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Graham Construction

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Graham Construction Reviews

3.7

72% would recommend to a friend

(388 total reviews)

Andy Trewick

87% approve of CEO

56% positive business outlook

Graham Construction has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 388 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Graham Construction employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Construction, repair and maintenance industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

388 reviews
1.0
15 Jan 2016

Stay away from Graham, if you can

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Reasonably good compensation. Nice head office building.

Cons

Graham is ruled by a small group of self-centered buddies, with big egos, in an arbitrary leadership style that sometimes reminds of a dictatorship. If you are from Saskatchewan, and have some kind of family ties to the Graham clan or a long history with Graham there, that is a big advantage in your favor, regardless of your professional skill set. The company has clearly outgrown its senior management, who are operating beyond their experience and skill level. Decisions are made in a seat-of-your-pants style and processes are seriously lacking. This is an example how small Saskatchewan company leadership in a large company leads confusion, perpetual urgency around fixing home-made mistakes and skeletons in closets. Power struggles between central functions and field management are prevalent, often resulting in dysfunctional and counterproductive actions and unclear reporting relationships. There is an atmosphere of greed, driven by the employee ownership program and ruthless senior managers. That comes at the expense of middle and lower management employees, who are sometimes fired on a whim, in order to keep share unit profitability up, or simply to demonstrate power. Due to the lack of processes, there is no strong risk management program in place. That puts the business risk on the employee-owners, who have sometimes invested their live savings, not knowing the gamble they are taking on. Also, the employee share unit price seems to be manipulated by the senior managers to their personal advantage. Overall, I do not recommend working for Graham, unless you enjoy following arbitrary and random orders that in many cases make no sense, but reflect the "flavor of the day", given by senior managers. Incompetent decisions from management are typically "fixed" by firing any scapegoats that can be identified, whether justified or not. Don't join them.

1.0
10 Apr 2017

Zero Integrity

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They seem to be securing larger projects and have successfully rode out the recession despite a significant downturn in their industrial area.

Cons

Let's start with accountability. A subsidiary fraudulently misrepresents their books, clips the parent for millions, and no consequences. Over the past 5 or so years, hundreds of millions of dollars written off from project overruns. Then in late 2016 senior management feels the best way to deal with reduced profits is to begin mass lay-offs of good performing employees. The butt kissers get ahead, and the senior management is a grand good ol' boys club.

1.0
29 Jan 2018

Like Going Back in Time

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Not many but it has to be said the people at your level that you work with are the reason you come into work everyday not management or the company

Cons

Hard to know where to start, I worked there for years and these would be my takeaways: - Old boys club, senior leadership are all white and almost all got their on tenure rather than innovation - seems like they are out to look after themselves rather than make the company better. - wasnt until I left after many years that I found how much better even an average company was compared to Graham - Lots of system and process change lately which could be good but just causes frustration right now - HR changed a few years ago which has helped but they seem to be doing stuff that is 10 years out of date and is not helping day to day with those guys that work hard on-site.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 388 Reviews

Glassdoor has 434 Graham Construction reviews submitted anonymously by Graham Construction employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Graham Construction is right for you.