Beware! Not for working women, single parents or anyone who needs flexibility. - Environmental Scientist Black & Veatch Employee Review

1.0
May 10, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

BV used to be a good company to work for. Overall good talent, good reputation and interesting projects.

Cons

1950's policies. Policies hurt working women, single parents, and anyone who needs flexibility. No schedule flexibility. Must be in 3 days a week for 8 working hours each day. This is tracked, reported and enforced. Micromanagement - required to badge in while being recorded on closed circuit cameras and wear a "beacon" tracker so they can track where you are and how long you have been in the office. Management gets reports weekly for enforcement. No flexibility in this policy, threats of termination for non-compliance.

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Black & Veatch Response
2y
We appreciate you taking time to share your personal feelings and views. BV is still a great company to work for due to our people and the projects you mention! We also do have flexibility--not many companies offer the 9/80 scheduling that we do--a three-day weekend every other week?! That's a benefit of a flexible company like BV for single parents, busy families, and everyone in between. If a company these days doesn't have cameras in the building, that's quite a safety issue! It may have been sufficient in the 1950's, but not in 2024. The access control system enhancements are crucial to the safety of our professionals and ensure that first responders have critical safety information during an emergency. The safety and health of employees, clients, and contractors is a Black & Veatch core value, and we have been working on these upgrades as part of our technology roadmap for several years. Concerning the hours spent working in the office, we found that there was a broad misinterpretation of the policy. Some supervisors were allowing people to work less hours in the office and some at home on in office days, but the policy has always been to work a full day in the office--8 or 9 hours whether or not you have a 9/80 schedule. Unfortunately, some are seeing it as something being taken away since they've been doing since we came back to the office, but the policy is not new. Thanks again for your feedback!

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Pros

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Cons

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Black & Veatch Response
3w
Thank you for leaving a review! We appreciate the feedback!
1.0
Jul 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Fair starting compensation, the team I lead is very dedicated, the onboarding process is very smooth, there are opportunities to mentor and be mentored.

Cons

The current performance management process is deeply flawed. Leaders collect ratings from managers and supervisors, then gather in a room with peers to “calibrate.” During this meeting, a predetermined percentage of employees must receive low ratings. At one point, someone referred to this as “forced ratings,” and the IT leader became visibly upset, insisting that it was not. However, I was present for the discussion: we lowered ratings, checked the spreadsheet, lowered more ratings, checked the spreadsheet again, and repeated this cycle until we hit the percentage the IT leader said had to be met. From conversations with peers outside of IT, this appears to be a common practice across the organization. Unfortunately, the approach often results in employees receiving ratings that do not accurately reflect their actual performance. These artificially lowered ratings directly affect merit increases and bonuses—even if the bonuses are relatively small—creating consequences that feel at best unfair. Regardless of what label is used, the experience felt undeniably forced.

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