NELSON Reviews

Former Employee – worked at NELSON

Pros – A company that did excellent work that you would be proud to have your name associated with it.

Cons – Stability based on the real estate market to a certain degree.

Advice to Senior Management – Company should pay attention to the persons doing the work and not the ones talking the loudest.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NELSON full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – The opportunity to work with a few great people who give too much of their time and talent to a poorly managed organization.

Cons – CEO, COO, CFO have not the slightest grasp of what it takes to run a professional services organization. They constantly churn through people who make the mistake of not falling iniline with the so-called Nelson culture. With this reputation, the organization has become "a last resort" employer as only candidates desperate for a job will go there.
The CEO has zero experience outside the company (its the only company he's worked for), a company his father founded and where the he has now pushed his father and brother into minor roles.
Working here is akin to being in a book-of-the-month club - whatever the CEO is reading, that will be the theme of his next quarterly Town Hall; "the new realities of the new economy" and "the 20 mile march". Advice to clients and potential clients... there are many far superior organizations with more stable financial status from which to buy planning and design services.

Advice to Senior Management – Retain a Board of Directors with real experience and industry connections. Once elected, the Board should immendiately terminate the CEO, CFO and COO and bring in a new leadership team with the capability to lead a profitable company where people actually want to work. But this will never happen, as the CEO now owns a majority of the company and wants nothing to do with a BOD who could actually hold him accountable.

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 NELSON

Pros – Work Life Balance
Variety of Work

Cons – Hit hard by downturned economy

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NELSON

Pros – Friendly atmosphere when I was working there, good in office senior management and team leaders always willing to help out if you have a problem

Cons – when i was working here, the only thing that bothered me was how corporate HQ (in PA) handled the company. They were more worried about small useless things such as rebranding the company logo and the organizational structure chart. CEO inherited company I believe and during the recession dropped the ball. Not sure how this company is doing anymore, but when I left due to "restructuring" more than half the office was gone and plenty of desks were open.

Advice to Senior Management – HQ they need to get their act together and do a better job of marketing the strengths of the company's services to prospective clients rather than worry about ridiculous logo rebranding and organizational charts that took over 6 months to DRAFT

Current Employee – been working at NELSON

Pros – It is a very supportive environoment throughout the organization. If I ever need support on project or innitiative, there are many people ready and happy to help. Management is extremely supportive of career development and growth opportunities.

Cons – The individual locations and divisions would work better together.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep it up!!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NELSON

Pros – Management doesn't know whats going on, easy to get by without doing much
Decent health insurance and other benefits, nothing extraordinary

Cons – No respect of employees
Constant switching of employees and hours
No respect for Design Integrity
Very poor upper management - CEO is a joke

Advice to Senior Management – The best thing management can do is quit or get fired. Honestly, just give up. They also need to stop pretending the firm is actually about architecture.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NELSON full-time for more than a year

Pros – get some experience in market research. in especially industry

Cons – cannot balance well between work and life.

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

Former Employee – worked at NELSON full-time

Pros – Some good coworkers. The talent of some of the people there is incredible (yet not recognized) Good location, easy commute.

Cons – HQ leadership team only cares about the bottom line, not employees (or underlings as they refer to the employees). Local management isn't aware of what's going on right under their noses. Some employees get away with doing nothing, and it brings down the morale of everyone else. Salary was horrible. Worst health insurance ever. Other benefits are inadequate. The amount of pettiness in the office, starting at the top, is out of control.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop being petty. Reward good hard work appropriately. Stop treating employees like your children.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NELSON full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – It's a job and they seem to be willing to hire anyone, even if they do not have the skills that are necessary or required by the job posting.

Cons – HQ Management is unorganized, uncaring and treats employees like numbers, not people. The local managers want to be liked by the staff more than they want to be good leaders. Empty promises abound. Little to no support for training, orientation, project staffing.

Advice to Senior Management – Start acting like a true world class design firm rather than pretending to be one. Implement standards and treat employees with respect and maybe they would be less miserable and take the company and the managers more seriously.

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 NELSON full-time

Pros – Every office is different, but the leadership in our local office is tremendous. The organization is large enough so that there are some nice systematic features. Due to local leadership the work/life balance is very good and the overall experience is quite good.

Cons – NELSON is like a sports team that is always rebuilding. They constantly shift direction and drift toward the newest big idea without having any real focused, meaningful, and specific core values. It's a lot of 'Corporate-speak' without much in the way of actual content and very little backing up words with actions.

Advice to Senior Management – Be real . . . be human. Don't treat people like numbers . . . treat them like individuals and understand that a company is the sum of it's parts. Understand that leadership isn't just a title but that it's actually doing what you say you will, ironically a NELSON core value that is rarely followed within the actual organization.

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