Pros
I worked for this company for a little over 3 years. The major reason I applied with them to begin with is because of all the positive reviews I read about the company. This was my first mistake in believing these reviews. Day 1 of working for the company, during my onboarding seminar I was asked and strongly pressured to leave a positive review on Glassdoor - DAY 1 of working for Meritage Homes! So, if you find yourself applying based off reviews, please be warned that these reviews are indeed solicited and most likely offer limited insight. When I first started with the Houston construction division 3 years ago, I was very impressed. I strongly feel that the Houston Meritage division was at its peak 3 years ago. It was a strong company with a great reputation and at first glance, truly cared about the core values that they love to preach. Then covid hit. Strong demand for houses and not enough construction managers to satisfy that demand. Construction managers were carrying upwards of 40 houses each. Assistant construction managers were carrying at least 20 houses each. But you were expected to just "grin and bear it". There were a lot of ~good~ construction managers that worked for Meritage at the beginning of covid. But that is when Meritage as a company began to falter in their values. Construction managers were pushed to very dramatic extremes for closings and corporate numbers/goals. Examples: construction managers not allowed to take off around holidays to spend time with family; construction managers having such a high work load they wind up in the hospital suffering from a heart attack; toxic management that expects you to work without taking a lunch break and then calls you after hours yelling at you for not working outside of business hours; threats from management about punishment if a closing does not happen. The list could go on. The environment....or company culture/ expectations from upper management is severely unhealthy. Then interest rates increased, the housing market slowed down. The work loads decreased over night but the toxic work environment stayed the same. Instead of showing appreciation to the operations team for "making it happen" and sticking through the tough two years, the bonus structure decreased, only select construction managers get promoted and trade partners suffer due to bad business decisions from management. Meritage utilizes very good hiring tools/surveys to gage individual morality levels prior to hiring. What does it say about an organization when multiple carefully selected individuals with high morals quickly leave a company?
Cons
In addition the the aforementioned things, I think it is also important to note that upper management does not even follow the dictated policies and procedures written to guide employees to succeed in their responsibilities. And this starts with the president of the division. New communities are always handed off to the construction department to begin building BEFORE the land development dept is complete. New starts are sent out to construction before we have even gotten permitting from the municipality. Problems never get solved with this company. They always remain the same or get worse. Purchasing was a disaster when I first started over 3 years ago. Guess what is still an ongoing nightmare? Purchasing. The only consistent thing upper management does here is blame others for their downfalls.