Pros
Anyone reading reviews about Oldcastle in this or any other forum should realize that the context, location, reviewers working position and even business operation is important and relative to these reviews. I will make an attempt to generalize on all of Oldcastle from what I know from working 12 years with this organization. Unfortunately, a lot of reviewers display their own ignorance of the structure and business operations and don't realize that they are generalizing "Oldcastle" as a whole. No one can truly rate Oldcastle unless they can claim to have worked in every P&L operation to determine a generalization of Pros and Cons. I will sum it up like this, in Oldcastle, you’re either a leader or a follower. The leaders are the ones that rise above their own circumstances and are able to make a successful career at Oldcastle.
Cons
Oldcastle is a subsidiary of CRH plc out of Ireland. The business model of CRH is to finance and support acquired local and regional operational leaders in the building materials industry. The operational leader’s goals are to deliver performance and growth to CRH's investors. The pro and con to CRH is that CRH has always realized that they can't successfully manage and dictate how operations should be run. CRH believes that the success of the CRH investment portfolio depends on the local operational leaders to manage their employees and local business partners. CRH has a proven success record of not managing operations behind a corporate desk in Ireland. Of course there are cases where operation managers have run amok, but in my opinion this is a classic 80/20 rule.