Leadership – if you can call it that. During my experience, I would describe the individuals I worked for as a couple of disingenuous snake oil salesmen with master degrees in spewing rhetoric. Their polish had polish. They could sell ice to an Eskimo. While this could be seen as beneficial to a company that needs to drum up business and coddle clients, as an employee you were treated as just another one of their pawns in their quest for douchebagness.
Size – too BIG! A company of this size is not set up for success in delivering products and services in a timely manner. Because of its profit driven base, people are over allocated, spread thin and set up for failure. They over promise, tell clients what they want to hear and then flop miserably in most cases. As a client, you will never receive the attention and detail, from Stantec, that a smaller firm can provide.
Culture – sadly…the old boys club is alive in well in this organization and can be best described as being run like a fraternity in a bad summer comedy. The company values are riddled with hypocrisy. The elitist attitude among executives and their yes men minions is based on nothing more than groundless swagger.
HR – is useless. The reps will claim their job is to be there as sounding board for staff and look after your best interests, but in reality they work under a hidden agenda to protect senior management from any negative truth directed toward them. Put it this way; as a manager you are untouchable, as an employee you are expendable.
On-boarding – good luck! Unless you are put on a high profile project or a strategic hire coming on board with your old boys club lodge hat in hand, be prepared to be thrown to the wolves. You are not set up for success as a new hire. Rather, you are left to your own devises to flounder and cover up for your manager’s and the companies shortcomings in this area. Self-preservation is your only hope.
