HOK Sport Reviews

Pros

The projects are cool and highly profiled. The people are great to work with. Most of the senior architects are extremely knowledgeable and are willing to assist the younger staff with questions and direction. The management team is fairly open with news about the firm. Overall - as with most other jobs - if you put forth the effort and work hard, this firm will definitely take care of you.

Cons

Not too many downsides. Although I understand why, I'm not much of a fan of how the practice of architecture and the project roles is segmented into Designer, Project Architect and Project Manager. There's also usually not much rhyme or reason to the promotions.

Advice to Senior Management

Thanks for all your hard work. Keep it up!

Pros

Interesting high profile projects. Decent pay for an architecture firm.

Cons

Employees can get pigeon-holed easily if not careful. Promotions are often out of left-field and seem to be a popularity contest. You must have a senior principal on your side to get promoted.
Senior management now care more about the money than the employees that got them to where the are today. Sad.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember who got you to this point and have some loyalty for pete's sake.

Pros

Working on first class sporting venue projects. The designers had a very distinctive style, that is immediately recognizable as HOK. the division of the office into different "groups" (ie: major league, NFL, Arena, etc) minimizes the giant firm feel. Middle management, the ones tasked with the day to day running of the various groups, tended to be very positive, good people to work for. While I was there, I never had any problem with my immediate project managers or department head. If you don't mind travelling the periodic cattle call for people to go do the punch list on a stadium, or arena can be a great change from staring at a computer screen, as wellas a chance to see the finished project.

Cons

Senior management treats the work force like office equipment; replace the older more expensive ones with the newer, cheaper ones. They have laid off most of the senior production staff starting back in 2003, at first due to lack of work, and or "performance issues". Funny how, after the initial round of layoffs which really did contain the dead wood, those who went were the highest paid in their job classifications. I was personally lied to, by Earl, concerning my termination as I know for a fact that the people I worked for had NOT ONE ISSUE concerning my "performance", that my personel file contained a glowing work review, and not even the director of my group had any idea that I had been slated for a layoff.

Advice to Senior Management

Catch a clue, you've shot yourselves in the collective foot by replacing the most experienced staff with young hotshots straight out of school who have no experience and no knowledge. 400 million projects can't be built with kids, you were already averaging 1000-1500 RFI's per project, and that was before you laid off all your senior staff.