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Great Company Falling Apart - Senior Account Manager CH2M Employee Review

1.0
Jan 10, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

CH2M had a great brand in the industry and some great people but the recent reorganization (which has been significant) is tearing everything apart. Still have a good technical team but that team is shrinking every week. Good work-from-home concept.

Cons

Environmental group now been run by Jacobs EPC leaders who know little about environmental. Over 1000 people recently left, but most of the long-term CH2M dead weight is still in place because severance would be too high. Environmental group leadership was bad but still profitable, but has gotten worse with the drastic reorganization. Reduced number of account managers significantly (in some markets >70% reduction), so clients are feeling the pain with less good client facing people and less technical doers. The $300 Million loan from Apollo is driving a major push to prepare to go public with Apollo/Bain seemingly making decisions on how to restructure. Only short term wins seem to matter, and cost reductions are constant, like the 1000+ staff reductions since November. Leadership is bad at all levels, from the CEO, to the Jacobs management hires who know little about CH2M core business and clients. What once was a highly ethical and well branded company is now gone - as you have everyone fending for themselves as layoffs have been fairly constant and a new structure that is hard to understand. I know hundreds of people who still work there and none seem happy and most would leave in a heartbeat if they get a good offer. Shipped many jobs oversees - from finance to procurement - and client projects get hit for excessive hours from people who don't seem to know what they are doing. I had a procurement person charge 8 hours to my client project to setup a new vendor and 6 hours from a finance person for creating an invoice. Also, drive for staff to be 100% billable has a lot of staff taking vacation if they can't find work, which doesn't seem right. People without staffing experience are in key staffing roles - which leads to some unethical behaviors. Sad to see a great company fall so quickly.

Explore other reviews about CH2M

5.0
Oct 25, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great Salary and great staff.

Cons

I don’t have any cons.

2.0
Aug 2, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Vision and mission, benefits, interesting projects, offices...

Cons

I66 Management is ridiculous. A PM who has absolutely no idea - he's not even an engineer - and a business manager who has been continuously described by the client as incompetent and useless. It weighs heavy on me to hear the client saying " is this really ch2m?"

313
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CH2M Response
9y
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will share this with the appropriate leaders. Also, please discuss any concerns you have with your manager. Thanks.
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