Barrick Gold Reviews

Pros

Great CEO, inspires trust
Challenge and diversity in the work...great learning experience
Some excellent people in the organization

Cons

Decisions sometimes take longer than people expect
Need to improve communication and visibility of senior leadership
Politics negatively impact desired culture

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure all leaders are authentic
Accelerate the pace of change
Increase frequency and format of communication to the masses

Pros

4 days week, good benefits, good treatment by RH, lots of training

Cons

Luck of leadrship in middle management, cliquey middle management, very little communication and feedback

Advice to Senior Management

Rotate the middle management - too long time in the same place (>10 years)

Pros

Has lots of perks and benefits at headquarters.

Cons

Strong corporate culture, not much feeback.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more feedback and promote more interaction with other groups.

Pros

World wide operations and scope, used to have strong belief in Supply Chain excellence as strategic advantage

Cons

Top Heavy, Bereaucratic organisation. Buy in to benefit regional or global performance undermined at site level

Advice to Senior Management

More focus on outcomes and accountability

Pros

Good pay and good benefits, all employees were helpful when someone was in need, good level of communication from management,

Cons

The level of drama within the office is highly distracting, too much micro-managing, almost nothing runs to schedule, IT issues took a long time to resolve

Advice to Senior Management

Please stop micromanaging your workers. It slows everything down and raises a lot of hostility. Let people do their jobs without management breathing down their necks.

Pros

I found the company pays quite well and most of the employees recognized and appreciated this.
A lot of international exposure for the Head Office employees.
Great company to have on your resume.

Cons

Highly political environment at the head office due to Barrick's weird corporate structure with a large head office and large regional offices.
Work life balance is way off in some departments
Some roles have too much travel involved.

Advice to Senior Management

Steps need to be taken to change the 'me' culture at the head office. Too often the loudest voice wins rather than the correct voice.

Pros

Partners included on health care plan, with the turn-over so high if you show any aptitude you will soon be trained up in things that would have taken you years before you would have got a crack at doing them elsewhere. Hence Barrick seems to be a good training ground. But with the Gen Y coming through they want to be paid top dollar from the start so there is higher turn over. Which is a shame because given the chance Barrick seemed to look after it's people and train them up. I got put through numerous training coarses while with them and the mid level on site were great with the best intentions.

Cons

Not flexible enough to compete in Australia in a highly competitive market. Always playing catch up with people getting poached by more aggressive competitors. The turnover onsite was horrendous and people were always being stretched to do work that was above there station at that time. With a couple of months of being underground I was considered senior enough to start showing people the ropes. In an boom economy it seemed that the management had their head in the sand and didn't want to step up to compete with other players, this from the worlds largest gold producer! It created a negative atmosphere. People wanted to stay as to not let their mates down but Management didn't seem to give a toss.

Advice to Senior Management

You can't manage Australian gold mines from Canada your out of touch with the market here and always three months behind the play.

Pros

Gold mining is currently a high growth industry and all gold minin companies are enjoying tremendous growth. Barrick is also growingby leaps and bounds and is hiring large numbers of people. With high turnover especially for staff with mining expertise, the compensation levels are improving significantly.

Cons

You need to have a very thick skin to work for an employer who pollutes the earth as part of it's core business and is hated by all environmentalists and locals where it has it's mines. It is a cyclical industry with sharp upturns and downturns.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to promote from within and stop ignoring employees who are not well connected.