Shaw Communications Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Communications full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The salary has been competitive over the years, if you are aggressive in seeking raises at opportune times. The Engineering department provides an excellent opportunity to take on a lot of responsibility, accelerating your rate of experience, and opportunities for advancement are quit prevalent due to high turn over. In many roles, you can get exposure to a fair number of technologies and 3-5 years at Shaw early in your career can help build your skill set, provided you are not in need of any further training. The average employee (at least in Engineering) is given a 2% raise annually, with a deviation of about 1% based on performance. This used to be an annual salary review some [former] employees refer to, but if you want to even keep pace with inflation, you'll have to seek out additional raises.

Cons – Cultural changes at Shaw over the past 6 years or so have continually degraded the value of any individual employee. The focus of the company is on the management team, with all staff being expendable at any time.

A company which once sought to recruit and retain only the smartest and most highly motivated technical staff, now no longer differentiates much between that person and any other warm body. No training is given to non-managers under any circumstances, except when employees give presentations to each other. Raises continue to get harder and harder to come by. The workload can be stressing as good performance is always rewarded with the same thing: more work. You will never go to a team lunch, do a team building exercise, participate in Corporate Challenge or the like, or get any other small perks out of your employment at Shaw. Outside of the traditional compensation, and free coffee and tea, there's really nothing to look forward to when coming to work each day.

Bonuses are a flat $500 semi-annually (for as long as that lasts), the share purchase plan is restrictive and risky given the state of the company, and pension and benefits are average. Red tape and unnecessary procedures and authorization processes are ever increasing, and have reached a point where they severely hold back the staff who endeavor to advance the goals of the company. Even the smallest change to the design of the network requires a signature of approval from a V.P. these days. Corporate politics are at an all time high, and where once groups used to push to take on more responsibility, now groups search for excuses to push tasks elsewhere.

Advice to Senior Management – Observe what makes successful companies successful, and learn. Seek to obtain and retain the best employees available as you once did. Focus on cannibalizing your own products and services, with even better products and services, at all times. Never stand pat, leverage your Phone and Internet products to not only off set your losses in the ever changing Television marketplace, but replace them with a newer, more viable Video delivery platform.

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 Shaw Communications full-time for more than a year

Pros – Most of the people I work with are professionals, easy to work with..Company has good health and wellness benefits. People at Shaw are generally nice, the management staff are people-oriented. Shaw maintains a balanced work-life environment.

Cons – Salary is not competitive. No incentive program based on job performance. No retention plan for key personnel.

Advice to Senior Management – Learn from past mistakes/pitfalls..i hope this time the Company has a more definite/ clear strategic plan. Expense budget wisely spent and resources maximized..

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Communications full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Team player attitude.
Great co-workers.
Fun work environment.
Growth/promotion/career development opportunities.
Friendly management.
Discounts on Shaw products (TV, Internet, Phone).
No old school.
Casual/Laid back culture.
Shaw Business (not the residential) is growing.
Good health/dental benefits.
Overall, good work life balance.

Cons – Base salary is at least $10K lower.
Total compensation (salary/commission/bonus) is $15K - $30K lower (if compared to the other players in the industry - Telus, Rogers, Bell, Allstream for the same role.).
No gym/fitness facilities.
Need more business products/solutions; need product innovations. Only selling connectivity/pipe won't work in the long term. Competitors are already selling complex solutions and value-added solutions (cloud, managed network, managed hosting, systems, storage, security, collaboration, tele-presence, video conferencing, unified communications, etc.).
Old/archaic billing tools/systems. Tools often break/fail.

Advice to Senior Management – Give industry average compensation.
Switch to cloud based billing/CRM.
Invest more in business solutions.

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

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

Pros – Have been one of the oldest companies, experienced n creative management team

Cons – Bad customer service , and less employers working in that department

Advice to Senior Management – Improvement in customer service

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Communications part-time for more than a year

Pros – Very friendly, treat me like a family member and opportunity to grow!

Cons – Nothing really. Really precise on time and very big on being on time.

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

Former Employee – worked at Shaw Communications full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Good benefits and holidays. Fellow employees are typically easy to get a long with. Good discount on company services.

Cons – low pay, incompitant management, lead by fear and intimidation. Management always dangles a carrot in front of you only to crush it later. Top paid execs in Canada yet I cannot even live paycheck to paycheck. Middle management explained that they cannot compete with oil and gas industry as far as salaries go. A contradiction to the highest paid employers.

Advice to Senior Management – Instead of leading with intimidation you should lead with respect and mutual cooperation. Also pay your employees more resonably. Start putting the right people in the right places. Just because you like someone does not mean they are the most qualified for the position. This is not high school. Lower customer rates to stay competitive. Stop being so greedy. Reputation say's a lot. Open your ears and eyes, your losing your reputation as a good corp. Read blogs and comments by the public. You'll be in for a shock.

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 Shaw Communications part-time for less than a year

Pros – Really nice office building, they take pride in giving their employees excellent working conditions. They are wanting to ensure their employees live balanced work-personal lives that are healthy in body, mind, and spirit -- they frequently implement healthy snack programs, lunch time Yoga, and team based activities. They also provide LOADS of training!!! The training is excellent for the workplace, as well as many of the concepts can be applied to conflict resolution etc. outside of work. They are also really accommodating to students -- if you're going to school full time you're able to get a static schedule of minimum 20 hours per week of evening shifts! Employee referal bonuses if you get friends/family hired on ($600 a head if they make it past 6mo probation) Finally, lots of room to grow within the company -- if you work hard and know your stuff it is easy to move around to higher positions within the company! Internal promotion is a big one here!

Cons – It is a call center job, so a lot of what you do day to day is dealing with upset members of the public, a tough skin is recommended if you go into a call center position. It is all shift work, so your schedule isn't static (if you're CSR it changes from week to week, and the hours of operation are 7am until 11pm). Vacation time needs to be done really far in advance, it is nearly possible to get a day off last minute -- vacation bidding is done a year in advance, so make sure you plan out vacation time carefully!

Advice to Senior Management – Scheduling would be a lot better if we would be given static schedules one month at a time like Tech Support. Rather than having days off and on as well as hours change on a weekly basis -- would make it a lot easier on our bodies and sleep schedules!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Communications full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good company to work, environmment is very friendly, provide excellent work/life balance to all employees

Cons – Salary is modest, but being compensated with other non-monetary benefits like a nice working environment and supportive co-workers.

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

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Communications part-time for more than a year

Pros – A good company to work with.

Cons – Highly changing environment, in terms of products.

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

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Communications full-time for more than a year

Pros – - Some interesting technology being deployed
 - Reasonably flexible work environment (work/home balance)

Cons – - Consistent lack of corporate direction/vision
 - very political working environment
 - employee opinions not valued - all direction comes from above

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