Rudolph & Sletten Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Rudolph & Sletten full-time for less than a year

Pros – The people are very nice and helpful. Plenty of work to be done.

Cons – I have none so far.

Advice to Senior Management – keep up the good work

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

Former Employee – worked at Rudolph & Sletten full-time for less than a year

Pros – High quality projects
Great compensation and benefits

Cons – The marketing leadership is terrible and not clear with their expectations of their staff. They are bullies and do anything possible to beat you down until you begin to believe their unflattering comments. Instead of feeling like you're on a team, you face an uphill battle with trying to get your work done on time and it's a scramble to the very end (for which you will be blamed for).

Watch out for the marketing manager and the BD executive, they are deceiving folks who are NOT looking out for the best interests of their employees. They have been through THREE marketing coordinators between 2012-2013 alone. That isn't normal and should not be acceptable.

Also, don't bother going to HR for help as they are only looking out for the best interests of the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Instead of firing/laying off marketing coordinators, maybe you should keep a closer eye on the management because that's where your problem lies.

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

Former Employee – worked at Rudolph & Sletten

Pros – Salaries are good, but the hours are long.
Some very talented folks.
Interesting projects, with a diverse portfolio of quality clients.

Cons – Benefits are very poor since they were acquired.
Senior management does a poor job of communicating internally.
Culture is very guarded and stuck in the past.

Advice to Senior Management – The most talented people are on the jobsites.
Listen to them.
Business model needs reworking.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Rudolph & Sletten

Pros – casual workplace, good campus, great gym

Cons – the parent co., Tutor Perini, is very authoritarian

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Rudolph & Sletten

Pros – Training is great. The ability to take on as much as you can handle is there. Company is willing to provide as much support as you need to make sure you succeed.

Depending on your direct manager the annual reviews can be very helpful. My reviews were done by the top tier of upper management and were thorough and honest, very helpful in my growth and development.

The culture for the company revolves around safety. Something many company's talk about, very few if any, really follow through with it. R&S truly cares about the safety of their employees and those of the subcontractors.

Cons – Becoming a large corporation with the Tutor Perini takeover. Used too have a small company feel, now you are a number. Benefits were slashed via email. Communication from Senior Management is very poor.

80% of the employees are top notch. Unfortunately the ranking by some upper management leaves one to wonder how there head got so far up their backside.

Depending on your direct manager the annual reviews can be very poor, some do not take the time to really review the employee. Several of the upper managent staff assigned to do reviews do a gloss over and fail to truly evaluate the employee, this is a huge disservice to the employee and the company.

You can get specialized into doing specific tasks which hampers your overall growth.

Advice to Senior Management – Better communication to keep your better employees is imperative. The communication at R&S has gotten worse each and every year.

Upper Management listens to the wrong 2nd tier managers for staffing decisions and really made some bad moves on layoffs.

Get back to what made you.... Special Projects and the small company feel.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Rudolph & Sletten

Pros – Good salary, but this is up in the air since the buyout of perini

Cons – working schedule, lack of support by upper management, poor bidding practices, since buyout of perini employees come behind stock prices and senior management bonuses.

Advice to Senior Management – you claim that employees come first, then act like it.

Former Employee – worked at Rudolph & Sletten

Pros – R&S does really great work. They gain a lot of repeat business due to their customer service and high quality.

Cons – The Christmas party themes from the last three years probably sum up the company culture best: Cowboy Saloon, Beach Boardwalk, and Star Wars. What the? People are spread out all over the Bay Area so there's no center of gravity for any kind of work community. Most people live pretty boring lives or don't talk about their lives outside of work at all. Consequently, the company culture is pretty weak.

Also, the company stresses safety to a fault. Last year the top safety goals were to raise awareness about skin cancer and get everyone in the company first-aid trained. Ridiculous. These should not have been anywhere near the top.

Advice to Senior Management – You are very hard-working and competent. You also do a great job stressing the value of quality and customer service in winning new contracts. Work on making bids more competitive so the company can snatch some of the high-profile jobs from Webcor.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Rudolph & Sletten

Pros – R&S is a great place to work, our execs and sr. managers really do try to assist in your personal growth and give you every opportunity to achieve success at whatever level you desire.

Cons – recently bought by a larger, national company has not been hard. as a front line employee on the jobsite, i have seen nothing different in day to day operations. in fact, marketing and satisfaction from projects completed has gone up...

Advice to Senior Management – offer continuous feedback on individual performance (i.e. quarterly reviews, and 360 degree reviews to give managers critical feedback from their employees) as well as quarterly marketing updates in depth...

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Rudolph & Sletten

Pros – Good employees with exceptional work ethics, excluding most Sr. Managers.

Cons – The CEO of the company is not respected among his direct reports. Communication does not trickle down to the appropriate levels. Femals are not respected, listened to and not rewarded with the same projects as male counter parts. Advancement is difficult for all employees as promotions are awarded to without the employee's ability to direct his/her career path within the company. Femaol represenation is almost non existent with all Sr. Mgmt. positions held by white males.

Advice to Senior Management – Communicate goals and ideas to middle management; allow employees control over his/her career at R&S, promote employees based on quantified achievements and contributions to the company. Diversify senior management to include more ethnicities and femals.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Rudolph & Sletten

Pros – Best reasons to work at Rudolph & Sletten? Being down and out, perhaps. Or getting a reality check about what construction management is all about... Seriously though, the one benefit may be that R&S encourages its office employees (project engineers, estimators, interns) to walk the jobsite. At the same time, expect little mentorship from field staff. The senior project engineers and managers may be totally willing to give you tips, but alas they are for the most part ill informed about the nitty-gritty of the construction process (other than rehashing contracts). The surprising fact is that there seems to be a complete disconnect between the field staff (superintendents etc.) and the management ranks -- the former have no incentive to mentor the latter who essentially serve as office factotums ("office managers," in their own words). Even monthly company training sessions (called "safety lunches") on matters of construction (waterproofing etc.) are conducted by office people who seem to just regurgitate something they merely learned by rote and never saw in practice.

Cons – Working at R&S is nothing less than indentured servitude. You're given ample food and drink, provided with corporate uniform, and allotted less than minimal office space on a jobsite trailer. In return, you'll give up all your waking hours and convert to cubicle dronehood. My impression of long-time career potential at the company is quite pessimistic. There's little trust among the employees -- at least none of the other interns dared to talk to me openly about their view of their work. Turnover is comparable to that at a fast-food chain (one of my immediate superiors left during my summer stint, two others left soon after the end of my internship, I too declined the offer to continue with the coop through the school year). If you have a previous hands-on experience of the construction site, there's little you'll learn over the summer (or a year, judging from recently hired engineers) other than the usual office small-talk. Ok...you will learn to use the Prolog construction management software to print nicely formatted reports. You will be looked down upon by everyone -- rightly so -- from subcontractors whom you prevent from communicating directly with architects/engineers to R&S's own concrete workers to who will think of you as an idle onlooker pestering them with stupid questions. You will understand nothing about what went into the design and little about what went into its construction (other than an occasional misalignment that you happened to submit an RFI on). Disclaimer: I can only speak for interns and project engineers. From my interaction with field employees (tradesmen, superintendents), they appear quite pleased with their work and compensation as I most likely would be in their position as well.

Advice to Senior Management – I'd be ill-advised to give any feedback to Senior Management. For all they care, the company runs "efficiently."

Rather, my review is meant to be a warning to engineering students who might unwittingly succumb to the illusion that there's something "hands-on" about construction management. To make a comparison, you will relate to construction like an event planner to active participation in the event (e.g. a wedding). In a nut shell: If I chose to work on a construction site, I'd only look at companies that have "field engineer" positions so as to enter the track leading to superintendent. If on the other hand you were brought up to invent and design, go work for a design or forensic firm.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend