Weatherford International Reviews

Pros

Big company stability with lots of career oppurtunities.

Cons

Management communication and employee morale.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate with employees with more frequency and detail. Boost employee morale by promoting from within. Keep good employees by offering competitive salaries and bonuses.

Pros

well established international company with a good reputation.

Cons

loss of identity in working in such a big company - not noticed so far as newely started so this is persumptious

Pros

It's almost impossible to get fired from Weatherford - short of gross misconduct or criminal activity. Layoffs don't happen much - if at all.

Cons

Since 2005, the company has been growing at an unbelievable pace. We're stuck in no-mans land between the "big boys" who do all the big company things right and the "mom & pops" who are nimble enough to approach business from an entrepreneurial angle. Right now, we don't seem to do either very well.

Advice to Senior Management

Weatherford is never going to be Schlumberger. Stop trying to punch above your weight & do the things you're good at: dumb iron.

Pros

Engineers are given company trucks

Cons

The hours are ridiculous and long

Advice to Senior Management

Raise salary's for employees and appreciate the more.

Pros

Engineering Teams and Field Supervisors are among the most knowledgeable people that I have ever worked with and are consistently proving themselves the competence of the company. Make no mistake that the people in the field drive the business and support upper management.

Cons

Senior management by facility on a high percentage is being spoon fed by middle management and field personnel to support the business and operations. This creates tension in that if you are outside of senior management the people “doing the work” tend to be underappreciated and kept in a single role as responsibility increases and compensation stays the same. This is not a company that promotes driven individuals readily, rather senior management takes full advantage of those people while lining their own pockets and patting themselves on the back.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay grade should reflect contributions. Flat, predictable raises do not reflect skill sets and individual roles. Gain some consistency in promotions rather than moving an individual for reasons of incompetence, it happens far too often.

Pros

Excellent Brand recognition in the marketplace.

Cons

Given that it is a Matrix organization, finding the decsion maker can be difficult at times

Pros

Weatherford is a global company with operations pretty much everywhere, so there is scope to travel and or live in new places.

Cons

Weatherford is one of the most complicated organisations I've ever worked for, numerous business units all seemingly working in isolation not knowing what the others are doing, with little communication or direction from senior management (until things are going wrong!). Corporate systems are bureaucratic, with impossible to use online forms/approval systems, and 'one size fits all' mentality from HR, IT and other functions. Constantly changing HR policies, usually for the worse!

Advice to Senior Management

Consolidate and simplify the business structure and offices/facilities. Invest in a proper ERP system that people can use. Treat employee's as human beings rather than numbers on a spreadsheet. Let us know what's going on!

Pros

-Above average benefits.
-Lots of opportunity to travel.
-Job requires a diverse skill set and critical thinking, which makes the job challenging.
-Lots of safety training, which will eventually help you get a job with a company that actually walks the walk insteady of just talking the talk where safety is concerned.
-Opportunity to work with a lot of awesome people.

Cons

-Brutal lifestyle, you live at the mercy of your cell phone. If you are on shift, you don't have a life.
-Progression has become an absolute mess and a lot of qualified/skilled new hires are realizing this quickly and finding employment elsewhere.
-Wages are not on par with the competition. Weatherford says they are busier than anyone else so the job bonuses make it the same. We get to work harder for the same money? Uhhhhhh......thanks, I guess?
-You are stuck doing all your training and safety programs on a network that is much like having dial-up circa 1995.
-Management turnover has become a burden on the employees. It has become impossible to ask for a raise because your manager has no idea of your worth to the company. 5 years, 5 different managers.
-The company has a positive vision for the future, but the way they are going to get there changes every 6 months. Expectations constantly change. Further to this, the managers will pick and choose which policies they will follow (too cheap to buy the equipment that company policy says must be used); yet the employees are expected to follow all of them.
-Communication is brutal from management to field staff.
-The company cares about revenue more than they care about employees. They will take on every job they can and then expect YOU to figure out how to make it work. Dispatch will pretend like they have no idea what the hours of service regulations are and try to get you to work when you legally can't and then make you feel like the bad guy.
-Frustration has led to significant employee turnover in the last 3 years: the skill, experience and knowledge base in the existing work force is thinning at an alarming rate, failures and incidents are likely to increase.

Advice to Senior Management

-It is time to start listening to your employees and pay to keep the good employees around. Stop saying there is no money for this when every breakup it is the same speil: tons of Q1 incidents that cost the company millions and 75% were caused by short service employees. Reduce the SSE -> reduced incidents and increased operating effieciency ->freed up money for raises.

-It is also time you appreciate people for what they are and not what you think they could be. Just because a person is not interested in taking the next step in your progression should not mean that they do not get considered for raises. Experience is valueable and you are letting it walk out the door and do not seem the least bit concerned.

-Income jump from being a Senior Operator to JFE is insignificant.....there is a reason none of your Senior Ops want to move up. Yet you will hire an engineer fresh out of school to do the job with minimal training for the same pay. Experience is worth a lot more than a pinky ring, and the results prove it.

Pros

there is good management and bosses
there is good coworkers who shair their knowledge base
few layoffs
advancement opportunites exist but most promotions go to the much older folks

Cons

pay could be more (then again everyone loves more money)
middle management needs to better communicate with their uppers and lowers

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be worried about putting too much of a load on your engineers, if they say they can handle the load, they arent lieing to you.

Pros

to summarize : I think weatherford provides excellent work life balance, benefits package, salary, responsibility. People are very friendly and extremely helpful.

Cons

no significant downsides of working at weatherford. the offices are spread around the world and communication might slightly be difficult at times.

Advice to Senior Management

keep up the good work. I am very impressed withe the support upper management provide for younger generation. The future is looking bright for weatherford.