Osmose Utilities Services, Inc. reviews

The work is very physically demanding and will wreck your body and your family life. Times have shown that you will be shipped off to another state to work while another crew will be working in your backyard. The minimum work week is 40 hours and you are expected to attain this regardless of weather or crew number management issues (which you will enviably have). As a foreman, you are expected to advertise, interview, hire and terminate employees (repeat as needed); and fill out all pertinent hiring, tax and identification forms. Foremen are expected to perform off the clock. They are very sly when it comes to covering their recordable incidents be it an accident or an injury. If you get hurt on the job and you have medical insurance they try to talk you into not doing it as workers comp. they are good about keeping people on "modified duty aka light duty" to avoid OSHA recordable injuries. They tend to pay for co pays and even prescriptions (off the books) if you do get hurt and use insurance vs. workers comp. If you are lucky enough you will be promoted to supervisor and you can enjoy the 70+ hour work week at a salaried pay grade. Supervisors receive no formal training and are essentially thrown to the wolves and mired in administrative paperwork that keeps them from doing their essential duty, which is monitoring the field crews. Osmose Utilities is all about the bottom dollar. They are no longer employee owned. They act like field management is the be all and end all most valuable asset but they act like they own you and that you are trapped. It was, and I emphasize WAS, a good company to work for but now they are downright a horrible company to work for and you should avoid them like the plague even if your unemployment benefits are running out. Upper management has a religious agenda. If you do not share that agenda they will demote you for an alternative reason or prevent your upper movement for a reason they deem fit to hide the agenda they operate under. Company personality/religious/political agenda was very evident in upper management. They pushed a Christian agenda. At meetings and conferences, grace was said before meals and management was open with their religious views. If you are employee by these people and your employment is terminated don’t expect Osmose Utilities management or staff to treat this as a confidential matter. They are gossip hens and everyone has to know everyone else’s business. Supervisors will discuss an employee’s separation with other employees and vice verse.

I spent years working for this company. I held positions of crew member, foreman, and supervisor. THIS IS VERY DIFFICULT PHYSICALLY DEMANDING WORK!! There are no field oriented jobs which wont wreck your body. Non stop travel. They demand at least 40 hours every week no matter what. Rain...work around it, 105 degree heat... suck it up, snow...work anyway. Oh, and regardless of conditions you are expected to exceed very high production goals. At christmas time they tell supervisors (middle managment) to make all crews work until the end of the day on christmas eve to complete projects. This proves there is poor management in place. how can you tell someone after they have already purchased a plane ticket they cant leave? Especially after they had already made arrangements with their manager to fly out at a specific time. Liars! Foreman are expected to perform some work off the clock. While they say they will pay for all hours, they carefully lean on you until you no longer pay yourself the hours. If you get hurt on the job and you have medical insurance they try to talk you into not doing it as workers comp. they are good about keeping people on "modified duty" to avoid osha recordable injuries. they tend to pay for co pays and even prescriptions (off the books) if you do get hurt and use insurance vs workers comp. Basically, as a foreman if you are paid for 40 hours during a week you likely actually work 45-48. As a Supervisor you are salaried. A supervisor receives a monthly salary and a quarterly bonus at this point. A typical supervisor will work 70+ hours per week. They tell you on one hand if we are giving you too much and you can't handle it let us know. The problem, when you let them know it is too much you are asked if you think you should be a supervisor if you cant handle the workload. What the hell is that? It is also sad that as a supervisor a really good foreman will likely earn more than you. I spent years at both positions. Supervisors receive no training. You learn on the fly. There are a few tasks which must be accomplished each week. Everything else works around that. They have thrown so much administrative BS at supervisors they can no longer spend time in the field with the crews to teach. At one time I would spend 3-4 days in the field with crews. Now, I consider it lucky if there is time for 2 4 hours field visits in a week. Most likely it is one or two 1-2 hour visits. I also loved that when i hired on i was given an "expense advance". I think it was $200 but dont recall. I signed a piece of paper saying i would pay it back when i quit or was separated. about 90% of people who quit never repaid it! a few years ago, the company said..we want our money back now! if we refused to send them a check they took it out of our bonus! At the time, they were giving a training completion bonus of $500 to foreman trainees with no strings attached...it was theirs. They took the $200 back from everyone who had been loyal through the years. They are solely about the bottom line. The company is no longer employee owned. It hasnt operated like it was for over 10 years. They say their people are their most valuable assets. They actually act as if they own you and you cant go anywhere else. It was at one time a great company to work for. Now, it is just a sh**it**ty company...PERIOD. I think i would prefer to be on welfare than give them another year or two of my life. It will seriously destroy your body and make your home life non existent. Find something else!!