Dysfunctional and depressing. Stay away if you are a motivated worker. - Client Representative ENGIE Employee Review

Ecova is by far the worst company I have ever worked for. Senior management is incompetent, demands unreasonable expectations of employees, and seemingly oblivious to the entrenched problems plaguing the company. Many of them have no energy industry experience and no knowledge of what the company actually does on a daily basis. Yet the message from the top has always been the same: Ecova is the market leader and a quickly growing company with strong financial performance and prospects for growth. Ecova lost much of the family-oriented work atmosphere from the old Advantage IQ days where employees cared about one another and has gravitated to a more cutthroat corporate atmosphere. Very much "every man for himself" and a "survival of the fittest". Favoritism is rampant here, with management often covering for poorly performing employees and supervisors who are not effectively running a team. Upset the wrong person and your career here is over. Those who are fortunate enough to be in management are always given the benefit of the doubt. Rather than having a collaborative approach to decision making, everything is top-down with no exceptions. Criticize what is going on and you will be reprimanded eventually, no matter how constructive the criticism is. Management never explains the rationale behind its decisions, and often responds to legitimate employee questions at town hall meetings by giving a circular response with derision and a condescending attitude. This leads employees to think Ecova leadership views them as children, not caring about them at all and isn't listening to what they have to say. Multiple acquisitions over the years made the management structure top-heavy, with most departments ending up with several layers of leadership. Very few managers from the acquired companies were laid off. This makes it very difficult for employees to determine who is in charge and who is setting the agenda for the Ecova's future. The acquisitions have also increased Ecova's service offerings, but at a price. There are so many services that do not perform at half their full potential, and departments do not communicate with one another at all, which leaves clients and employees confused as to who is responsible for what on Ecova's end. Clients often wonder what they got themselves into. Work environment is very much a "keep your head down, mouth shut, do as your told, and know your place" kind of atmosphere. You're safe if you are a "yes man". Everything is treated as an extremely urgent rush request, no matter how insignificant or unnecessary the request. Most of these are little "tests" issued by management to see how employees perform. If you are asked to jump, the right answer is "How high?" If you don't past the test, you will be reprimanded. Micromanagement is the norm here. There is zero accountability here. Zero. Mistakes do not get fixed by the employee or department who made the error and no one is reprimanded for severe errors of judgment that end up costing Ecova and its clients additional time and money. Supervisors can't train employees to fix the issue because they don't know how to fix it themselves. Management directs all activities but never owns up to a bad idea when things don't work out as planned; all blame is shifted to employees. While employees should do their jobs as directed (as is expected in any workplace), work direction provided is often unclear, vague, and comes without an explanation of what the ultimate goal is. Employees cannot be successful if they are not given clear direction and a sense of purpose. Most solutions to problems are just a band-aid, a temporary solution to get someone by and hope the boss doesn't notice. Despite several case studies done by outside consultants and internal reorganizations, work flows remain inefficient and employees are poorly trained. They are unprepared to handle their respective workloads and cannot reasonably meet the demands of their jobs. Ecova gutted its training department years ago, leaving it up to existing employees to train new hires through job shadowing and designated "subject matter experts". Because multiple people are training others and there is not a consistent message relayed to new hires as to how to do the work, no progress is made on improving service quality and meeting metrics. Usually supervisors just refer employees to an SOP rather than walking them through the steps and monitoring progress. And yet, despite consultants examining work flows to eliminate inefficiencies, work loads continue to skyrocket. Most decisions are made for personal reasons, not in the interests of the company or its clients. Promotions are often given to lesser qualified applicants who would not put their boss in a bad light rather than the most qualified employee for the job. Many excellent employees have left Ecova for other companies after being turned down multiple times for promotions despite having the best qualifications and experience for the job. Business decisions are often made with Ecova in mind first and the clients interests last. Over the past six years, clients have become increasingly agitated by Ecova backpedaling on the promises it made during the sales process and not delivering is contractual obligations. This has increased the length of the RFP process and made contract renewals more difficult for the sales team, and has made any client facing role an extremely difficult position to be in. Raises and bonuses have been non-existent over the past few years. Over the course of the company's history, they have been sporadic at best. No professional development opportunities to speak of. Ecova expects you look outside the company for opportunities to learn more about the industry and gain the skills necessary to do your job. Ecova does offer tuition reimbursement. In most companies, managers serve a function to help employees gain the skills necessary to advance in their careers, earn promotions, etc. Not here. In the Advantage IQ days, there was a good work-life balance. This is non-existent now. Hourly employees have been on some form of overtime for several years and are often required to put in anywhere for 3-10 hours of OT per week depending on the work coming in, holidays, etc. Salaried employees are often working 12-14 hour days just to stay afloat, plus additional time on weekends. If you are salaried and take a vacation, expect to work at least six hours a day on emails and phone calls as these do not stop just because you are on vacation. You will be expected to be "on call" and all caught up and on top of all issues when you return from your vacation.