The "Best Place to Work"....I think not
Pros
Hemmera has a good group of young field staff and reasonable work-life balance. There is an option at least in the Lower Mainland to work in one of two offices - Burnaby or Vancouver - saving commute time. There are a few other perks like $200/year for fitness and the benefits are decent.
Cons
Unfortunately, the cons far outweigh the pros at Hemmera. There are two sides to the company - Site Assessment and Remediation (SAR) and Planning & Management (P&M). SAR mostly contains engineers, geologists and environmental scientists. Planning & Management has biologists, alternative energy, socio-economic stuff and other such things I know nothing of. Why do I know nothing of them? Because at Hemmera, you may as well have the two groups on a different floor of the building, they don't share resources, they don't foster career development and they are judged seperately in terms of finances. Each is led by a different business leader. The business leader in SAR has a reputation for constant lies, carrot on a stick tactics, ripping off employees for expense claims and basically doing almost everything unethically, especially when dealing with salary increases and/or bonuses. Even though the company has "it's best year ever" something inevitably comes up before salary increase time such as "poor economic conditions" or "delayed contracts with main clients" whereby most of the younger staff get a 0-2% raise. The vast majority of the revenue goes to upper management who then blog about their latest vacation, discuss how well the company is doing (not around raise time) and how it's the "best place to work" and "Creating Opportunities". Upper management likes to have "Business Retreats" in Whistler where they hire expensive outside consultants, spend their days on the hill, post a blog on the most recent corporate restructuring and then wonder why they have a 15% turnover. It might be easier to actually speak with your employees and ask them how they are doing instead of spending 20k on a retreat maybe? Where Hemmera excels in creating opportunities for the 'yes' men whom agree with everything upper management says, constantly seek praise and ruthlessly utilize staff based on how much money they can generate, not who is best for the job. This is better known as the "Boy's Club". You will do much better at Hemmera if you are in the boys club with a college diploma than you will with an M.Sc. and choosing to be independent and technical. And last but not least, career advancement is pretty much nil and void. The company prefers to hire outside to increase utilization and revenue. Young "top performers" and those that "exceed expectations" can get used to filling roles where they make the most money, not where they are best qualified. If you are ambitious, want a fair salary and not have to deal with getting constantly ripped off, then you may as well look elsewhere because this is the "Hemmera Way".