American Residential Services Reviews

Current Employee – been working at American Residential Services full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Solid, national company. Aggressive, growing.

Cons – All about the dollar. People are instruments. Pushing the envelope with aggressiveness of selling.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at American Residential Services full-time

Pros – I was paid on time and got an inside look into the workings of the residential services industry.

Cons – After acquiring a company on the cheap, they'll load up your overhead with highly-paid executives, consultants, company cars, corporate apartments, and expense accounts. They'll soak your balance sheet with management fees and intercompany overhead. You'll have no choice whether to accept all of these new expenses. Then they'll stand on your throat and grill you about why financial performance is deteriorating.

Advice to Senior Management – There's really no advice I can give these guys. Their connections have served them well and I suppose will continue to serve them well. The only advice I can give anyone considering ARS is to look elsewhere.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at American Residential Services full-time for more than a year

Pros – Largest Heating and Cooling Company in the US

Cons – Health Insurance is extremely expensive. Too many denials for claims, with 1 year waiting period for "pre-existing" conditions. Their technology in the CRM has a lot to be desired.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at American Residential Services full-time for more than a year

Pros – Home Depot affiliation, Some great people working there (non-managment)

Cons – The GM is a genius salesman but a horrible, horrible leader. Managment consistantly blames others for his failures. If your not a personal friend of the manager keep your resume up to date, you'll need it. If you are looking for a decent place to work look elsewhere. The GM will promise opportunity, generous pay and good times but in the end you'll just end up with the short end of the
stick.

Advice to Senior Management – Corporate - without ethics you will never retain or grow talent at this location. People are treated with ZERO respect by the GM.

Former Employee – worked at American Residential Services

Pros – Excellent pay and flexible hours if you are meeting the budget expectations. They use the most of available technology to keep information in front of you.

Cons – Closed minded when it comes to trying new things even when they are proven. No "human" side to processes. Very analytical but on the other hand not open to accept data that does not agree with their current structure. Not customer friendly in any way imaginable.

Advice to Senior Management – You need to focus on the customer base and open your minds to programs that not only produce sales and profits, but also build loyalty in your customers and employees. You are alienating them from the business.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at American Residential Services

Pros – You do not have someone breathing down your neck while you are working

Cons – Communication within the management is very poor.

Advice to Senior Management – Try to work better with your top performers

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at American Residential Services

Pros – Company provides your vehicle and gas. You do earn vacation time for hours worked. You do have paid vacation time.

Cons – Management puts down employees. Shouts and tries to humiliate employees into better job performance. As in requiring employees to singing "I'm a Little Teapot" if your cell phone goes off during a meeting.

Advice to Senior Management – Learn to encourage performance in a positive way. Try to understand the situation before condemnation begins. Do not ask employees to do things that are wrong. Realize your employees want to succeed as much as you would like them to in a difficult economic climate. Also, realize that it makes it very hard to go out into the public and represent your company well after you've just sat through another put down session.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at American Residential Services

Pros – Strong and capable leadership at the CEO, COO, & CFO level with long track record of success.

Those men want to do the right thing by both their employees and their customers and they sincerely care about people. ARS will have a great future if senior management can handle some of the internal problems they inherited.

Cons – Depending on the department - there are managers/senior managers who are totally incapable of managing people or company business. Should you wind up in the wrong area of the company these people will make your life miserable until you finally leave ARS (which is their intent).

Unfortunately, it's a known problem at most levels of the company - however, senior management does not micro-manage so they are often not even aware of the havoc being created by these people - until several people have left. The bad departments are the ones who have 90% turnover each year so it doesn't take long to find out where they are in the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Enact an annual Management Satisfaction Survey for each manager in the company to be completed by their direct reports anonymously (so there will be no chance for retaliation). The Survey rates managers on various skills according to the people who they manage.

This has been an extremely effective tool used by FedEx Corporation over the past few decades. It helps find out where there are management problems (so they can be helped or weeded out) and it also helps reward good management skills (all bonuses are tied to the Management Survey results).

The best part is that it empowers employees to make a difference in how they are being managed.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at American Residential Services

Pros – Good people at the lower level

Cons – Management, benefits, vacations, salary, advancment

Advice to Senior Management – Work like the other people. Listen to the workers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend