Unfortunately, the cons far outweighed the pros for me and that is one of the many reasons that caused me to leave. The following are cons that I saw in the company:
1) Absolutely zero work life balance and a culture that doesn’t care about working their life away. A light day for me was 10 hours. Expect to work 10-13 hours daily for years on end. People will sit in the trailer until they hit 10 hours, even if they have no work to do. Because the pay is so high, there are many people who sell their souls to the company in exchange for a bit more money.
2) Competence-based promotions do not exist. Everyone gets promoted based on time. There is essentially no reward for hard work, as everyone sits in positions until their time has come to move onto the next position.
3) No career flexibility. Your first 7-10 years in operations will be spent going from field engineer, to office engineer, to project engineer, to area superintendent, BEFORE you can choose if you want to be a project manager or project superintendent. Should you wish to do something other than what Hensel Phelps wants of you then there is very little wiggle room aside from the pre-set path Hensel Phelps has for everyone in operations. Be prepared to be stuck in positions without any flexibility or choice for 7-10 years.
4) No market sectors or specialization. No individual can focus on managing certain trades or specialize in a specific market sector. Everyone is expected to do everything so they can get “diverse experience”. I watched talent wasted because people were not put in positions to utilize their strengths to the advantage of the team. Instead, I saw many people that knew enough to scratch the surface in a lot of different things, but weren’t experts in anything.
5) Long projects that last many years. You may get put on a job an hour and a half away for over a year. Large and spread out projects = people traveling long distances for long periods of time.
6) Cost is cut by using the cheapest softwares available at the expense of the field staff who have to live with the headaches of inferior or underdeveloped products
7) Very little opportunity for the office staff to work from home. Many office staff drive over a hour to the jobsite to do a job they could largely do from home. When Covid happened, construction still continued while office staff worked from home. While the office may not be able to work from home 100% of the time, it is no longer acceptable to say that working from home isn’t possible.
