What's the Company Culture Like at ERM?

Key Insight for Candidates

• Collaborative & Supportive Culture: Colleagues are often seen as knowledgeable, supportive, and effective collaborators on complex, mission-driven projects, which fosters a team-oriented environment. Feedback suggests flexibility and learning opportunities also contribute to a supportive day-to-day experience in many teams.
• Inclusion and belonging: The company promotes diverse perspectives, employee resource groups, and an environment where employees can bring their “authentic selves” to work.[3][4] Professional development: ERM promotes technical communities, leadership development, flexible working, and continuous learning.[4] Employee reviews are more mixed than ERM’s official messaging. Positive themes include smart and supportive colleagues, interesting projects, hybrid flexibility, and opportunities to learn.[6][10] However, some reviewers report high pressure around billability or utilization targets, uneven management support, unclear promotion paths, restructurings, and concerns about job stability.[6][10] This suggests that ERM may offer a strong culture for people motivated by sustainability and consulting work, but the day-to-day experience likely depends heavily on the local office, practice area, and direct manager. ERM presents itself as inclusive, values-led, collaborative, and impact-focused. Independent employee feedback supports the strength of its colleagues, mission, and learning opportunities, while raising concerns about performance metrics, workload, management consistency, and organizational stability. For a job candidate, the most useful interview questions would concern utilization expectations, promotion criteria, staffing between projects, manager style, and recent team turnover. ERM employees appear to feel somewhat valued, but experiences vary significantly by team, manager, and location. ERM states that its culture emphasizes respect, inclusion, belonging, employee development, recognition, and meaningful feedback. Its 2023 sustainability report reported an average employee-engagement score of 75%, above its stated target, and described employees as recognized and rewarded for their contributions.[1] ERM also says its inclusion programs are designed so employees feel valued, respected, and empowered.[2] Independent employee reviews are more mixed. Glassdoor reports an overall rating of 3.4 out of 5, with 56% of reviewers saying they would recommend ERM to a friend. Employees tend to praise colleagues, interesting projects, learning opportunities, and flexibility, while criticizing inconsistent management, high billability expectations, limited compensation satisfaction, and concerns about restructurings or job security.[3] The review-category scores also suggest that employees feel more positive about diversity and inclusion (3.9/5) and culture and values (3.5/5) than about senior management (3.0/5) and compensation and benefits (3.1/5).[3] Overall, ERM appears to have a supportive and purpose-driven culture in many teams, particularly regarding inclusion, colleagues, and professional development. However, the evidence does not suggest uniformly strong employee satisfaction: recognition and support may depend heavily on the direct manager, availability of billable work, and local office conditions.[1][3] ERM appears to have a purpose-driven, collaborative, and sustainability-focused culture, with an emphasis on meaningful environmental and social impact. The company highlights respect, integrity, inclusion, technical expertise, and learning as core parts of the employee experience.[1][2] Mission and impact:** Employees work on climate, nature, water, environmental, health and safety, and social challenges, which can make the work feel meaningful and externally consequential.[2][5] Collaboration:** ERM describes teamwork among colleagues, clients, communities, and technical specialists as central to how it operates.[2][8] Inclusion and belonging:** The company promotes diverse perspectives, employee resource groups, and an environment where employees can bring their authentic selves to work.[3][4] Growth and flexibility:** ERM advertises technical and leadership development, continuous learning, wellbeing support, and flexible ways of working.[4][9] The employee experience seems to vary substantially by team and manager. Positive reviews commonly mention intelligent and supportive colleagues, interesting projects, professional development, and hybrid-work flexibility.[6][10] The main criticisms involve high billability or utilization expectations, uneven management support, pressure during slow periods, uncertain promotion paths, and concerns about restructurings or job security. Glassdoor’s available ratings show 3.5/5 for culture and values, 3.3/5 for work-life balance, and 3.4/5 overall, suggesting a mixed but not uniformly negative experience.[6][10] ERM’s stated culture is inclusive, expert-led, collaborative, and strongly motivated by sustainability. In practice, it may be a good fit for people who value mission-driven consulting and varied technical work, but workload pressure, utilization targets, leadership quality, and career progression may differ considerably across offices and practices.: Diversity and inclusion efforts are portrayed as strong, with employees able to bring their authentic selves to work. Feedback suggests inclusion programs and belonging initiatives resonate more positively than some other aspects of the experience.
• Learning & Knowledge Sharing: Professional development is emphasized through technical communities, leadership programs, and continuous learning, aligning with a knowledge-led environment. Feedback suggests opportunities to learn from expert colleagues and work on varied sustainability topics.

• Workload & Burnout: High billability and utilization expectations, along with pressure during slow or busy periods, are reported as recurring pain points. Feedback suggests these demands can strain work-life balance and elevate stress.
• Consistent Leadership & Role Clarity: Management support is described as uneven across teams and locations, with unclear promotion paths and mixed experiences of recognition and support. Feedback suggests restructurings and concerns about job stability add to uncertainty.
• Fair & Equitable Treatment: Compensation satisfaction appears limited relative to other cultural dimensions, and some feel treated more as utilization metrics than as people. Feedback suggests this dynamic can undermine feelings of being valued despite positive peer relationships.