Black & Veatch Reviews in Kansas City, MO Area

Pros

Good pay, better than what I made at a previous job
Good benefits
Plenty of parking
On-site cafeteria had good food

Cons

There was no mentoring program
Deadlines on projects were extended to midnight, you were expected to stay and work until it got completed
Constant, unrelenting pressure to stay billable and not charge to overhead. It didn't matter how many hours you worked in a day, you could only bill 8.
Typical large company, decisions made at the top were never really explained to the workers at the bottom.

Advice to Senior Management

Make people accurately track their hours. My boss worked a 14 hour day but only billed 8. Too often, I was given 4 hours to do a project that would take 20, and 10 hours to do a project that would take 1.

Pros

Being a large, global company there are opportunities to work throughout the world. There are ample opportunities to develop a strong career, especially those who remain flexible in the type and geographic location they are willing to work. Also, being a world class engineering firm, you have an opportunity to work on some of hte most challenging and rewarding projects in the world. They types of projects that are recognized throughout the world for their positive impact on the people.

Cons

I am sometimes frustrated with the pace of change at the company. Upper management claims to strive to be one of the best engineering firms in the world yet when it comes to pay and benefits the "industry average" is often quoted for why some benefits are not offered.

The yearly performance evaluation process is frustarting to both managers and the rank-and-file.

Advice to Senior Management

Strive to exceed the "industry average" to bring about faster change in the companies culture. Continue your commitment to building Black & Veatch into the best engineering firm in the world.

Pros

The only reason to work at Black & Veatch is that it is a job that you need during down sizing and you get benefits.

Cons

Every few years the employee assessment procedure changes and every year managers, who don't know how to write an assessment as well as how to do an assessment are forced to put people in a lower range even if their work is exemplary. Dilbert is based on the Black & Veatch workplace. Get your five years of good experience and then get out.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of deadwood middle management who have managed projects badly. Upper management. if you have been around longer than 20 years, leave because you are operating on 70's management principles and have kept Black & Veatch from being recognized as a dynamic company. Think outside of the box to reduce the turnover rate.

Pros

9-80 work schedule, reasonable workloads, diverse project opportunities, great benefits. Also many different geographic locations. Great patience to teach young proffessionals. Decent pay, low degree of backstabbing, and open communication. Great HR support, good industry reputation

Cons

Poor morale, too much "dead wood" in many positions creating lack of motivation. Company is too cheap. Even trying to get a stapler can be a challenge. Always claim to lose money. Loe emphasis on emerging markets and technologies, aging office buildings with depressing grey cubicle structure. LAck of company peks and teambuilding activities.

Advice to Senior Management

Start clearing out the non productive positions to increase profitability.

Pros

Black & Veatch is a good place for a new engineer (recently out of college) to begin their career. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of very talented engineers that work at the company and you can't find a better place to learn engineering from experts with years of experience.

Cons

I worked at the company for over 10 years in two separate divisions as an engineer, project manager and management consultant. Every year I was told that the company lost money. Give me a break! The partners at the company are notoriously cheap (as a young engineer I was once asked if I could sleep in my rental car to save the on hotel bill - and no, my boss wasn't joking). Later in my tenure at B&V I was assigned marketing areas in North Dakota, Louisiana, western Kansas, and a few other non-adjacent remote territories, but no marketing budget to get there. Needless to say, I didn't expend too much effort to meet sales targets. While at the company I went to school at nights to get my MBA, even though my Department Head left no doubt that he did not approve of my degree choice, choosing to refuse my requests for salary reimbursement (which was a benefit offered by the company). When I left the company, my direct supervisor (a partner) refused to speak to me for three weeks until my last day. I saw sex discrimination (I'm not sure I'd want my daughter working at B&V), poor management, and a lot of empire building while at B&V. If you're young, B&V is probably a good place to start. After you gain your experience, leave to continue your professional education and development, or you will probably look back in 20 years and regret it.

Advice to Senior Management

John Robinson was the only individual that supported my degree choice when I started my MBA (thanks, John). B&V needs to weed out poor managers, and train the ones that have potential. Most engineers have poor communication and people skills - this is the basis of the problems at this company.

Pros

The opportunities, the scale of the company and the projects and the chance to push yourself as had as you want. Black & Veatch is truly a global company, and the opportunities to travel, to work in different fields and to work on huge, difficult projects are there, if you want them. There is also (unfortunately) too much opportunity to just warm a seat, to the detriment of the whole organization. Overall, better than any organization of a comparable size and scale that I have seen, but not yet all the way to its potential, especially with regards to an understanding of how to match skills to the market.

Cons

The occasionally Byzantine nature of the politics and the difficulty in keeping focus on the essentials, are the worst elements. Like any organization full of ambitious people, there are occasional lapses into shameless careerism, to the detriment of the overall organization, and unfortunately too often rewarded. In addition, we seem to have strayed (occasionally) from the essential wisdom of the founders “Get, Work, Do Work, Make Money”. Perhaps a bit simplistic these days, but still a better focus on what we actually do than other attempts. A clearer match between strategy and the markets needs to be implemented, but that as for all comparable organizations is easier said than done.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on the essentials, what is the market we are in, what will succeed and how to beat the competition. Lead to win, try not to worry about the feelings too much.

Pros

Black & Veatch is a very large and accomplished global company. As such there are numerous opportunities to follow different career paths in terms of location and job description. There are opportunities to work on six different continents and over 100 different countries.

The company provides employees with the opportunity to stretch their limits by applying for many different job types (within the employees educational and experience limits). For example if you were currently a field construction manager and wanted to move your career in the direction of project quality control or safety management, the many opportunities available and the open mindedness of the company would allow you to do so.

Another advantage to working with Black & Veatch is the compensation. The company offers a competitive compensation package that includes a salary and benefits package that is in line with industry standards. On top of this the company offers other forms of compensation to ensure employee satisfaction. That is the company does not shy away on reimbursing and providing financial comfort to employees. For example, the company regularly offers long term per diem to employees who work "in the field". Also the company offers very large incentive plans for employees who are willing to work oversees. Another example, in many cases even salaried employees will be paid for working overtime. Salaried employees don't receive an elevated rate, but they do get paid for the time they work.

Those are just a few examples of many, but in my experience the company has never made it difficult for employees to receive this extra income or be reimbursed for items purchased for company business (tools, travel, food, etc).

Cons

Working for a company as large as Black & Veatch can sometimes mean getting lost in the shuffle. This can happen in any company but I have seen this happen here on more than one occasion. Most of the time this is because direct or upper management forgets about the needs, promises to, and/or obligations to those under them. As a result people get left behind in terms of getting certain projects, getting recognized for work down, getting proper training, etc.

Another downside of working at Black and Veatch is that in order to really make it anywhere with your career you have to be willing to commit to do and go where management wants you too. It's not unlike many big firms, but the people who are willing to do the jobs no one else wants to do, go places no one else wants to go, and work hours no one else will, are the ones who will rise up the quickest.

This seems normal but it means that if you aren't willing to do those things, you probably wont get promoted as fast or rise up as far. You also have a high chance of seeing a difference in your pay rate. This is true even if you performed wonderfully at the job you do have.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to push employees hard and at the same time continue to reward employees for working hard. There are some limits to this, but happier employees results in happier clients.

Also continue to search for current and recently graduated college students who excel among their peers. That doesn’t mean forget about those who currently work for you, but try to snatch up the bright minds of the future.

Then once you have those young employees offer great career and developmental training. Make sure that across the board these employees receive the support and training they need. Do this and they will succeed in the industry and remember the company that helped them succeed. Don't do this and they may still succeed and they will definitely remember the company that didn't help them.

Pros

The company is diversified and has work in many areas. They have a lot of good electronic tools and standards that make doing the work easy. There are many mid and senior-level employees with excellent knowledge of the industry, and that makes B&V a good learning environment for a recent graduate. There are many training opportunities, too.

Cons

Good luck NOT getting pigeon-holed. You waste a lot of time doing "People FIRST" or whatever they are calling their career development tool these days, but no one really cares what you want to do. They will put you where they want you regardless of your career aspirations.

Advice to Senior Management

Actually listen to your employees and make it easier for people to get into the positions that they want to be in.