Kiss work-life balance goodbye - Anonymous employee Holder Construction Employee Review

1.0
2 Aug 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The expectations held by Holder make work-life balance an impossibility, and you will be miserable because of it. Challenging and interesting projects that provide many opportunities to grow one’s knowledge of the construction field. Many of the programs they use are top of the line, and Holder also provides competitive pay and benefits.

Cons

Holder will throw you to the wolves and stand by while they eat you alive. Kids straight out of college will be put onto complex project with an inconceivable amount of work, and are expected to complete tasks with expert level precision. You will spend every minute of every day on a meeting or phone call, and only once every subcontractor has gone home do you have the chance to begin the work that has been piling up throughout the day. 50 hour weeks is the absolute minimum time you will spend at work. 60 and 70 hour weeks are much more common. I would be at work every day, well into the night, to BARELY keep my head above water. The relentless flood of work never gives you the chance to get ahead of a single tasks, and you will be stuck in a soul sucking cycle of catch-up that never ceases. Along with this, unachievable schedules will be forced upon you, and you will quickly be blamed and reprimanded when deadlines are not met. This is how a number of Holder’s managers lead their project teams: through fear and intimidation. On multiple occasions myself and other colleagues were publicly berated by upper management in front of the office. Regular verbal abuse is used to manipulate you into thinking you’re not working hard or well enough. In turn, everyone stays for long nights in an attempt to avoid the next scolding or judgement. The result of this is an environment that is toxic to its core, absent of any moral or comradery, and does not encourage internal feedback of any kind. This tactic of manipulation is used on project subcontractors as well, who are consistently subjected to Holder’s “my way or the highway” attitude. Holder would much rather bully other companies into submitting to their will than work as a team to overcome obstacles. Everyone is expendable as long as the project gets done and they have some sorry SOB to point fingers at. Holder will bend backwards to please the Owner, even if that means putting their employees through the wringer. Holder preaches about “family”, but will happily ship you off to a project in the armpit of our country. This company will push you to the absolute brink of stress levels a single person can tolerate on a day to day basis. Many people were unable to tolerate it, and throughout my time here I watched countless people walk away. They will try to convince you that the “grass isn’t greener on the other side”, but from my experience with other companies I can promise you that’s not the case. My time at Holder was a fever dream of horrible experiences and I’m glad I got out when I did. For the love of god do yourself a favor… find employment elsewhere.

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Holder Construction Response
5y
Thank you for sharing your feedback. We acknowledge the construction industry has a reputation for long working hours. Performance is a cultural value honoring our hardworking, dedicated associates. We hold our associates to high standards, but encourage everyone to take time off to avoid burnout, and acknowledge the positive effects work-life balance has on performance long term. A differentiating factor among Holder is our hiring and staffing strategy. Holder hires many young associates out of college strategically to set them up for a long career with organic growth in the company. Many associates have 10+ years tenure at Holder and have grown in the company by the opportunity given to them to train younger associates and organically move into higher positions as their managers do at the same time. This strategy gives associates great responsibility early on, and we empower associates to ask for help and speak with their manager should workload become unmanageable. Continuous improvement is one of our cultural attributes, and we are open to all feedback to better ourselves as a company. This year, we went through an associate-led internal audit of all Holder company processes and procedures, analyzing every aspect of our business. This effort solicited feedback from associates, clients, partners, and subcontractors, fueling change across the company.

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3.0
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