Shaw Group Reviews

I worked at Shaw Group

Pros – Large company with lots of opportunity to travel. Good graduate teaching. High level of knowledge in experienced personnel to learn from.

Cons – Promotions given on length of service rather than ability. Favourites are given opportunities to develop and the choice of projects. If experience isn't gained in an area within the first year it is difficult to gain experience as you are not put on projects you can't contribute to immediately. Annual reviews are a paper exercise with little or no effect.

Advice to Senior Management – Look at the long term prospects and careers of the employees rather than the singular project targets. Procedural requirements are overkill and hinder performance.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Shaw Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Pay is fair. Management in LA is non existent in this remote location. Unless the customer complains, corp forgets we exist.

Cons – Benefits are somewhat below average. Health insurance is costly and corp mindset is skewed towards construction, forgetting we are contract maintenance.

Advice to Senior Management – Bite the bullet and give benefits that are good enough to recrute and keep good people.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Shaw Group

Pros – Pretty good hourly rate for an unskilled position
the Project Managers were not too demanding about attendance, and understanding if there were conflicts in scheduling work
People were generally good natured and kind

Cons – pressure to work more increased a bit as the project deadline approached
there was not a lot of regular feedback about whether we were doing a good job or not, which could have improved performance if it was provided.

Advice to Senior Management – I didn't interact much with the upper management, but I think they could have been more motivating and helped us feel like a team that was accomplishing something important, which would have improved attendance and performance on the job.

I worked at Shaw Group full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Great place to work most of them good people, Good projects long term projects. I worked for three different divisions E&I, Plant Services and Nuclear in the nine years I was there.

Cons – HR plays and thinks they are GOD.

Advice to Senior Management – Management needs to diversify in to more different job markets like URS and CH2M Hill. Just power and Environmental Fed work is not enough. Open your eyes to the changing job market.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Shaw Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – will keep employee as long as possible

Cons – No technical training provided to employee

Advice to Senior Management – no vision

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Shaw Group as a contractor

Pros – Great pay, professional work environment

Cons – Highly unstable; hired one day, fired the next

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Shaw Group full-time for less than a year

Pros – Great opportunities. Great pay. If you kiss ass and know how to stay on everyone's good side (play the game, essentially), you will do well. Hopefully you start out with a boss that is easy to get a long with, or else you could be out early.

Cons – Poor management in a lot of places. Long chain of command to get anything done. A lot of the higher-ups basically had no idea what their staff was doing and actually had very little involvement in their actions. This caused the 2nd tier management to be overworked and stressed, taking it out on their staff. A LOT of miscommunication goes on, and when you go to ask a manager what exactly he/she means or how to start what they told you to, they seem to be annoyed that you don't already know how to do it or who to start talking to.

Advice to Senior Management – Upper management: Make sure the person below you can handle the workload that you are giving him/her. Also make sure things are actually on track and not just being swept under the rug.
Middle management: Make sure that your team knows what to do, and if they ask you questions, make sure that they really understand the first time and don't just act like they do, only to come back an hour later for clarification. Also, don't micromanage.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Shaw Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – No pressure at work. Good colleagues

Cons – No growth opportunities, Company does not care for its employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Shaw Group full-time for more than a year

Pros – Higher than average salary. Good projects when they had them. Serious work environment.

Cons – Too much overtime, and time for do-overs but not to get the project right the first go around. Lost credibility with clients do to overcharging relative to competitors, and hence lost projects and clients over it.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay more attention to value for the client, than to value for senior management stockholders.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Shaw Group full-time

Pros – people oriented, pays very well, good work life balance

Cons – Sr management definitely work in silos - different in each dept.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend