Jacobs Facilities Reviews

Pros

Jacobs is a large, diverse, multi-cultural company that employs professionals in many different fields. With great benefits, competitive pay, and large amounts of overhead to provide job security through tough times, Jacobs is a great company to work for.

Cons

Due to the great opportunities and chance for gaining valuable experience at Jacobs many people choose to remain with this company for many years. For this reason, however, chances for vertical growth are somewhat rare in this company. Also, due to its large size and vast number of employees, individual skills can sometimes go overlooked. It is a must to continuously communicate your career goals to upper level management to ensure your professional skills do not go overlooked.

Advice to Senior Management

Take more time to evaluate the skills each employee has to offer the company. Take more risks with younger staff members by providing them with more responsibilities and opportunities.

Pros

You do not need to have much experience to be hired, but be prepared to receive a low paying salary with plenty of responsibility and accountablity.

Jacobs will pay for your annual membership dues to (1) professional membership.

401k plan is good since it is managed by Vanguard. Jacobs matches 50% for your first 6% of contributions. You are allowed to contribute up to 18% of salary.

Cons

Seems as though all projects have small budgets and aggresive schedules. You will continually find yourself multi-tasking between a minimum of 3 different project accounts at any one time. Avoid being in a position where you are having to charge 20 or more hours to general time in one week. If this happens- you will "kindly" be asked to leave.

Management will never let you forget that the customer/client is always right -all of the time. Even in design related matters. This gets pretty sticky when you have to sign-seal construction documents. When this happens be prepared. The burden of proof will be on you as to why you are in disagreement with the customer/client. Saw many professionals leave on this one issue alone.

You get 3 weeks of annual vaction time but scheduling them always turns out to be a problem with your project supervisors.

Policy:
If you are "lucky" (LOL) enough to be working on a project that includes out of town travel - you will be asked to only charge to the actual time spent working on the project. Your commute time cannot be charged as time worked. You will be reimbersed for rental car, airfare, meals or hotel.

Health Benefits:
The health benefits sucks! Your monthly contribution for a family plan will be way high. Somewhere around $500/month. Hopefully you have a spouse with a better plan.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve communications between the marketing principals, office managers, project managers, design leads and the technical staff. Do not always critize or place all blame on the project managers and design lead staff when it comes to poor performance of the technical staff. It should be the office managers' responsibility to provide periodic CADD/Software and standards training to all technical staff and or dispense the proper disciplinary actions of any staff member that is not interested in project success or "pulling their own weight".

Pros

The salaries in AEC firms are very good compared to typical A - architecture firms. Currently the location in cypress is convenient but we will be moving to santa ana shortly. Pretty decent people and the 401K has Vanguard as the carrier of mutual fund choices with low expense ratio with plenty of choices to choose from. This is appealing to me because at my last firm, the choices were not as many and the expense ratio was quite large in comparison. Also, this firm pays for people to train themselves and encourages professional development to complete the goals fo the individual.

Cons

This is a large firm and people have difficulty working at the top.

Advice to Senior Management

Read the 'one minute manager'

Pros

The opportunity to gain experience and at the same time they respect the fact im a student and understand the arrangement i have to make for school every semester. i also have a chance to work first hand on alot of things in the office. which helps me alot to understand how a real office works. you do not really learn much of that in school. that is why im happy working here. and my boss is great and willing to teach me. that takes a lot of patience. especially when dealing with alot of recent graduates.

Cons

i really dont like the corporate feel to everything we do around the office. the safety requirements i feel are really ridiculous. i know safety is a big deal but i feel this company babies us into trying to be more cautious. which is ok. but not all the time. another downside would be, like in any other office, is the lack of communication between departments. i dont feel like that benefits a company at all. i dont like the office furniture, that can change. being a future manager. i think that helps the office enviorment to produce more.

Advice to Senior Management

try to make the working enviorment a little funner.

Pros

They will pay on the higher payroll scale, but benefits are reduced and you have to pay more for fewer benefits.

Cons

Reduced benefits. Is not and employee friendly company. "People are our greatest asset", only if you have a greater asset for the company. Upper mid-level managers will do or say anything to advance career. The only recognition you receive is when the manager needs to pass blame, when you do something good the manager takes credit. If you want to grow your career it will not happen, unless you are a "yes man" to your manager. This is the type of firm that will make you say "What am I doing here and how do I get out, can I get my old job back?"

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to the lower level employees, the upper mid-level managers are after your job. If the employees, the doers, are treated with respect they will produce more for less.

Pros

Extremely Stable organization with little to no risk in a downturn economy. There are many opportunties to explore various job opportunities and work both domestically and internationally. Regardless of the US economy, this is an extremely stable firm through financial efficiency and broad diversity of service offerings.

Cons

Very low cost focused, often at the expense of innoviation. Very stove piped with respect to the aproach to business which cause internal competition that is unecessary.

Advice to Senior Management

Re-Assess opportunities for cross collaboration, current model argues for "boundarylessness", but doesn't actually deliver it and performance metrics actually deliver the opposite.

Pros

Jacobs is a very large company. Architecture has always been sensitive to the ups and downs of the world economy. Jacobs is not a hire/fire firm. Jacobs will put a lot of effort to your advancement. Safety is a very big part of the culture. We are always re-training for safety, from being trained to use a fire extinguiser on a live fire, to not talking on a cell phone when driving on company business, to advanced CPR classes, to inclement weather in your area emails. It really bonds the people in the offices together. New hires are amazed how safety conscience Jacobs is. For me no job is worth losing your life over and being trained for safety in all areas carries over to your personal life as well. Jacobs also listens to the suggestions of their employees and will act upon them swiftly if deemed important. Jacobs approaches projects on a national basis. Work can be shared with any office. Jacobs holds you accountable for keeping a project on track, on time and on budget. This also helps you in your personal life. If you are named by a client in a client survey, and this statement is attached to a 97% or above satisfaction response, then you will be noticed and thanked, profusely. This tiny little thing makes you feel great with a "There is a God" feeling.

Cons

Jacobs is a very large company. A few of middle management are ego maniacal retards. "I deserve this position. You don't have to worship me, but you damn sure need to respect me unconditionally." Even if they don't deserve it. (Fortunately I have only experienced this type in two other offices, not Dallas.) Is Jacobs alone in this behavior? NO! It should not be tolerated by any employee. It is, as I stated earlier, a very large company. It is easy to be blended into the furniture.

Advice to Senior Management

Seriously train your managers. By this I mean, don't send them to a B.S. class where everyone passes. Make them prove they are worthy and willing to hold the title. How much more money can you make when managers are inculcated in the process of managing as much as everyone is for safety? The Peter Principal should not be in effect here. Come off your high horse and get into the trenches with the people who grind out daily the work needed to be successful. Don't rely on middle management to control your visits to the offices. Be unexpected, just show up, pick a person you feel is going to tell you like it is and talk to them in an neutral environment and really listen. Look for the very arrogant middle managers who treat these people as if they are their subjects. I have seen an office endure such a person. It is as devastating for the bottom line as it is for moral. Remember people are trading their daily lives to earn a living, so shame on you if you allow one of them to suffer or carelessly deny them access to their loved ones at the sake of making the manager look like a hero's with all the money he/she saved on the job. These managers are not properly trained or skilled at being a manager. Why should we work for them.