Pros
• ISEC was a good introduction to learning about commercial construction in terms of what was expected of me in my role as a PE. It was a great place to gain experience, but I became certain it wasn’t my career job during my time there. • Benefits were good. • There was flexibility around if I needed to leave for an appointment. I could also work remotely when I was sick and didn’t want to come into the office.
Cons
• Pay was lower than it should have been. • The career path was unclear, and it seemed it would have taken a long time to be able to progress in the company. There was no feedback or reviews during my time until the yearly review and until then I had to guess if I was doing a good enough job. Upon my review, I was told that I was expected to ask for feedback regularly so I could improve as an employee. I find that ridiculous, and a failure of management blamed on the employee. • Lack of company culture in smaller branches. I liked the company values and culture I saw from corporate, but it was non-existent in our office. There was low morale overall in the office in my opinion, and a ping-pong table didn’t make up for that. • Training was minimal, and I mostly was expected to learn things on my own. • There was no recognition from management for job/task completion. • It was easy to feel underappreciated and that there was a lack of concern about you as an employee or a person. • Some programs (ISEC Projects) and processes were outdated and inefficient. • The work environment did not feel like a team environment. It felt like everyone had their own tasks, but we were not collaborating as a team. • Communication from management was minimal and I felt the PMs at my location were good at working on the jobs they were on but were not good people-managers. Unless I heard information secondhand or hounded them for information, I was left in the dark on information I should have been in the loop on for helping to manage the projects I was working on.