Lafarge Canada Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Lafarge Canada as an intern for less than a year

Pros – You get to travel around Ontario and look at the different plants (quaries, etc).
Not stressful.
People are great.
The company does a lot of events and you get to be part of it.

Cons – Some down-time in between jobs. Some days are really slow.
Big corporation. And so requests can take time to be fulfilled.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Lafarge Canada as an intern for more than a year

Pros – Lots of experience in the field and working with tradesmen

Cons – Can be dangerous place to work in. Lots of dust and heat that you have to deal with. You may start to cough and sneeze a lot if you are not up for the physical challenge

Advice to Senior Management – Needs a better structure to manage decisions and not fly by the seat of your pants. If upper management is confused as to what should be done, can you imagine how much more confused everyone below is?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Lafarge Canada as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Management was respectful, great teamwork atmosphere, option to work long hours, staff is treated well,

Cons – Facility gets extremely hot in the summer, concrete is extremely dirty to work with

Advice to Senior Management – Keep it up.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Lafarge Canada full-time

Pros – Was a good place to work with lots of room to learn for hard workers.
Was good comp & ben
Good people
Qualified employees in general
Professionalism
Not technologically advanced or oriented for users

Cons – Had to be mobile to grow within the company
Company went through a downturn in early 2012 and major layoffs took place after many months of being informed of the need to cut down costs
Top management not affected as lower level employees
French management can be difficult to deal with and very judgemental of people
No cohesiveness in opinions within management make it difficult to deal with for lower levels who have to put their own manager's directions into application.

Advice to Senior Management – Agree with eachother
Make faster decisions
Communicate more with employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Lafarge Canada

Pros – Global company
Good network of sites
Generally good people working there
Fair compensation package
Good perks

Cons – Short term focus due to level of debt of the group
Currently very limited availability for advancement
Lack of clear strategy from Paris head office
Lack of transparency and fairness in selecting people for promotion

Advice to Senior Management – Back to the basic, make it simple. Have a clear vision and strategy

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Lafarge Canada

Pros – Possibility to move around (have different jobs) inside the company. Very rewarding work experience.

Cons – Necessary to be available to move if you want advancement inside Lafarge Canada.

Advice to Senior Management – Be a little more transparent about the organizational changes. There is a lot of rumors about the changes that might be done going around. It is also veru frustrating for the small employees to see cutbacks inside the plants and not see anything being done to reduce costs at upper management levels and technical centers.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Lafarge Canada

Pros – Typically promote from within so there is always opportunity to move up

compensation is good but not as good as oil and gas industry

an international company so there is opportunity to get experience in other countries

Open to new ideas to solve the same/new problems

If you show potential, you will go far

Cons – they constantly like to change things up with the organizational structure and management. This results in less job security than you would expect from such a large company.

The only way to move up in a big way is to be prepared to move around. As stated before, they like to mix it up with new blood all the time.

Their bonus system is a carrot you will never be able to fully achieve. If your bonus potential is 30% of your salary, you can expect to hit only 50-60% of it. Even if you achieve all your objectives, there is no such thing as a full payout.

Advice to Senior Management – Realize that your people are what make you successful. Too much reorganizing will cause talented employees to look elsewhere for stability.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Lafarge Canada

Pros – Great People to work with, especially management which is more often than not cooperative , understanding and caring. Defined benefit and defined contribution Pension plans are the corner stone of the better than decent benefits. Bonus is reasonable, depending on grade (10-20 % cap, usually can expect to receive between 50-75% of cap). Decent vacation time available with good health and insurance benefits. Total compensation would roughly work out to be 120% of base salary.

Cons – Financial/Accounting job advancement prospects from mid-level upwards is not as great. There should be more opportunities and encouragement for movement between corp and business units

Advice to Senior Management – Great work. Keep accounting / finance jobs localized to the regions.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend