Bechtel National Reviews

Pros

rewarding experience. If you work hard, you get rewarded.

Cons

none. Little of politic but this is any industry

Advice to Senior Management

go there open minded.

Pros

Bechtel is a big company with deep pockets. Pay is descent and so are the benefits. The possibility of working in unique projects.

Cons

Bechtel as a whole has problems developing their employees and giving them access to opportunities. This is because of their internal structure that is not going to change any time soon. Project managers and functional managers so many times are under pressure to make sure their projects complete on time. This means anyone who does a good job on a project will not be allowed to leave. So you might be stuck in a GBU or long term position you do not like with no options of leaving (Unless you act out or stop performing). Unless you have some type of a connection within Bechtel (which most people don't have that kind of depth at a new company) you will be stuck. There is an extremely high turnover rate for people within five years because of this. So many times people join because of the opportunities and leave because of a lack of access to opportunities. They have all these seminars telling you how well the company is doing and update employees with coloured news letters that shows all the special projects they are working on but you have no access to them. It was easier for me to find another job outside of Bechtel than it was to navigate within Bechtel. I worked 2 years in Transmission and Communications GBU.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want people to stay then don't have people with advanced degrees working on things they don't want to do. Listen to your employees and develop a program independent of the good ole boys system and project managers to help navigate people through the company.

Pros

Employee compensation is good causing an accumulation of marginal employees.

Cons

Schedules slip without any real accountability. Management will make decisions to not use something after months and hundreds of manhours have been expended. Some middle managers are not held accountable for their decisions/mistakes. Many decisions made to stall in order to attempt payment from anothers budget causing impact on project progress.

Advice to Senior Management

Management is in the dark about the workforce they manage.

Pros

Pay and benefits are great, opportunities within the company are limitless you just have to speak up for management to realize you want something different

Cons

Work is so compartmentalized that it gets boring after about 3 months of doing, it is also a very large organization so you feel like a very small cog in a very large machine

Advice to Senior Management

"Trust but verify" is a motto used often but management doesnt seem to follow it, they are constantly trying to develop new ways to track performance of the engineers, etc... Please leave the engineers alone we are working diligently on completely/solving issues if you would just let us do what we do best instead of fill out performance sheets we probably would have been done by now. LEAVE US ALONE, WE DONT CARE ABOUT COUNTING BEANS!

Pros

Good medical insurance, location, good place to learn things because you will have to be a major mult-tasker and learn several jobs while getting paid for just one while others in the same industry do not force employees to more than one job.

Cons

backstabbing, inadequate management, people who know nothing about management are put in management positions some folks are in high level management and they play Farmville all day long and then upper management wonders why work is not getting done, the people that are incompetent and the most inadequate do not receive layoffs, the ones who do their well efficiently and effectively are the first to get layoff notices.

Advice to Senior Management

Put more women in management positions because there are none and this sets a poor example for future little girls to go into engineering, do away with so many meetings, especially monthly "all-Hands" where noone EVER learns anything new. Give pay compensation for doing jobs well, not ridiculous gift cards, when layoff time comes, notify employees HOW they chose who would get the axe and who would not.

Pros

Need a job to survive. Depending on the location could be satisfying and challanging. Better than average pay and benefits.

Cons

Hard work, experience and education is not recognized. Have tendency to promote on body system or minority status. Contribution and experience of older employees ignored. Prefer to advance younger employees. Same with salary not managed fairly. It is based on body system.

Advice to Senior Management

End nepotism and body system. Promote based on experience, education, ethics and willingness to be successful. No replacement for experience. Honor your older employees.

Pros

9/80 work schedule makes the weekends longer. Great 401K with 6% company match dollar for dollar and an extra 3% at the end of the year. Good health benefits. 4 weeks paid vacation and management is flexible as to when vacation can be taken. While under a project contract, high level of job security.

Cons

Work is mundane and the environment is not stimulating. A position with this company tends to pigeon hole an employee, eliminating career progression inside and outside of the company. There is discussion of career development, but very little is done to progress an employees career. The opportunity to work abroad is mentioned, but when it comes down to it, excuses are made and few get the opportunity to work where they want. Salary increase is very slow, and even when the company is making record profits, excuses like the bad economy are blamed. Management is constantly changing, which displays the inefficiency in communication and lack of organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the employees and treat them with respect, especially if they devote 25+ years to Bechtel. Make efforts to reward employees appropriately, a jacket with a company logo does not qualify.

Pros

You have room for growth, and training.

Cons

If you are not in the good old boy group then you might as well fade into the background.

Advice to Senior Management

Please be more active when it comes to your personnel and their complaints.

Pros

The people, the challenge, the people

Cons

A federal job can be a paperwork nightmare!!

Advice to Senior Management

A federally funded construction job has a way to drain/tax your talent. I would strongly suggest you figure out ways to motivate and boost the morale of your workforce so that you don't lose them.

Pros

As a first timer in professional construction, I am profoundly impressed by Bechtel's committment to safety and quality of work. Weekly safety bulletins and quality updates are the norm, and they have set precident in keeping a NSQI questioning attitude. Employees are encouraged to question management and management answers those questions, either through the open forum of quarterly meetings or through the website.

There is an air of family at the site in which I work, and everyone from engineering, to supervision, to craft, to document control (and a host of other departments) pull together as one team to accomplish a goal of building the project we are currently on.

Cons

As a member of document control, specifically an Area Field Specialist, there are few opportunities for further career development. This project that I'm currently at is a wonderful place, however, my department is heavily relied on but sorely taken for granted. In truth, we work hard...very hard with little or no direct recognition from management or senior management.

Document control is famous (at our site) for following direction given by Engineering and Supervision management, yet we are not considered to be part of Engineering. We are expected to be a mix of document control, dicsipline specialists, pseudo-engineers and administrative specialists, with specific knowledge of all aspects of engineering, and design, with specific knowledge of all procedures. It's a large pair of shoes to fill for us, and we have the smallest department on the site.

Advice to Senior Management

Please consider on the job training in engineering for those who wish to work hard for the licsence. Some of us are more than capable of the job, but don't have the time (or money) to attend the schools.