Pros
This is a big company, a really really BIG company in the landscape business. If you like people telling you what to do and exactly how to do it, this is the place for you. Benefits for management people (exempt) are better than average. Ownership by KKR means we have deep pockets. If you work here, chances are that you can get a really great job at a smaller competitor and be appreciated way more than you are here. When things are going well, you feel like you are running your own company, or at least that was how it worked in the past.
Cons
The culture of Brickman is dead. If you can't get over the fact that we are now just viewed as a services company and need to hit the top line and bottom line, then you should move on, as I hope to do. I should go to work for a janitorial company, I'd then not have to sweat in 90 degree weather. This has become a churn-and-burn company. If you ask a HR person about retention, they say not to worry about it, as if there are thousands of people lined up to work for us. There isn't. The layers of people who have been hired who don't know anything, and I mean zero, nada, zip, less than nothing, about this industry is baffling. KKR, have you read the executives bios? The combined company's name should not have been BrightView, it should be Arabrick (Aramark+Brickman) or Brickwaste (Brickman+Waste Management). Fancy consultants came up with the name BrightView. Google it. There are BrightViews for senior living, for technology companies, for dentist offices, for rehab centers. The name is just one indicator of this company's totally detached ivory tower style of decision making and total disregard for employee input. TruGreen just rebranded to Landcare and they went through a process that included the real people at the company, what a novel concept. (Did our high priced consultants ever read that the first rule of change management is to involve the people who are in the company?) I guess we as employees of BrightView are too small and insignificant to be included in these decisions. I'm waiting to see how many branch managers at ValleyCrest get fed up with the measurement in their bonuses in July, before I make my exit. If you are considering working here, ask the person you interview with several key questions. Ask about your career path. Ask about the average merit increase. Ask what the attrition rate is in your branch. Ask how many times the branch has earned a bonus in the past 10 years. Ask if they hit their profitability goal. Ask how much they've sold in new service contracts . Ask about performance reviews and how they are done. Ask about training and development. Ask about how customer dissatisfaction is handled. Remember, the brain is dead but the body still lives. People are still in self preservation mode so they will say anything that the corporate machine spits out.