Look Elsewhere - Anonymous employee Valdes Architecture & Engineering Employee Review

There is a constantly changing organizational structure, and employees are not kept abreast of the changes. Levels of management will be added/removed/changed, and no one will know how those roles fit into the company or their own work. The company is run on fear. Any time there is an error made, rather than performing a meaningful root cause analysis, management immediately goes into blame mode, and finds (and generally fires) the person they deem immediately responsible, failing to recognize that most failures are complex, and are at least partially caused by inadequate communication, training, etc. Every Thursday morning there is an all-hands meeting, which masquerades as a safety meeting, but is generally used to call out failures (sometimes by name) from the previous week, and remind everyone that if the errors continue, people will lose their jobs. No lessons learned, no root cause, just threats. There is poor communication of client specific requirements/standards, most of which relies on tribal knowledge. Drab office, a la 1975. Management takes the "the client is always right" mentality to the extreme, failing to protect their business and employees when appropriate. For example, if the client provides incorrect information, which the engineers end up working from, management will degrade and likely fire the employee who worked from the client-supplied information, rather than identify the mistake with the client and work to resolution. Training is nonexistent. Employees receive virtually no training in Valdes specific procedures, and absolutely no training otherwise. Any training that is provided must be done on your own, or client time. No training time is provided. Poor PTO policy. There is no sick time. All time off comes out of PTO, regardless of reason. We had a power outage in the building one day, and were expected to take the remainder of the day (about 6 hours) as PTO. Minor, but worth noting, there is an inexplicable policy that completely bans facial hair. The reasoning given is that you may be required to go to a client site, where facial hair is not allowed (in case respirators are required), but the policy is strictly enforced, regardless of whether or not you will ever go on field assignments. These concerns (and others) come down to poor management. It all adds up to a poorly organized company, which is constantly in a mode of saving face with clients due to low quality work, and blown budgets/schedules. This is not a company you should join if you're expecting a long-term career. You and your employment are treated as a commodity, regardless of your skill, experience, or years of service. I would only consider Valdes if you're looking for a stopgap position.