Swinerton Builders Reviews

Pros

Effective corporate management, they understand market conditions and adopt new strategies to guide the company through though times.

Cons

Lack of new work as most projects were put on hold or disappeared in the entire industry.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest more in IT and aging computing systems as they are making it hard to work efficiently.
Salary freeze could start creating problems soon.

Pros

Great benefits, specifically profit sharing and vacation time. Compared to other contractors, a very good company to be employed by.

Cons

As with other contractors, work often takes precedence over family. The overall work-life balance is not there, but I think that's as much a factor of the industry as it is the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Communication from Uppermanagment through middle management to general level of employees was poor. Annual performance reviews were often ignored. The division annual review meetings were cancelled and rescheduled multiple times. I don't think the problem was with Executive (Concord) level management, as much as it was with division level or even project level.

Pros

There a very large company and been around for 100 years.

Cons

The Chevron account in San Ramon is all run by a family and if you catch on to there methods the pm capriotti will stab you in the back.They bill way to much time when they are doing personal chores and arent held accountable.

Advice to Senior Management

Dont let PM,S families be the book keepers on there jobs as this leads to abuse and possible loss of accounts.

Pros

The company does an incredible amount of training, unfortunately a lot of it is corporate workplace stuff that doesn't really apply to construction which is what most people would prefer to learn more about. The company seems to hire young people (who they know they can underpay!) and there is a good spirit of camraderie amongst the 'underling' staff but that don't pay the rent!

Cons

You will spend years trying to prove yourself before they promote you, you'll never get rich working there and the management structure is so completely messed up with nepotism and favoritism that if you anger the wrong person you could end up losing everything you gained. There is a strong tendency to keep the project executives happy above anyone else, even though they don't pull their weight in any visible way and pull the highest salaries. The IT department is HORRIBLE, it takes weeks to get things you order and they don't even understand the software the company uses so you can't ask them questions or learn how to use things. What's up with that???

Advice to Senior Management

You laid off everyone who actually built anything and now all you have left are a bunch of fat cat middle management project executives who don't have time to try scaring up any new work. Fire them all and try offering people decent salaries so the good ones don't move on and put some serious effort into getting some projects that you can lower your fee on. Your job is to keep your employees employed right?

Pros

Working with professional and experienced people.

Cons

Sometimes long hours are required.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep supporting the team with information and training.

Pros

Employee owned and top notch builder. They really try to do the right thing when it comes to their projects.

Cons

Not much opportunity for growth. Management was very hesitate to advance marketing and the brand. Budgets were often a battle.

Advice to Senior Management

Please continue to support and educate the green building market with opportunities for employees and by growing the marketing department.

Pros

Swinerton Builders is a large construction company with diverse spread of projects throughout the California area. They have good managers and superintendents for mentoring and also are active with training of their younger staff with monthly meetings and planned jobsite visits to help with the growth and continued education and training of their staff at all levels.

Cons

Jobs were not close to home for me and there was no travel reimbursement. Sometimes long hours on the job, but I guess some of that is expected with this industry.

Advice to Senior Management

My specific project manager was not in touch with their staff enough...I would suggest a more open door policy and maybe some team building exercises.

Pros

very good at keep people employed. i loved my job when everyone was working as a team.

Cons

contracts not being complete and materials not bought out so i could push the job from the start. PM's not pulling their, weight at one job, and the under mining you in the field with subs and their egos at the next site.Making deals you new nothing about then ,placing blame on someone else in a meeting in front of subs!

Advice to Senior Management

Have the PM with his ducks in a row so the super could do his job more efficient.more one on one talks with upper management about what direction Sb was heading and voicing your insights in the field.

Pros

Pride in being part of a tradition of quality people and projects. People are understanding of life/work balance and try to accomadate (when possible).

Cons

Progress may be stifled by using you in an "as needed" position rather than what may be best for your education and growth.

Advice to Senior Management

encourage (or develop through training) middle management to be stronger in their leadership of projects.