Fast Enterprises reviews

COVID demonstrated that flexibility was possible. While Fast leverages remote work when they want to, they are very much committed to the rigidity of in office work schedule, even preventing employees from working from anywhere other than home on days they’re allowed to work remotely. Fast has different office locations across the country and, post-COVID, many of their clients have differing schedules including being fully remote, and hybrid. Initially after COVID, the clients dictated the remote or hybrid schedule of Fast employees working at that site. As of 2024, they forced everyone back into the office a minimum of 3 days per week. They’re also really struggling to get experienced people to move, because people tend to want to settle at some point in their lives.

Honestly I could write a novel for all my issues with FAST but here are the main ones - if you're on an active rollout, you're expected to work overtime. my last project I regularly worked maybe an extra 20-45 hours overtime ever week for about 6 months straight. I joked with a friend that it was a good day if I only worked 10 hours. while they don't force overtime, it is an expectation that things get done no matter what even to the detriment of your own personal life. - if you're a woman, unfortunately you're constantly wondering if your guy co-workers aren't listening to you because you're a trainer or a woman. this can be applied to the men who are project managers or developers. thankfully for me I've never experienced sexual harassment, but I've known plenty of women who have. some didn't feel comfortable talking to HR, because the ones who did, nothing came from it. the men are still employed with the company and now you just know the men you should avoid. -even though we successfully implemented our software during the entire pandemic, and were even congratulated by the partners, our 'reward' is you can work from home 30 days of the year. -you can tell pretty quick who is drinking the "FAST kool aid" which means they're not to be trusted with your personal thoughts on anything related to the company because inevitably somebody higher up will hear about it. -they do encourage work life balance, but only when it's convenient. they do have resources for you, and they're constantly encouraging happy hours or other drinking events. you're expected to sacrifice a lot when you're on an active rollout. Also they seem to forget some people don't drink alcohol? you'll at least get some side eye for missing happy hour events or worse, it actually affects how people work with you (see Kool aid comment). -if you are struggling with your workload and need help, this really depends on your project manager and what headquarters is thinking at the time. it's entirely possible you won't get any additional resource, or by the time you need one, it's too late because the workload is already overwhelming. - every project is its own little world, every project I've been on has been a completely different experience. I've had project managers who are major micromanagers who had me work overtime due to their needs (say like reporting) and I've had a project managers who leave me alone because they trust my judgment. but every time you go on a new project you have to start all over again and navigating however that project manager works. it's exhausting trying to figure it out. - I'm very disappointed in FAST's commitment to diversity, it's a predominantly white company. Because I'm friends with a variety of people in the company, I know this is stemmed from recruiting. if you go to their LinkedIn page, you'll see they post maps of where they're currently recruiting..... and notice what schools they are NOT going to. You can also see posts of what they do care about and notice when they DONT post something (for example nothing for Black History Month but a multiple posts for Women's History Month) then it certainly continues with lack of support within the company. During the George Floyd protests, I remember a partner emailed something completely neutral and I can think of at least 3 people who quit within a year and they told me that was the email that did it. But don't worry, a shooting in Atlanta where sadly multiple members of the Asian community were killed warranted an email saying with we stand with against asian hate (which yeah... I hope so). But during the Jan 6th capital invasion, we still had to work and no email was sent.