KB Home Reviews

Pros

Base (draw); good hr department; money to help w/ personal marketing; get benefits

Cons

No work life balance; takes to long to collect commission check; mortgage process is terrible

Pros

Lots of opportunities to learn and gain new skills. Pretty flexible schedules and telecommuting options. Employee discounts with some suppliers. Most co-workers are friendly and competent. Some interesting product developments and partnerships (e.g. Martha Stewart, green/ solar homes, etc)

Cons

Very archaic HR policies. IT systems don't "talk" to each other, so it can be difficult/ time consuming to get to information you need. Economic downturn has resulted in the loss of a lot of the little perks. "Training" modules online that are either irrelevant or so obvious that you wonder why anyone needs to be "trained" on it. Hiring process can be lengthy, with a series of tests.

Advice to Senior Management

Bank of time off days that could be used at employees' discretion. Stock options for lower level employees. Better IT systems that "talk" to each other.

Pros

Fantastic opportunity to make great money if the housing community remains good

Cons

Base salary is very low and makes starting out very hard

Pros

This company articulated a business strategy and executed the strategy. I had a good experience with the whole group in.

Cons

The career path can be unpredictable given the nature of the single-family home industry. Timing is the key in this business, and you can't control that.

Advice to Senior Management

One thing missing from KB Home is alumni relations. There is no effort on the company's part that I am aware of to keep in touch with people.

Pros

Great benefits package.... Excellent training program.... Employees are given every opportunity to suceed... Best product for the price in the market, easy to sell. Management does a good job researching the competition and positioning the product well in order to succeed.

Cons

Not having the ability to control your marketing efforts for the submarkets.

Advice to Senior Management

Actually follow through with the ideas that are great and let the individual in the field have more control over what they need to compete.

Pros

Great name recognition , opportunity to use degree in design.

Cons

Lay-offs seem to be pretty regular, not very stable or secure employment

Advice to Senior Management

Management works best to their ability

Pros

Encouraging sales managers, great training program, fortune 500 company

Cons

A little bit too much focus on the "business plan" over things that just make sense.

Advice to Senior Management

I think that upper leadership is great. Mid-level management should be a little more hands-on in the selling process and less concerned with reports.

Pros

Outdoor, no prescribed start/end of work day, good vacation time.

Cons

Very bureaucratic in decision making--hard to change processes that really don't make sense.

Advice to Senior Management

See above

Pros

benefits are really good thats about it

Cons

no room for growth at all

Advice to Senior Management

why bother they don't listen.

Pros

Compensation. That's it. Period. I worked with the best team there and loved my job, but it was because of them, not because of KB Home.

Cons

Favoritism is rampant; bias is obvious and supported. The treatment of the good-ol-boys vs. newcomers or people who don't subscribe to the mold is inequitable. Senior Executives are allowed to hire people exclusively from places they used to work and are not held accountable for poor performance by those people. Senior Executives don't know what is going on in the corporate functions; I worked there for over 10 years and the CEO never once graced our organization with his presence. The executive team does not know how to utilize technology, even though it is part of their vision statement. They retain project managers who are not needed because they are part of the management network. Countless dollars are wasted on administrative overhead and paperwork. They pretend to promote a sustainability program; it is not respected by the Divisions and is a joke at Corporate. When employees are downsized, the work goes to the remaining employees with no change in title or compensation. They profess to be concerned about expenditures; I do not understand why they still have two regional accounting centers to support 1/3 of the Divisions they previously had. That means they pay two presidents, two directors, costs for two buildings and equipment. Executives do not embrace the KBnxt guidelines, nor do they enforce performance metrics they put in place to measure the metrics. The executives still reside in the expensive Westwood building, yet the organization paid for deserted office space because they could not manage their leases correctly. They have not changed their top-level operational structure; there are still several layers of management that could be eliminated. Reporting is disparate across all of the Divisions, which makes it nearly impossible to hold employees accountable for forecasts.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more, listen to and leverage the ideas of all the teams you have in place. Do not put unenforceable metrics into place; its demotivating to see guidelines in writing that conflict with the way your organization is actually run. H.R. should have a better understanding of the type of people being hired, being let go, and being retained. Technology should be looked at as an asset, not an operational cost. You should know where your money is being spent. Eliminate one of the regional accounting centers and truly mandate standardization instead of just talking about it. Talk to your trade partners more to see what other organizations are doing to survive this downturn. Stop being so arrogant.