Barrick Goldstrike Reviews

Pros

Great people to work with. Excellent opportunity to gain experience. Benefits package is top notch. Company willing to try new tech/ideas.

Cons

Limited upward opportunities for the junior staff. Bonus and salary not necessarily tied to performance. micro-managing senior engineers and lack of open communication

Pros

Good benefits, generally good job security. Was there as it progressed from a minor player to a powerhouse company, and saw a lot of positive improvements, and changes in my time there. Generally open to moving around from job to job, to get well rounded experiences. Improved safety over time, improved work schedule changes over time; however, a major driver for both was the negative aspects of injuries and fatalities for the safety side. And schedule changes due to subsequent manpower issues later that made them cave to demand, so not a total positive, other than it happened, but not due to internal desire for improvement in all cases.

Cons

Lack of advancement opportunities in some areas unless you're into the schmoozing, and bureaucratic brown-nosing. Too often I saw people from outside the company hired to fill upper positions, when lower individuals with the experience and skills were already present, and looking for advancement. I know of at least 4 instances in my time where the people brought in from outside were less experienced, or less knowledgeable than the individuals they were supposed to supervise, and the underlings had to train the supervisors to do their jobs. Some of those people brought in then did no work, little work, or bad work, and left, leaving the underlings to clean up, and get passed over again for yet another outside person to take over. Sometimes it worked out, but sometimes it didn't.

There is also a lot of Corporate oversight, and micromanagement. Many driving targets dictated by corporate "you will budget for this, and you will do this" even if infrastructure, manpower, equipment etc isn't available. Dictates of target tons, grade, ounces, no matter what the ore body can support, or evidence of same in the modeling. Created a lot of additional stress, trying to "make the magic happen" and save the bottom line for other projects within the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Give your people the chance to do their job, and believe what they tell you. Stand by their work, and don't let Corporate dictates steamroll your decisions. I got tired of spending months generating plans based on actual data, and actual historical results, just to be told at the end that my numbers are too low, and we'll go with what corporate wants to hear. Spreadsheet magic doesn't make tons, and ounces, quit making that planning work meaningless by applying fudge factors, and arbitrary additional adjustments just to make the numbers say what Corporate wants to hear, if you're going to do that, you might as well save a lot of wasted time and effort, and make the numbers up to begin with, and forget about the detailed work.

Provide advancement opportunities, and quit hiring from outside. If you feel people aren't up to snuff to advance, then give them the training, don't pass over them for someone from outside. At least give them the opportunity, don't just pass them over. I was never able to get out of the "Junior Engineer" role while there. Yet my reviews were always positive, sometimes with areas for improvement, but never negative. And I still could go nowhere but laterally. I had several bosses with less experience, and skill than I, who came and went because they couldn't cut it. Sometimes I did their jobs because they couldn't/wouldn't. I outlasted a whole string of supervisors who were around for 2-3 years max, sometimes as little as 2-6 months, but couldn't get a break. I saw people with no engineering background whatsoever put into senior/superintendent positions over engineers, simply because they knew who to schmooze with, that's just not right, reality or not, and makes even less sense when you spend so much time explaining how things work, or having to justify what you do, simply because the manager doesn't have a clue of the realities, and refuses to believe you know what you're talking about, even when subsequent events play out exactly as you've stated, you still aren't believed in the future.

Pay for experience. One of my ultimate reasons to leave, was that the new hires fresh out of school were getting offers only 10-15% below those of us with a decade+ of experience, not just me, but others at my level, and with my experience or more. I had to leave the company to get a promotion, with a better than 30% pay increase, working for someone else I'd worked with at Barrick, who recognized my skills, and wanted my experience. For a world class operation, you better pay world class wages if you want to keep your skilled/experienced people. You also need to recognize your talent pool, utilize it, reward it, and promote it, if you want to keep it. I saw a lot of people leaving the last few years I was there, for the reasons stated above, among others, leaving nothing but a lot of green people to fill the roles.

Overall my experiences with Barrick were good, but there were some real rough times too, depending on personality clashes, and experience levels. While I'm not blameless either, I certainly had my own issues, which looking back I can easily see mistakes I made, I also learned from them, and that's the nature of getting older, and getting experience. I just felt that I, and others, were not given the opportunities to advance. The junior level at Barrick (in the two areas I worked) to my knowledge is now 100% different than it was 5 years ago, not a single one is still working there, either at the same level, or who moved up to a senior level from a junior level. I believe I was the last one who left with more than 5 years experience at a junior level. I only know of 3, or possibly 4 at the Senior level+ within the technical services groups who have been with Barrick more than 5 years, though I could be wrong.

Pros

Complex process: roasting, autoclave oxidation

Cons

Remote place, lack of housing

Pros

The Process Division has a very strong safety culture. It is the over-riding principle for most people. The processes are very interesting and provide a lot of oppotunity for metallurgists to learn about gold processing. While the chemistry and processing is advanced there is still opportunity for improvements to be made.

Cons

Senior management was not willing to address the issues that existed within their own ranks. There was little understanding of the concept of "the right person for the right job." The hours were long with little recognition for accomplishments. Also do not count on career advancement unles you make the opportunities happen for yourself.

Advice to Senior Management

Address their own personnel issues. If you want technical people to stay, you need to reward them both monetarily and with career advancement opportunities.