CH2M HILL Reviews

Pros

Lots of fun projects to work on.

Cons

A PhD apparently makes you a senior manager regardless of ability.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit hiding behind the lawyers and talk to your people more. Abide by your own doctrine (in the Little Yellow Book) and do what's right for the client, not just what earns you your bonus.

Pros

Some of my co-workers were great to work with.

Cons

There is little room for advancement in the administrative area at projects.

Advice to Senior Management

You should have a succession plan for administrative employees to grow./relocate when contracts are lost.

Pros

I really enjoy working for CH2M Hill because the supervisors actually care about your development. Feedbacks are given constantly. They are really flexible with work schedule. Most important thing is to complete your work.

Cons

The only bad thing about working at CH is if you are a designer, there are limited offices where you can work.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat employees with respect and always provide communication on news relating to the company.

Pros

Fairly good perks at the corporate office; but similar treatment is not found at sites or other locations.

Cons

Lack of clear vision/focus by new leadership team. Training has been pretty much eliminated and managers don't know how to do basic skills related to employee and performance management.

Advice to Senior Management

Do a thorough review and employee driven focus group and be honest when you get the feedback. Life is not good here and you are losing talent that could have been kept if their managers had the skills and education needed for their position.

Pros

Good work and life balance. Employee-owned. Strong health and safety ethic.

Cons

Penny pinching by management. Lack of training. Poor performance feedback process, unclear how to promote career.

Advice to Senior Management

Make the career path more clear. Empower front line leadership to actually be able to make decisions about compensation, performance, and promotions. Don't penny pinch with things like mobile phones and other items that increase productivity. Consulting and Construction groups are still very poorly integrated, which has resulted us in losing bids where the design and construction/bid side of the project were not well aligned. Overall, you're doing a decent job.

Pros

Started there when company boomed in the private sector. For few years, it was a steady job because the company got multiple client contracts based on its great reputation. In those times, it attracted excellent professionals in the engineering/architecure field.

Cons

Once things got tougher in the economy, management did not make their best to keep their clients. Most employees were laid off and not assisted in the transition. Even it is an employee oriented company, it just adjusted to their best financial interests.

Advice to Senior Management

Leaders should be out in the field learning from their employees to make the best between client needs and available resources.

Pros

It's a really laid back community and the people are always very friendly. There are many oppourtunities for personal growth.

Cons

You have to work long hours, it is pretty time consuming work.

Pros

Interesting projects, opportunity to solve good problems for clients and to work with some very talented people. Culture is to do the best work possible, not just enough to get by.

Cons

Consulting work is always up and down, and it has been down for the past few years. Work load is starting to increase and the challenge will be to maintain the quality of the staff and work product as we expand to meet the additional volume.

Pros

Good compensation for temporary workers.

Cons

Poor Mentorship. No Leadership. No support to hard working employees. As I have indicated above they just hire bodies to complete work. Their CAD Standards are very poor. No one seems to have proper procedures for doing design and drafting work.

One this is for sure. It is a kiss up *ss culture. I was very shocked to hear them as the best companies to work for. My experience with them was bitter. Hire anf fire management team.

Advice to Senior Management

Do not hire bodies to work. Take the approach to treat a person as a whole. Mentally, Spiritually and emotionally and use their talents properly.

Pros

Flexibility; ability to work remote; cool projects

Cons

Senior leaders who are driving are in it for the money and have their heads in the sand on important people issues. Since it is primarily a consulting business it is really hard to do it well without good people. Once they are "in" leaders can behave and say anyway they want regardless of how it fails the leadership test.

Advice to Senior Management

Get real about your people issues. Tune into the leading indicators that will give you a real insight into what is coming. Blog and tweet with optimism, but know your employees are not stupid. The facts and truth are discussed even when you are not blogging about it.