Forterra Reviews

- Inconsistent treatment of staff members due to inability to properly enforce/distribute/locate employee resources - Union busting by upper management - Management would rather spend time and money firing individuals and restructuring entire teams and position descriptions than investing in its staff. - VPs and upper management have final says in everything and don't consult the people the decision will affect - The mental toll undeserving discipline and gaslighting follows you after the work day and it just feels like at any moment someone can email you or set up a meeting and fire you with no warning as well as not informing team members of departures/firings. - No way to develop your career or skills without sucking up or bending over backwards to do tasks outside of your job description - Obsessed with billable hours - No proper onboarding of teams because the team can either be restructured or positions remain unfilled for months leaving non contiguous and not cohesive norms/values/commitment. - No support for members of the BIPOC community, nor is there a real effort to work on any of such issues affecting BIPOC employees/community members.

I am writing this review for anyone looking to apply, interview, or work for Forterra. I worked with people across the organization at all levels. I believe I have a good understanding of the work being done at Forterra and the staff that work there. I quit because I morally no longer felt I could support an organization that treats its employees and partners as Forterra has. Overall, I do not believe the leadership team understands or cares about the employee experience in a significant way. The issues I’ve presented below are larger than my own experience and have gone on for many, many years. I believe forming a union will be the only way to protect employees moving forward. I have never written a bad review on Glassdoor and was hesitant to do so here, but I feel it is my duty to let future applicants know the situation. At a high level, my concerns with Forterra are: --- Extremely high turnover and firings. More than any organization I’ve worked for. About 70% of the staff I worked with when I was hired were gone by the time I left. I have seen whole teams fired. --- Forterra fired a great boss that formed a high-functioning and productive team, cared about the staff they managed, provided excellent strategic guidance, and cared about the mission. Since then, strategic planning has crumbled as well as team morale. Major events and content we used to produce has halted or been cancelled. --- Forterra’s Executive Leadership Team has said in all staff meetings and one-on-one interactions that employees that speak out are “detractors” and should just leave. --- Forterra fired a long-time employee two weeks after stating support for a Forterra union. The union is actively addressing this now. --- I had multiple interactions with the leadership team where I saw defensiveness and targeted retaliation when presented with employee concerns. I often felt fearful of my job security and wellbeing during these interactions. --- The leadership team hypes up raises they provided in the last year, but I only received a 1% raise despite creating a foundation of work for the organization and receiving good performance reviews. I also was not compensated for my higher internet costs that I accumulated when I began working remotely. Forterra did not lose significant work and got out of their office lease. I believe they could have compensated their workers more. I was told these raises were outside of the norm. --- I saw multiple instances of partners and staff calling out Forterra’s white leadership team for their racism and/or poor management.