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Development Planning & Financing Group

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Antiquated Systems Holding Back Talented Teams - Anonymous employee Development Planning & Financing Group Employee Review

3.0
29 Sept 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

DPFG has some of the smartest employees in the RE development space. There is a plethora of knowledge among the principals and the company is well respected. Due to its size, employees are given a lot of responsibility from day one, making it a sink or swim environment. The internal culture varies depending what team you are hired to, but the company has an open door policy when dealing with problems.

Cons

Employee's number one contribution to the firm is billable hours. As a result, the culture is not on par with a lot of other consulting firms in the space. There are few benefits to working at the company aside from the benefits package and it often feels like upper management is not invested in teaching newer employees. If you want to advance, you will have to step on your colleague's toes. The only real learning tools are the work products we work on. This is what nurtures a sink or swim culture - either you get it or you don't. While this is great for getting self-starters up to speed, it does not foster a culture of innovation or product development. Company seemingly lacks any apparent mission and vision. There is no HR department and internal complaints lack any structured action. The culture is really lacking: no happy-hours to get to know employees, lunch with boss once a year (maybe), one-week vacation for new hires, etc. Annual evaluation is more-so used to determine promotions and pay increases, not to reevaluate culture. The tech systems (internal hardware and software) are long overdue for a overhaul. Would be nice to see more tech platforms be developed to aide consulting services.

Explore other reviews about Development Planning & Financing Group

5.0
21 May 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Wages, benefits, coworkers, taken out to lunch

Cons

Mind numbing work, sometimes get chased by a turkey

1.0
17 Sept 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You get to work on a wide array of projects and meet many big name clients. Working directly with higher ups in large development companies and networking is a big (and the only) pro. Invaluable stepping stone company.

Cons

Where to start? The problem is top down. The CEO does absolutely nothing, and is too cheap to ever improve anything. He berates his partners, never visits any other office, eavesdrops on calls, refuses to upgrade the infrastructure, and I can go on forever. I wish I could tell new hires to run. Promotion from associate to senior associate? Congrats, your day to day is 100% same. Senior associate to manager? Same. It's a steep learning curve, but a VERY low ceiling because your day to day will always be the same. HR is terrible, gives attitude for everything after the first week of being friendly. IT.. don't even get me started. The IT department is absolutely terrible. Simple fixes requires IT to google the answer. New phone systems? The new phones sit in the back for years before they toss it and upgrade again (skipping the new phones from the previous cycle). New computers? Hah. Windows 98 servers in the back room. Simple fixes can take days/weeks, and I've heard multiple offices complain about it. Never seen such high turnover outside of an accounting company too. Run. Run while you can. When you hear other managing principals talking about how cheap and terrible the CEO is... there's a problem.

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