Pros
BH has an amazing legacy of innovation and achievement. It is a place where good engineers can (if events align) become great engineers. It has thrived on a "just go and do.." approach that has served it well over the years, and enabled it to grow and even survive the recent recession relatively intact. There are incredible people working at BH. both inside and outside the various disciplines. Many of whom have worked for the practice for most, if not all of their careers. There is an informal and fun atmosphere among many of the teams. Each office around the globe has their own particular flavor while keeping core elements that make it a BH office. The company truly believes in developing people, and wants to be a place where you come for a job but stay for a career. Consequently there is tremendous institutional knowledge in house .
Cons
It is frustrating in that the same things that are great about BH are also where BH struggles. There are amazing opportunities to do great work at BH, but those opportunities are not evenly distributed or equally available to all staff, especially new staff. The ad-hoc approach that has served the firm well, is now its Achilles heel. BH has vastly outgrown its own support infrastructure. HR, Finance, IT and Project Management support are all woefully under resourced and struggle to keep up with demand. . BH does truly believe in developing staff, but has yet to put any realistic amount of resources behind that belief. Instead they just sort of hope it will happen organically. There are amazing people there, but frankly , on the flip side, some people have been there far too long. Some of these people have little or no experience outside of BH. So many of them, (some in very senior roles) are terrified of change, and in some cases actively resist anything that doesn't sit in their zone of comfort and familiarity. The corporate governance structure of the firm (LLP / Partnership built on a consensus model) is slow to adapt to organizational needs . Given the size and scope of the firm today it is long past time to revisit the model and see if it is still fit for purpose. The CEO role is an elected position. Serving a set term. So it is very hard for the CEO whoever it is, to actually lead the firm, given that all other Partners feel they are the owner/operators of the company. (Which in reality is exactly what they are.) Hence the CEO role tends to be a bit toothless. BH struggles endlessly with defining their brand. The latest attempts to do so, are an improvement, but still surprisingly unfocused and vague. Sad when you see it coming from a firm with such a substantial history and impressive catalog of work.
