Shaw Group Reviews

Current Employee – 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

Former Employee – worked at Shaw Group full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good pay, friendly people, nice offices, excellent benefits.

Cons – Upper management descisons appear irrational sometimes. Sometimes these poor choices end up affecting many people's jobs negatively.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Group

Pros – Excellent salary compared to other local EPC companies (like bantrel, colt, snc). Three weeks vacation.

Cons – Not many large projects to work on. Manhours hours are inadequate for most projects. Some departments like piping are poorly staffed. Project engineers are not very experienced.

Advice to Senior Management – Chase projects with limitless manhours. EPC work is preferred over FEED projects.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Group

Pros – Some coworkers at this location are good to work. Benefits are decent.

Cons – The Toronto office has very poor management from the project level to department managers. Projects are always late and over budget. Numerous clients have stated that they will not work with Shaw again because of poor execution by Toronto office.

The majority of the Toronto "Ivory Tower" staff are lazy and technically incompetent. They are more concerned with their individual goals/salaries than the company or projects.

Employees are treated like overheads and numbers. Hard-work, merit and performance are not considered during retention. Favoritism, friends and politics play an important role in the office especially during raises and lay-offs.

There is NO training for junior engineers. Company policies are not followed by managers. Typically career length is 1-2 years till you are fired. High turnover in the last year (over 200 laid-off).

Anyone considering working at Shaw’s Canadian office should consider contractor work not full-time status because chances of being laid off in 6-12 months is high.

Advice to Senior Management – Start over by firing some of the senior managers in the Toronto office. Focus on client retention

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – 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

Current Employee – 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

Former Employee – 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

Former Employee – 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

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Group full-time

Pros – great experience, good management, learning experience

Cons – none. If you can work hard, this is the place for you.

Advice to Senior Management – none

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Shaw Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great people, travel opportunities, job security

Cons – Long term project so same old job duties

Advice to Senior Management – None

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