Management seems totally removed from the day-to-day operations and tend to focus more on abstract concepts (time on job, or TOJ) than actual employees. There is an overemphasis on producing the right numbers to make the office look good. Furthermore, the company is split administratively into the various offices, which means each office has its own fiefdom and there is not a lot of cross-pollination of ideas or project experience.
In addition, the system is set up to favor very large projects that are specific to a few select disciplines. Smaller practices (such as water resources) which tend to operate on many small projects at one time, rather than one massive megaproject, are at an inherent disadvantage because of the way management tracks department performance. They are naturally going to need small bits of marketing time here and there to go after a continuous stream of small projects, but management seems to think everyone should be involved on a multi-year megaproject that keeps everyone 100% billable for years at a time.
As an urban planner, I feel our profession is especially neglected. Through attrition, layoffs, and an unwillingness on the part of management to go after jobs that align with the expertise of our staff, we have been systematically dismantled as a practice and no longer do most of the core planning work that we did even 5 years ago.
Benefits are a mixed bag. 3 weeks of PTO seems generous, but as soon as you try to take any time off, you'll get an earful from management about minimizing your PTO so that TOJ stays high. I've even felt pressured not to take sick time when I need it, or at least overwork myself the rest of the week, in order to keep numbers high. Some of this may be due to the small size of our department - it looks worse for us if one person is out for a day than it does for some of the larger departments. But this, once again, is an issue with the way management tracks performance.
There is also no paid maternity or paternity leave program. When our child was born, I had to take all of my accrued PTO just to stay home for a few weeks - I couldn't even use sick time!
Management is also very much an old boys' club. It's virtually all older white males - hardly a woman or minority to speak of - and there don't seem to be many prospects for moving up the ladder. The company pays lip service to career development, but I have yet to see opportunities to take on more of a leadership role in my own career, or that of most of my peers.
Ultimately, my assessment of HNTB is "penny wise, pound foolish". Management is so busy looking at this month's bottom line that they are neglecting long-term growth and employee satisfaction.
