NewAlta Reviews

Former Employee – worked at NewAlta full-time for less than a year

Pros – Good atmosphere,
New building in Calgary with a lot of services (free gym, kinder garden, restaurant, free parking)

Cons – Manager are under graduated and you feel that in the management of the company
No staff stability (people coming and out, easy to get fired)

Advice to Senior Management – Prioritize qualified people rather than friend, or connexion

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

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

Pros – A place to work until u find something better..

Cons – -Company seems to care more about how clean stuff is and could care less about facility operations as long as it looks pretty.
-Very under trained supervisors that get their positions from who they know not what they know.
-Very very manipulative and two faced sneaky senior managment
-Watch your back often if you turn it their will be a knife put in it.
-Worst office politics i've ever dealt with

Advice to Senior Management – Its time for a house cleaning from the top down your employees are very dissatisfied for the most part and feel bullied and helpless it may not be like this every where but it sure was the case where i was it left a very bad taste in my mouth.

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

Former Employee – worked at NewAlta as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Good wage, nice office surroundings

Cons – Clicky office, misled & cold/unapproachable 2-faced manager, general unfriendliness; company boasts and brags about their growth& being such a great palce to work but did not offer an alternative when I went above and beyond expectations - aka burned; hypocritical work environment

Advice to Senior Management – I was thrown into my contractor position with no training or direction. I was led to believe it would go from temp to perm. They hired & filled the position internally and didn't ask if I was interested nor allow any notice to prepare to be abruptly unemployed. Can't get any feedback from management or HR. Never looking back nor will suggest as a decent place to work for others.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NewAlta

Pros – Good salary, decent benifits, flexible work potential growth within the company. Some people do care about their work and their are some good supervisors. With time and the right people, this could be a very good company to work for if you have a the patience.

Cons – Management does not follow though, the safety program is a dog and pony show. The people that care about safety are not listened to at all. It seems like the company/branch is focused on "profit first" quality and safety later.

They run new hires though the motions. New hire training in Rio Vista TX is not practical to the field. When you make it to a rig, the training varies depending on who is training you. They do not have a "train the trainer" program so you may go to a rig and shovel for a few days before you recieve any training. The supervisors pretty much run parts, and come to the rig when something is broken. They pick up safety paperwork sometimes but never look at it. I can write in red crayon and it would be okay.

Advice to Senior Management – Handle your responsibilities instead of looking for scapegoats or excuses. Train your employees and supervisors right and you will keep people and clients.

Former Employee – worked at NewAlta

Pros – Benefits
Wages were okay (but not comparable to the area)
Freedom
Almost your own supervisor
All the overtime you want
Great core values
Realizes that the operators are what make the company

Cons – The company as a whole...Not many just communication that is more caused by the sudden growth of the company

The branch I worked In Sparwood BC is a satellite from the Cranbrook branch.
Wrong equipment for the job
Lack of Preventative maintenance
Issues blown off as operator abuse not the work conditions/Environment
For a new hire things were not explained well, I was not trained to do the job.
Safety was constantly overlooked to make a profit, it was said by many that the rules only applied when they didn't get in the way of margin
Staff retention at all time low

Advice to Senior Management – Again this is just one branch and doesn't reflect the comany as a whole. Newalta is a great place to work that you can be proud to wear their name and drive their equipment. This review is more towards one branch that got left behind. Review the people you placed in leadership roles within the branch and put the right person as a senior operator. Break Sparwood away from Cranbrook and put under it's own manager. Talk to the employees and realize the problems.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NewAlta

Pros – Great learning experience of worse case scenario office politics.

Cons – Too much personal and professional politics. Being a new hire is like waling into a mind field and are very much taken advantage of and are targets for 'ol' boys club' type management.

Advice to Senior Management – Need new management.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NewAlta

Pros – Salary was very competitive and had a lot of freedom to make decisions

Cons – They were going thru SAP implementation at the time and it was a disaster. Accounting group was very difficult to work with.

Advice to Senior Management – If not already done clean out accounting

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend