Centex Homes Reviews

Pros

Great palce if you are in a good division

Cons

No loyalty if you are displaced and need to go to another division

Advice to Senior Management

Don't replace the experienced people with inexperienced for less money

Pros

One of the best places I had worked. Management was reasonable. The small size of the IT team made it exciting, although we could specialize in our areas of expertise. The teams worked well together and we had the latest in hardware and software. A few things were less than desirable such as all the custom software apps; but they worked good enough.

Cons

The company no longer exists as it was bought/merged by Pulte.

Advice to Senior Management

Very sad to see the company go.

Pros

[DEPTH] Well, the job dealt with so many different aspects/departments within the company, I was able to have a direct impact on the success of the company (and see the impact), which was very rewarding. That was another important factor was being able to see the impact…the visibility. [VISIBILITY] It wasn’t a situation where you have meaningful insights, but don’t have the exposure or visibility to know if they were ever taken or acted upon. It was beneficial to see how one department or decision that may seem isolated, actually affects the operations of the entire division/company on a larger scale (which I think a lot of people aren’t fortunate enough to see). It was great to see specific recommendations and contributions put into action. [VARIETY] I also really liked the variety that the job offered, keeping the job interesting and exciting from day-to-day. I enjoy learning new things, and the research/consumer behavior/market trends side of the job made it a constant learning experience. I also enjoyed the ability to spread the knowledge and new findings to those interested.

Cons

I really did like most aspects of the job, but if I had to pick my least favorite, I’d say…it had a bit of a technology hurdle that sometimes made it difficult to execute as well as desired. Just to give you one example, we were required to use the internal email marketing system that was developed many years ago, but unfortunately had received very little update or maintenance to stay current with changing technologies and trends (which is obviously important with a technology that is SO DYNAMIC). Email marketing programs can be a huge benefit, but we were dealing with a system that lacked most of the functionality offered by current programs (for design, tracking, content customization, etc, etc) and also inhibited the delivery rates (given changes in spamming/junk mail/filters/etc). The real frustration came from the lack of flexibility (to use third party systems) and cooperation from corporate to get the attention/updates/changes that was needed. Understandably, there were a lot of other distractions and issues to deal with, but I also think there was a general lack of understanding within the company of the tech issues that affected prioritization.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more responsive to local division feedback regarding trends and market dynamics vs a top-down directive regarding things such as incremental growth initiatives that were heavily encouraged across the board to stay in good standing and helped lead to the bust.

Pros

advancement opportunities, excellent training and professional development opportunities, given high level of responsibilities, great benefits

Cons

industry highly affected by economic conditions,

Advice to Senior Management

communicate more clearly to lower level employees

Pros

The benefits are pretty good

Cons

In this economy its still 100% commission and you STILL work every weekend to make NOOOOOOO money! On top of that they are constantly telling sales we need to work harder and we're not doing enough

Advice to Senior Management

treat your sales people with respect and show them you appreciate them taking time away from their family to come into work even though they arent making money

Pros

Great team atmosphere and respect for employees.
Practice what they preach - Do the Right Thing.
Respectful (for the most part) of Trade Partners.

Cons

Indecisive, may start down a road, which involves a lot of work and then pull back and go down another road. Seemed to come from corporate level or lack of communication between corporate and local management.
Rushed to quickly on some decisions and actions that would end up being very costly.
Corporate and upper management was not as aware of the intricacies of our particular market. Made many assumptions that markets were very similar when trying to capitalize on the supply chain.

Advice to Senior Management

Good luck as Pulte Homes. I hope the combining of two of the largest national builders will help in weathering this economic downturn. I don't know much about Pulte but I wish Centex had been the business to continue. Hopefully, Pulte will adopt many of the Centex philosophies and practices. From a purchasing standpoint, we made some extraordinary breakthroughs in many of the processes we were implementing.

Pros

Pay is great, benefits are great, there are definitely opportunities for growth, technically savvy, good communication and training.

Cons

They expect a minimum of a 50 hour work week, sometimes more, which is fine as long as business is good because the bonuses make up for the overtime. If business is slow, no bonuses.

Advice to Senior Management

No advice here. Maybe a little more transparency between senior level managers and the guys in the field. Other than that, the management was good.

Pros

Monday through Friday. Weekend work was a personal preference.
Great pay for the industry and more than competitive with other builders.

Cons

Inconsistent business philosophies. Constantly changing business focus.
Weak management. Most capable and best performing employees were not afforded advancement.
Example of "Good ol' boys club"

Advice to Senior Management

Place a higher value on your stronger employees and provide promotional opportunities to those bettering the business.

Pros

Great pay and benefits. The majority of the people I worked with were dedicated, professional, intelligent co-workers. Great place to work when things were good in the market! Not so much since 2007.

Cons

Some management leaders said they wanted to hear new ideas and thoughts...but they really didn't.
Office politics became very burdensome and nearly intolerable in 2007. Corporate fired the only DP that had a profitable year in So. Cal. in 2006-2007. What were they thinking????

Advice to Senior Management

Too late to offer advice...Centex Corp was sold to Pulte Homes in 2009 . The only people at Centex who benefited from this so called "merger" were the execs at the top of the corporate structure.

Pros

Centex Mortgage was an okay place to work but there were very few opportunities for advancement unless you were willing to move to Dallas!

Cons

Very corporate. Come to work at 8 leave at 5, punch-in on time, leave on time.

Advice to Senior Management

I can not really say as I had few interactions with any management.