CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Reviews

Pros

Salary, benefits, and excellent safety culture.

Cons

Due to the nature of DOE work it can be slow at times. That has nothing to do with the company, just the nature of the beast for this type of work.

Pros

Nice people to work with for the most part, though it takes a while to break into their circles. Trailer kitchens have refrigerators, ranges, and sinks, and usually restrooms. Tri-Cities: Some pretty areas near the rivers. Plenty of restaurants, gyms, homes going up. There is a mall in the Tri-Cities.

Cons

Start time is 5:45 a.m. for just about everyone, and the heavy traffic jam in and out of the site reflects that. No matter whether close to Richland or out by the north end of site, pay is for the time arriving and leaving your assigned location, and there may be a 30-mile difference. 4-10 hour days/week which leads to groggy workers starting before the sun is up. Most are obese. If you are not a direct (green badged) employee of PRC or another prime contractor, and the site closes for bad weather, etc, you won't get paid. Site is gravel with uneven walk areas, trailers to work in, and some buildings left which may be torn down, yet. Little signage to help find buildings. No shade since everything plant-wise is killed. Subcontractors (black badges) are let go with no warning. Jobs are unstable. Some supervisors are stretched too thin. Poor decisions and poor oversight at the Plutonium Finishing Plant which let contamination loose a few times causing relocation of workers to other trailers and work disruption; DOE shut work down for several months later, only to restart with the same procedures. PRC Ethics officer apparently had no idea of what ethics was and talked about exercise and conditioning instead at all-hands meetings. No Candlewood Suites, so you are stuck with hotels or apartments or houses.

Advice to Management

Treat people better. They have long memories, and it will affect your staffing in the future. Advice to potential subcontract workers--ask for more than you think you will need and get a contract--especially for bad weather or breaking your lease if let go. Words are forgotten and broken easily there.

Pros

Environment, benefits, learning opportunities, and technology

Cons

Management played favorites and you were run out of the company if you were not in their circle

Advice to Management

If you want employees to stay at this company I would focus on how to develop employees so they can grow in their career and feel valued at the company.

Pros

People generally care about you and it's nice to know you are working on something that positively impacts the environment

Cons

If you are working on a project and you are new to this industry, you won't fit in.

Pros

Good pay and benefits. Work is interesting and the Richland Wa. area is a little known gem. The DOE is the customer and there is generally a good working relationship between CHPRC and the DOE.

Cons

Management is quite political and technical expertise by environmental staff is undervalued. A lot of money and time is spent investigating innovative remedial actions but it seemed that they were never implemented due to regulatory and management inertia.A tremendous amount of money is spent putting out annual reports that are little more than data dumps with very little analysis.

Advice to Management

Set up a strong technical team that can be used to support multiple areas. Use this team to provide data analysis that will provide value to client instead of the cursory analyses that are currently provided in the various annual reports. Use these teams to identify redundant and unnecessary data collection activities.

Pros

Compensation was good. 4-day work week was nice. My manager was great (but many at this location are not).

Cons

The company treats salaried employees like hourly ones - don't expect to flex your time at all. The position you're hired into may be your last - in 2014 the HR department was beginning to realize that employees feel trapped in their positions and this may improve in the future, but my experience was that you were only seen as skilled in your current position and there was no support for learning something new or making career advancements.

Advice to Management

Cross-train employees to maintain skilled employees.

Pros

The team is great. Communication is good. Great supervisor who is really helpful. Great staff. Company culture is good.

Cons

Career development is not ideal.

Pros

Very family oriented, understanding that "life" happens

Cons

Lower on the pay scale, but loyalty and understanding of "life" makes up for that