Pros

When times were good, the company made some effort to provide development to employees. I felt at times they were making good on their claim that people matter and that they invest in their employees. They seem to follow their code of conduct with clients such as honesty, integrity, doing the right thing, and are known for this but not at all when it comes to their own employees. It's like the shoemaker who can't help his own kids. They are making some effort to get salaries up to market level, but this past year there were no raises. My health insurance plan was okay but most are paying WAY too much. I did meet some really nice people working there.

Cons

Granite used to believe that they were special in some way-that they were so respectful towards their employees. They somehow received the "Best Places to Work" award for five years in a row. The people making this happen must have been managers and above and salaried field people because these people are truly the only people the company invests in. If you are not in those favored groups, you don't get any leadership training or support to move ahead, and good luck navigating the politics otherwise. Those people must also be thinking otherwise since they stopped getting the award a few years ago and haven't since. They are just now trying to make job descriptions and get people up to a pay level where they belong. They are so behind technologically it's a joke. They still use paper and outdated computer systems for almost everything. There is also NO accountability. They literally do not do performance evaluations and there are completely incompetent people there who have been doing their job for 20 years. If you're a problem employee, you just get moved to another department. They recently laid off 150 people and used no decision making logic to do so. Guess what? Tons of talent walked out their door-not so many of the dead wood since their decisions had nothing to do with performance. So much for their constant talk about "honoring their people"-one of the corporate goals!!-you are now a number that got crossed out. Tough luck after years of loyalty and actual good performance.

Advice to Senior Management

You should be making more sacrifices in this downturn instead of laying off talented employees. I haven't heard of one executive cutting their own pay and practically no employees at a high level being let go. You have to get into this century with work life balance and think hard about how you're treating employees. What may have made the company a great place to work in the past simply has no truth today.