ll come in knowing nothing else but the flawed system we know and the new heavier workload that we can’t stand. Plus you won’t be jaded with your experience on how the companies handled things so far. I’m also not sure if they’ve adjusted their starting pay to match where we’re at now but would not be surprised if they didn’t. It’s bitter sweet looking for a new employer because I love my team and I actually liked the work I did this time last year, but I will not regret leaving behind this mess one bit. Grass might be greener on the Tech/Engineering/Marketing/Consulting sides but I do not suggest most positions based within the Spokane office unless you don’t mind punching the clock, with no big plans for a career unless it’s in management, all while dealing with their short comings  for minimal pay. 

Great opportunity to learn more about the energy industry and gain experience. Your coworkers are usually supportive and wonderful to work with.  Opportunity to create relationships with clients in many industries. As a long time former employee I experienced a lot of changes during my career and lot of this was exciting.  You should be prepared for and be comfortable with constant change. Training is haphazard, inconsistent or not available.  Company has undergone several acquisitions and growth that has resulted in some instability regarding employment and management.  Work/Life Balance may be an issue.  My salary position required quite a bit of daily overtime due to work load as well as additional weekend mandatory overtime to support the team. I would only recommend hourly positions unless your salary position pays enough to account for the overtime worked. Staffing resources and workloads are part of the management improvements suggested.  Employment is production driven and measured. This is another area of improvement as each position and responsibilities should be considered when developing the matrix for this type of assessment.  Example: Data Entry would be much different that Client Management or Sales.  
 There are inconsistencies between teams and supervisors / same job descriptions.  Not all workloads or expectations are equal.  Be prepared to figure it out quickly if you are moved to another team/supervisor.  You may excel in one team then move to another team, same job description and fail due to the different expectations and uneven workload.  This a a red flag for  management and should be reviewed and considered. Company culture has become more production driven and employee satisfaction and customer service has suffered. Little room for advancement.  Keep your resume and skills current.

I want to rate this company as a good one, because the people there trying to make a difference are amazing. 

If you can become a full time employee good luck, there are people who have been sold this lie for the past 5 years. 

Unfortunately, the upper head of IT has no clue what she is doing and is failing as a leader, she will flip her decisions from week to week on what is our goals, and other projects fall to the wayside. The help desk is basically the dumping ground for all issues, all technicians do the same functions of multiple departments; a level one technician not only answers phones and does the basic routing and ticketing, but will also be required to do equipment deployment, purchasing for all IT equipment, account admin work, some networking, all functions of a mail room, video conferencing, all mergers and acquisitions or new companies, etc. 

IT is never steady state and is constantly on their feet about what other workload will they dump on the helpdesk. There is no actual helpdesk manager and the helpdesk supervisor is primarily a cloud services technician who actively avoids being the supervisor. 

This would all be fine with a decent staff level, but as it stands there are 8 Technicians servicing 5000+ users. There is no knowledge base, except information that is emailed to you. I have been here for awhile and on average one technician every two months leaves. I have never seen a turnover rate this high with such a small desk.

Steer Clear! Do not waste your time here if you value your mental health.

I was an employee at this company from June 2006 to December 2013 at the Atlanta Georgia office when the company was called Prenova. During the beginning of my time with the company things were great. The company was growing and the managers actually showed gratitude for the hard work their employees put out. The moral of the company was better as a result of this. I personally enjoyed coming to work and even put in extra hours to help out when needed. Later, those same managers either left the company or was let go and as a result things went from bad to worse.The company brought in managers who had no knowledge on how to run the energy management team. Also, these managers were not professional, poor communicators, and always had an attitude. There is no formal training for the work that needs to be done. A lot of favoritism was displayed out in the open. Friends of certain managers was hired for positions that they were not qualified for and then was promoted to team leads. In November of 2013, I was fortunate enough to find another job with a company that respected my skills, qualification, and experience. I turned in my two week resignation and did not receive a goodbye, good luck, or anything from the management team after all the years that I served as an employee with the company.

Company is about Smart Energy & Expense Management for multiple clients with different portfolios.  From Property Management to Retail, if you've heard of the companies, they're likely managed by Ecova.  

Majority of the focus seems to be on the Energy Management side of the business.  Even Ecova social media sites spend the majority of the time discussing energy issues.  They have great ideas but the data is bad.  This is likely due to consistently poor decisions made by the company in regards to the bread and butter of the company which is the Expense Management side.  

Expense Management part of the business has been an absolute disaster.  Poor choices have been made and though management claims to want consistency, there is nothing consistent about what has and is being done.  

As for advancement, that is only available to those individuals who lack skills and the personality to challenge management.  We constantly see individuals with poor work ethic often get the jobs that those with integrity are passed over for.  

The culture has completely changed at Ecova.  It use to be a family oriented company but with the growth, that has gone away.  They have the right idea just wrong plan about achieving the goals.  With many acquisitions, this company will continue to be the market leader in Energy & Expense management but only because they can afford to buy out the competition, not because they beat out the competition.

Ecova as a company is fine--upper management is interested in making the company succeed, believes in its people and wants everyone to have a good work environment.  Where the company falls down is its lower level management.  People without the necessary skills or background are promoted, while the people underneath then have to suffer.  The "leadership skills" supposedly taught to management is a joke.  In the 9 years that I've been with Ecova, only once have I had a chance to critique my manager.  I think a lot more can be learned about a manager by talking to the people they actually manage, rather than only considering what the person that hired them thinks.

Ecova has added a behavior portion to their review process.  Basically this boils down to an easy out for the company if you tick off the wrong person.  Don't expect to be told what you did wrong, because that would breach confidentiality.  And don't ever expect anything to be forgotten--if you haven't done anything wrong  lately, what you did three or four years ago will still be held against you.  Of course a part of the work environment is getting along with others, but at Ecova, at least in my office, not everyone is judged by the same standards, even within a team.  Employees have no recourse because managers are always believed over the rank and file.

When I was initially hired at Cadence, it was a great company and management was open minded and not as rigid as older big corporation management. I loved my bosses and the work ethic of everyone was tremendous. Then they were bought out by Avista and we became Advantage IQ, they were more about making the employees happy and satisfied, the pay was less and the job titles were changed. The name changed again to Ecova, many exempt employees were changed to hourly, and pay increases stopped for some of us. I was at the same pay level for 8 years. I was hired for all the experience (32 years at Duke) that I brought with me. The company was sold again and we were purchased by GDF a French company. Then it became more corporate and things began to change drastically. Management continually promised we had a lot of  work and would not lose our jobs. They eventually decided to close the Cincinnati office and laid the majority of Analysts off and let us go.  They hired our replacements in Spokane Washington. I can't say they are a bad company, but they are still struggling and are having growing pains. 
Training was spotty and not very good when I left. Hopefully they are doing better now.

Development of sales and proposal presentations, coordinating contract negotiations customer account management with mid-size and large commercial and industrial retail customers both direct and indirect
Responsible for maintaining relationships between GDF Suez and assigned third party Channel partners 
Generation of business to meet and exceed a quota, along with post deal support to maintain a customer base
Managed the internal sales deal flow process with multiple internal and external groups
Monitored market changes and updates, specifically for the PJM Mid-Atlantic & Mid-West regions, to provide the most value and knowledge to customers and assigned third party channels
Highly successful in meeting multiple deadlines for pricing and contracting
Within the Accounting Group: Managed monthly commission database for Channel Partners
Loading, and managing each customer’s financial transaction into the accounting database to maintain an accurate ledger for accounting
Responsible for distributing matrix pricing to brokers for the following state markets CT,IL,MA,MD,NJ,NY,PA,TX. As well as execution on contractual agreements.

I started with Engie the beginning of May but knew within a week it wasn’t for me. I stayed for 3 months until another job came up. I had all sorts of hopes when I got offered the job but in reality on a site with Engie you are just a number.
I was keen to work with everyone and learn all sorts of new things but I was given a van and told to drive around the site every few hours picking up rubbish bags the job itself would take half an hour to complete so initially I asked i could go help other people but I wasn’t allowed because they have the guys all spread out in different squads meaning if they are short on guys you can’t go and help them because that will show the company your supervisor doesn’t need you. The moral on site is miserable my first break all I got told how rubbish it was to work there and to be fair it didn’t take long to realise. I did approach management and ask about getting moved to a squad where I could at least be more productive during the day I was told it could happen but I would need to wait until new staff came in but during my 3 months there more people left that they could employ so when a new job came up i left Engie. This is only my experience of the short time I was there.

What is the best part of working at the company?
It used to be the other coworkers and the friends and bonds you make but now working from home and being so busy makes it hard to bond with coworkers

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The constant change of pace on top of lack of training. You may feel like you are doing well then suddenly be questioned why your numbers are bad or why you’re doing something one way when that’s how you were shown. Management cares a lot about numbers and a lot of them that actually do care about you are pushed out. The strict micromanagers stay. It can be very hard to handle. On top of that on some team’s MANDATORY over time is common but with very short notice. They may tell you two weeks in advance or they may tell you Wednesday that 4-8 hours of mandatory over time is needed saturday. That can be stressful especially if you plan to have a life outside of working. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Slave labor. They do try to play things up and bump up team morale on some teams but on others there are no fun meetings or get to know your peers.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Analyst 20 salaries reported	$69,499 per year
Software engineer 3 salaries reported	$115,000 per year
Project coordinator 2 salaries reported	$32.18 per hour
Client representative 9 salaries reported	$21.35 per hour
Director 1 salary reported	$190,760 per year

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