Recently the company had lay offs. The company claims to have cut costs elsewhere but is continuing forward with moving us to a brand new multi million dollar office at Fenton, continue to sponsor events for politicians and spending money elsewhere instead of caring about there people. Those that were laid off were told there are open positions that they could apply for, so instead of removing positions with nobody currently working them, active employees were laid off. Personally I believe this is the first of many lay offs within the department. Many within the department are now actively seeking other employment. Within the Engineering Department the Vice President used this as an opportunity to lay off anyone who had questioned him/management in the past. Some of the top engineers are gone instead of those with months of experience or any of the interns. The "culture" within the office is horrible. We have been told in the past "put your head down and work." Any attempts to improve culture are met with resistance from management, then every department meeting the VP tells us the culture is great and thriving. An engineer asked how we would improve culture once we move to the new office where nobody has a personal desk where they could have picture of their families anymore. Instead of trying to address the concerns the VP openly accosted the engineer in front of the entire department and told them not to question the new office. Overall this place is a production mill, you will get 8-10 collective hours of training at the most then its trial by fire. The only thing that matters is if you hit your production numbers, the work doesn't even have to be correct. I have personally witnessed a registered PE lower the windspeed on a project to get it to pass then say "lets hope the jurisdiction doesn't notice" so we would not have to pay to reinforce the structure. There is no opportunity for developing your engineering abilities, no matter how much you seek it out. The department is moving towards a complete automation model where the engineer never touches the analysis. The department is headed in the wrong direction and I believe over the next few years this place will be a skeleton of what it once was. Once automation is set up there is no need for more than 25% of the current staff.
