Canadian Natural Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Canadian Natural full-time for less than a year

Pros – Good managers that cares for their staff
Lots of opportunity to learn new things and move within the company
Job security

Cons – Can get payed more across the street
Fast pace allows for things to fall behind
Large turn over in past year

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to staff and respond in a timely manner. Time for company to evolve and lose some of the ideas that has stopped working. Take advantage of senior managements departure to liven up the company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Canadian Natural full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good interview process
Good Salaries
Lots of young people

Cons – Revolving door
Could use Better compensation for relocation

Advice to Senior Management – spend more time with employees

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Canadian Natural full-time for less than a year

Pros – Big company with potential for stock options for permanent employees. Have heard employees praising this scheme. Co-workers are nice and easy to work with. Helpful and considerate.

Cons – The management complains about low morale and high turnover in the document control department, yet maintains an outdated and inflexible attitude towards employees time.

Flex time is not allowed. Banked time is not allowed. Skipping part of your lunch to leave early is not allowed. 'Early' is considered 4pm. Management wants us there till 5pm because our job is to 'service' the engineers. Well I have news for you, most engineers are not slaving away past 4pm.

Leaving the house at 7am and not returning from work till after 6pm makes for a very long work day. Not being allowed to shorten one's lunch break in order to get home at a more reasonable hour, (and still giving the company one's 8 hours) is ridiculous.

Employees grumble about it but complaining just leads to another haranguing by management at our weekly meetings. Morale is low,and falling. People are biding their time until a better opportunity presents itself. What kind of way is that to run a department?

We are not treated as professionals, more like junior high students who need to be monitored. We must log our weekly time into a spreadsheet so they can see how many documents we have processed, how many minutes we've spent emailing, how many minutes we've spent dealing with computer issues. Our internet time is monitored and anyone with more than 15 mins of personal internet time will be immediately dismissed. How is this going to help morale?

The interviewing process was rigorous and we were hired as professionals, not as kids who need to be monitored. As long as we're putting in our 8 hours we should be allowed to come and go when it best suits our schedules and families.

I had high hopes for CNRL when I was hired, but that is dissipating fast.

Advice to Senior Management – This is basic stuff; when you trust people, they give back to you, when you respect employees' time, they are more willing to go that extra mile and work harder for you. When you mistrust people right off the bat, it puts employees on the defensive and certainly doesn't inspire good morale nor the desire to go that extra mile for for the company.

Your corporate statement talks about 'fun and integrity' I don't see either of those coming from the management of Document control. You will continue to lose good people because of these outdated and inflexible attitudes described above. You have a choice; get someone from change management in to assess the management style in Document control, or continue to have to hire and train and lose good people.

Document control work is stressful at the best of times. That stress should be mitigated with a sense that management trusts us in the professional capacity we were hired under to: A) work our 8 hour day that we are being paid for and B) let us have some flexibility with our time so we aren't completely burnt out by being forced to take 1.5 hours worth of break time in the middle of the day.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Canadian Natural full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Sometimes get free Flames tickets

Cons – Cheapest company in the oil patch

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Canadian Natural for less than a year

Pros – Positive culture, good compensation, flexible working arrangements including a variety of types, interesting projects in all areas of the oil industry, expenses paid without much question

Cons – Big company so can be a bit impersonal. This is an oil company with a large operation in the oil sands so you must be confortable with that.

Advice to Senior Management – Watch out for increased oil production in USA.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Canadian Natural full-time for more than a year

Pros – good people to work with

Cons – poor structure constantly changing the target

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Canadian Natural full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – The pay is a great amount of money pushes lots of people to upper class or middle class with hard work
The other empolyees are great and its always a fun time in the office

Cons – The amount of workers getting in and out are hecktick
The deadlines at points are really presurin

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Canadian Natural as an intern

Pros – Good savings plan for permanent employees
Free drinks
In the office Executives and VP's are just down the hall. Fridays off in the summer

Cons – Low cost operator and it shows. They have a hard time keeping permanent operators in the field because they won't pay them a decent wage. Safety doesn't seem to be high priority.
Field is a good place to learn and gain experience but as for the Calgary office it seems like they don't care about their students. No one attempts to train you they just expect you to know their systems or teach yourself while your isolated in your office. No one checks up on you, says hi, cares if your there, or gives you feedback on the work you do. They encourage you to ask questions yet due to the sweat shop pace the permeant staff has time to answer them.

Advice to Senior Management – Spend some time training students, even if that means an engineer has to be pulled away from his desk for a couple hours. They could be taught most things in one week rather than months struggling to learn the systems by themselves. Low cost operating should not come at the expense of quality employees or safety.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Canadian Natural full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good savings plan, adds up quickly.

Cons – Low salaries. Can make 25%+ anywhere else.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Canadian Natural as an intern

Pros – Collaborative and Friendly working envrionment. Fly in Fly out option

Cons – Having to stay at camp in you are working full time in Fort McMurray

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend