AMEC Reviews

Pros

Great field teams, freedom to express ideas, great pay, career growth is limitless. VP's are available and friendly

Cons

Safety is disregarded by managers when production suffers. UK based training doesn't always work in Americas. Too many ad-hoc "bosses".

Advice to Senior Management

Downsize the offices and put more people in the field. When corporate goes to the field, get your boots dirty.

Pros

Good Work force in Quality

Cons

Promotions and training not available

Pros

Exposure to key players in the energy industry
Global organisation with an ever improving reputation
Most of the staff are excellent at what they do
Exciting and highly promising future to look forward to

Cons

Difficulty in getting relevant training
Compensation is average at best
Inadequate transparency in promotion requirements
Higher than average turnover of staff

Advice to Senior Management

Address the above cons

Pros

Pleasant work environment, fair benefits, average compensation

Cons

Regional directives does not encourage knowledge sharing; rather it forces offices to compete with one another. Align business units and goals are endless.

Advice to Senior Management

Eliminate the "duds" and acknowledge those that go above and beyond!

Pros

Exciting engineering projects that push boundaries in terms of being 'world firsts'.

Benefits and compensation are fair.

Excellent employee engagement through the Performance & Development Review process that allows a chance for you to agree and set goals for the upcoming year with your manager - where both parties hold a degree of responsibility for realising these goals.

Sophisticated and very useful tools are available to all employees to help you plan out your career and establish what areas you need to focus on for your personal development.

Cons

Typical big corporate IT system that seems to do a lot but is really not that helpful in allowing people to get their jobs done with some software and systems that are just not fit for purpose.

The internal company site 'AMECnet' is the butt of many employee jokes, as typically information is decimated to employees via this portal using the phrase "You can find more information on AMECnet" - which in reality means you will never be able to find what you are looking for.

Pros

Employee benefits (healthcare, flexible hours - for some, share save scheme)
Excellent company to be a shareholder
Some great people to work with.

Cons

Cost cuting now resulting in many benefits no longer being available to new starters.
Lack of clarity and feeling of effectiveness in PDR process - needs improving, with proper follow up.
Gaining training and developement can seem impossible for some, whilst others have opportunities with minima effort.
Currently going through a downturn in workload which is affecting morale.
Some archaic management still hindering the business moving forward to satisfy own needs.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a closer look at management and follow up on actions from employee engagement sessions. A lot of feedback is given, but little seems to be done although some positive changes are coming round.
Take more focus in the fields we have strengths in, there are some great skills which are being underutilised.
Work more towards retaining your valued employees before they leave.
SILOS still need to be demolished.

Pros

Good location and good company profile

Cons

Poor welfare package and low attention on employee development

Pros

AMEC offers great benefits, profit sharing, RRSP matching, flex hours, a DDO (designated day off) program, option to bank or pay out overtime, and good support for their EITs.

Cons

as a large company it does suffer from a lot of the bureaucracy problems that are typical of companies that big; also their evaluation process for employee performance needs much improvement.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve the PDR process, make it more effective in letting employees know what they should do to reach their goals.

Pros

Engineering consulting is a good career in general, and AMEC is one of the main EPC's in the field. With an AMEC background you can go on to work for an oil or pipeline company.

Cons

Some employees seem unhappy, but then again some people always think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

EPC's tend to overstaff durign a boom and layoff during a bust, but this is bad for company morale and makes personal planning hard. By better considering how to staff up during a boom, cyclical layoffs might be averted.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't overstaff during a boom so you have to layoff during a bust.