D.R. Horton reviews

Welcome to the toxic circus known as the Las Vegas Division of D.R. Horton where you're not a employee - you're a minion. Verbal abuse and bullying is encouraged and rewarded. Once stocked with talented loyal people, a change in leadership about six years ago has resulted in long-term, competent employees, amazing salespeople, and department heads aka ‘Hortonites’ being forced out and replaced with lesser-qualified sycophants. Favoritism runs rampant and performance ratings and feedback are rarely objective and results-based, instead they are now somewhat results and more of how much Senior Management takes a shine to you. Those who were forced out were responsible for making this Division the #1 builder, consistently, in Vegas and for almost a 10-year run. A few years later and after the final turnover of employees (almost 100%!!) since the new Senior management arrived, now this Division is middle of the pack, which should be unacceptable considering the financial strength and resources of the parent company. Decisions are made and policies are implemented on a reactionary basis and based on gut feel, ego, and mood and not data. As said, rampant verbal abuse and bullying are encouraged and most everyone has seen temper tantrums and yelling by certain local leadership. Watching fellow employees routinely being set up to fail or be ousted is the norm and has led to a wasteland of a Division with low morale. Pride and passion have been replaced with just picking up a paycheck since we all know we’re just a number to the local leader who is always looking to replace you with someone cheaper. Apparently corporate doesn’t care how management treats people as they remain far too removed to see potential profits left on the table over the years due to silo-style decision-making, a form of leadership that suffocates growth in this day and age. Quarterly bonuses are a great company-wide policy, but here you will always be 'catching up’ as first quarter goals will be purposely set too lofty to meet and thus the carrot will always be dangling in front of you to ‘make it up’ so that you tolerate the abuse throughout the year. Here is a hint: never expect 100% of your bonus unless you are the select few; you’ll likely hear ‘let’s get ‘em next year.’ Also, a large portion of the bonuses, which were once all objective and metrics-driven, are now discretionary which is a code word for your popularity with Senior Management. Your direct manager will really have no say in the matter and the staff know this, which affects the chain of command; subordinates don’t fully respect their managers if they are ‘in’ and will routinely break rank. If it weren't for the strength of the parent company and the quarterly bonuses most employees would probably seek other opportunities. Leadership here is based on fear rather than respect and behind the scenes of the local home building industry, the leadership is disliked and mocked but tolerated only due to the financial strength of the parent company. Senior management is highly irritable and prone to childish outbursts - it's almost as if one has, over time, never evolved and adapted a more appropriate demeanor in this day and age. This Division was once full of entrepreneurial hustlers who knew their coworkers extremely well to a place where turnover is so frequent combined with the constant shifting of priorities and responsibilities that it is a challenge to even recognize half the fellow employees and communication suffers as a result, encouraging office politics and backstabbing of which this Division was once devoid. How obedient you (publicly) are and how well-liked you are by senior leadership is now more important than talent, results, and ethics and people that are more loyal to local senior management versus the name on the paycheck last longer. In fact, you may be asked (forced) to uncomfortably tread in an ethically grey area from time to time. But hey they have lots of pizza parties to try to try to cover up just how sad it’s become and gold stars are passed around like kindergarten (yes, they pass out stickers to adults which was unnecessary when this Division was once firing on all cylinders.) It's unfortunate what has happened to this once well-respected Division that was stocked with an abundance of highly talented people. Where landing a job here was a feat unto itself. Sadly, what this management team has consistently failed to realize is that operational excellence is not just driven by work processes and flow charts but rather by passionate, skilled, and happy and loyal employees willing to go the extra mile because the tenure and longevity brought a family feel to the office and people genuinely cared about the welfare of fellow employees. Now people just live in their cubbies haunched over a laptop, silo-style with fear of what might happen if Senior Management finds them not there for five minutes and where gossip at the water cooler thrives under whispered word about which employee is currently on the s-list. On a positive note, the good news is that if you work here at some point you'll be so overworked from wearing so many hats that you'll learn a few things you will ultimately take with you to benefit your next employer. I’ve heard they recently removed the cancer, but it’s too late - the damage has been done. This Division is a shell of what it once was and there is no doubt in my mind if the Hortonites were left alone to do their thing, rather than being relentlessly bullied to the point of mass exodus, it would still be competing for the top spot even with the Lennar/Cal-Atlantic merger. Now, it’s just a wasteland that will have to overpay for everything - talent, resources, land, subs just to have a chance to climb back to the highly respected, thriving organization it once was.