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Environmental Resources Management

The SF and Walnut Creek offices are the saddest places I've ever worked. No one interacts...you can walk down the hall and people won't even make eye contact. I find this atmosphere very bizarre. The offices are usually mostly empty as everyone works from home. 

We are based out of London which brings some different protocols which make it very difficult to get your job done. For instance, we are encouraged to use an old version of IE and all the internal software only runs of this. It took over a year to just to get Chrome installed on the computers. Expect to share versions of software or use only the free versions. Processes don't make any sense and upper management know this, but yet I still have to follow these processes and then encouraged to find workarounds to actually get the work done...so I get to do twice the work!

Teams are spread out all over the country and don't know what anyone else is doing. Everyone is a one-man show. You will feel like you are completely on your own when it comes to most anything. Delegate projects to who...everyone is so busy and unless it's billable wont help. Have computer issues, submit a ticket and you'll get some generic answer from IT and then the tickets closed. Have an HR or benefits question, you'll be directed to go figure it out on the intranet.

I will say if you work in the Houston office...good for you. They still have to deal with the London and upper management craziness, but do have a better office culture.

ERM will remain the worst company I have worked for during my 20 years in the work force. 

I joined in 2007 and realized within a month that the office I belonged to had some serious issues. It was back in the "Opco" days when one ERM office would actually compete against another ERM office for profits and sometimes ignore common sense when delivering services to a client.

Aside from the competitive nature of sales and MY client attitude, I joined a team who's leader told me "you are in a different Opco", I cannot help you...". Needless to say, I did not speak to him ever after unless required to. in 2008-2009, ERM, globally, decided to "address" this counter productive issue and "deployed" a new strategy around "collaboration"... Wow! What a giant step forward in recognizing this rotten environment! I thought the company would turn this around and work on getting new blood with a different mentality to offset the bad vibes often encountered within the office. It did not happen, 5 years later... Ended in the "me, myself and I" mode for over 7 years... 

As for the "strategy", ERM put all its eggs in the Oil and Gas and mining basket (recruiting, etc.). Fast forward to 2014/ 15, such markets have stalled and ERM is now leaking its wounds and looking at growth elsewhere... Maybe a diversified sector growth portfolio would have been wiser? 

Bottom line, stay away : poor strategy, poor leadership, poor knowledge sharing/ management, rotten work environment...

ERM works hard to provide employees a chance to work on multiple types of projects.  Additionally, the company also promotes working across disciplines to broaden employees' experience and knowledge base.  I have worked various projects, and have had hands on experience with many aspects of geology including, well installation procedures, placement of well screens to maximize characteriztion of constituents at depth, aquifer pump and slug testing procedures, and complex subsurface lithology cross section development.  Additionally, ERM has provided me the opportunity to project manage smaller semi-annual detection monitoring projects.  
The managment at the company is open door.  I feel comfortable talking with upper managment as well as my own supervisor on work-related issues.
The personnel who work at ERM are very friendly and will help you at a drop of a hat.  In fact, I have met some very good friends at the company.
The hardest part of the job is the expectation for 100% billability, which mean you can work long hours with little compensatory reward.
The best part of the job is the opportunity to work different projects with different project teams from across the globe.

I would get in at 8 and be done no later than 5:30 (with an hour commute on each end).  I learned that ERM talks a good family game but refuses to consider that 5 day in the office meant 50+ hour work weeks.  Profit is the only motivator, and training was something that would be sacrificed for the almighty dollar.   The majority of the people that I worked with were dedicated professionals committed to their work.

One caution:  if you thought that your experience and talents would provide you with an office or at least a cubicle, you are wrong.  ERM believes in an alienating model of open workspaces where there is no privacy or the ability to relax at your workstation, because you are in a situation to be surveilled at your workstation.  I have spoken to people leaving and turning down positions with ERM and that has been one of the largest issues working with this company.

This is a company that is trying to transition from a mid-sized company into a large one.  They really don't care much about anything other than what the spreadsheets say.  To that end, they have zero interest in employee development.  There is zero training and zero opportunities for advancement.  They hire outside the company for very nearly every position and don't even tell us they're looking for positions senior to our current level.  While I was there, they assigned EVERYBODY an "employee level" that basically just puts you in a specific box.  It's nearly impossible to climb out of that box and advance.

I was there nearly 10 years and found that as time went on, they were doing everything possible to get rid of the long term employees and replace us with cheaper, disposable people who would stay for a couple years and then move on.

"Leadership" if you want to call it that, came from England.  They wanted no input from us colonists whatsoever and if we offered any, we were silenced almost immediately.

Many projects with interesting work.  Opportunities abound with work. If you like to work and have no life outside of work, this is the place for you.  

There was a tremendous variety of projects to work on.  Colleagues were there to help and share techniques to complete high quality jobs.  

The hardest part of the job was working for a poor manager whose reputation was well known as someone who would make your life difficult if not miserable.  The best part of the job was when I was released from the position and no longer had to deal with the individual in question.

Overall a fine place to work if you are a robot, lacking feelings and desire to do anything but work.  Additionally, since annual growth targets were unrealistic, firings and layoffs have become the norm.  Expect no understanding, mercy, or pity from this bunch of wolves.

ERM is a good company, but not a great company. It is a very lean organization. The benefits are good, but there are not a lot of perks for junior Staff.  Perks for Support Staff are even less. Career opportunities aren't equal across locations and service areas. Mostly it depends on luck - getting connected to the right project at the right time. There are virtually no career opportunities for Support Staff. Leadership skills amongst supervisors are inconsistent.

The last 8 years working for this company gave me the opportunity to travel to many places.  It challenge my knowledge and skills allowing me to compete with other people and other environment to the same levels as them. I also had the opportunity to manage at different levels and see management for different perspectives; also the opportunity to work tete-a-tete with co-workers from other offices around the world, to share skills and learned other skills depending on the need and the resources available.  The challenging at all was to adapt to hard work environment and still being productive.  The most enjoyable: Being able to see the world, and work for a better one.

I was a contract wetland delineator on a team of two individuals. Our task was to delineate wetland and stream channels through the SW portion of West Virginia related to the proposed corridor of large electrical transmission lines. I feel like I was well compensated but my boss was younger and I feel, threatened by my knowledge base as evidenced by the lies I caught him telling other individuals. As with many large corporations, there is a 'pack of wolfs' mentality and everyone is clawing to stay on top. If you are mature, confident, and truly know your environmental science, ERM is a great company that is at the forefront of many infrastructure, maintenance, energy, and environmental industries.

Supervised all administrative issues (procedures, accounts payable/receivable and some HR duties), edited correspondence, created and maintained projects, proposal files and monthly reports for Project Managers.

New and interesting information on soil and groundwater contamination.

Co-workers were friendly and helpful.

Sometimes working with scientists can be a bit difficult to understand their verbiage and meaning behind what you were reviewing and editing.

Busy and fast-paced, my kind of job.  The day goes by quickly.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Consultant 3 salaries reported	$76,333 per year
Senior consultant 7 salaries reported	$97,286 per year
Associate consultant 3 salaries reported	$71,163 per year
Partner 4 salaries reported	$215,500 per year
Principal consultant 3 salaries reported	$147,667 per year

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