Worst Company Ever! Now called Integral Group - werkgeversreview Junior Associate bij Cobalt Engineering

This company used to be called Cobalt Engineering because they were taken over by Integral, and boy oh boy! What a drama facility this place is. If you like being bullied and harassed, over worked until your hair falls off, bored out of your mind, promised career opportunities that don’t come up, yelled at by staff, a very limited income/growth environment, work in complete instability, realize that you can only achieve so much and then have to quit and start something else, THEN this place is for you! I worked here for a short time and it was the worst company I’ve had this displeasure of working for. I don’t get how this company was rated where it was, but that’s based on submissions by the very very few staff that had stayed there for as long as they did, and likely the services they provided. Granted the services are not bad, although far from perfect and there were a lot of issues and you could get better services from larger firms or firms of similar size. The amount of bullying and harassment that took place here was unbelievably high, especially the support and corporate services department. Services like accounting, marketing, and administration took a lot of hits and turnover was very high. Very rude and condescending bosses who treated their staff like garbage and would never listen, typical corporate nonsense. One person is a sibling of one of the partners, so there’s a high degree of nepotism there, and that person, who is just plain evil and only cares about money, was responsible for making staff lives miserable in the accounting department. Both the human resources department and the marketing department turned over 100% of their staff while I was there, and accounting and administrative changed about 75%, including TWO controllers! Yes, TWO controllers left this company – that’s NOT good. Considering how disorganized and poorly managed these departments were, and how bad their systems were, it was easy to make mistakes and get blamed for them, especially with an ever increasing workload. A lot of people got in trouble simply for trying too hard with such poor systems given to them. In the engineering departments, it wasn’t that much different. With many people getting into arguments, bad language being tossed around, and even managers and partners yelling at staff members. At the end of the day, most engineers of all levels would quit and go onto to find something else that’s more beneficial for their career because 1), they weren’t happy, 2), they got bored quickly, 3) were treated poorly and were tired of the harassment, 4) did not see any potential for growth. So many people clashed and had to transfer to other departments to avoid tension because some people just didn’t get along and shouting matches occurred at times. There was more turnover overall in the engineering departments than anywhere else and not many transfers or promotions. Turnover is so high at this place that in 2013, more than 30% of people quit or got laid-off from the head office, and this doesn’t count towards the remote offices. How bad is that!? If a company can’t retain employees, it’s not worth checking out for whatever reason. One time, a project manager quit and took his entire team with him over night, including the work they were doing. Naturally this didn’t go well, resulting in a lawsuit. But you have to ask the question, “why would he do such a thing.?” Well he was fed up and naturally he had a reason for this. Does this happen anywhere else? The only people that have really stuck around are the partners (except the managing partner/CEO who was kicked out from the merger along with his trusted HR/planning assistant), the sibling of one of the partners who is one of the most evil people in history, a few senior staff who have been lucky enough to have endured and advanced, and a few project managers. Otherwise, the staff in this company has changed more than an insane game of 52-pickup. If you’re looking to build a career here, good luck! You won’t get anything except absolute grief and a lot of false hope so avoid this place like the plague. And if you’re not chargeable, which is the norm for most industries and especially construction, then be on your toes if there’s any sort of economic decline because this place will lay you off. Imagine getting laid off, having your boss be upset that he threatens to quit, only to have senior management then bring that guy back. Have you ever seen that? I did – and it happened here. How would be you feel? During my time here, I saw a LOT of people come and go, many didn’t stay as long as me, and I wasn’t there that long. Layoffs are rampant and even engineers, chargeable staff, and even one partner got let go during my time there. I’ve never seen a company with such high turnover in my entire life. Also, these crazy events mentioned in this paragraph – seriously only at this place would such drama happen. Oh, and while I was there, we got NO raises. So costs go up, but your salary doesn’t. This company will use the economy as an excuse, yet there’s enough work to keep people going and they give raises to senior staff and throw money away on pointless activities and “gifts”. Imagine getting an e-mail during the year end holidays saying this? Yet they had money for a Christmas party. While that’s fine, I think they could have just distributed that money to all employees instead, as the parties were lousy anyway. Not getting a raise is quite a joke actually, and one of the reasons for turnover. They made enough money, but of course, they weren’t good at collecting it. Only project managers and partners got raises or were allowed to participate in a the profit sharing program. So if you want to apply here, you better think again. For a company that states that “everyone is equal” and “communication takes place at ALL levels”, it was anything but these things. If you were not an “engineer”, you were literally just labeled as a “support” team. Maybe communication took place everywhere (well it should considering that everybody was pretty much in the same office floor), it was poor communication, or so poorly spoken that one side wouldn’t care to listen or follow directions. At company events, even the partners of the company act like idiots and have even gotten drunk at bars and scared potential clients, family members, and even nearly got into fights with bar patrons. Yes, this is where your money is going folks! The 4 managing partners are very immature and not good at their roles or keeping promises. When I had any sort of issue, despite their “doors being open”, they never took my side or feedback. This goes for a lot of people. So many people quit, including some senior staff because they got fedup because their ideas were never considered so of course they were never happy. Morale is so bad there that tension and sadness will gloom over quickly. I won’t mention the CEO at the moment. I think he has enough to deal with if he sees this. Plus, I don’t know him too well so I just can’t and won’t comment. But BOTH CEO’s did even know about all of these issues, and for a company that isn’t that large, that’s not acceptable. The partners are too overworked to care about company issues and that’s why they continue to run rampant, and it’s been that way ever since. If they’re overworked, they failed to make the adjustments and time to see what the issues are really like. Partners who talk loud in the office, yell at staff members, go around literally making staff members “jump” from their seats (yes one partner has done this many times), get drunk at company and client events, and can’t listen to what you have to say, are not professional by definition – yet they claim to be? I just don’t get it. It’s funny how many former staff I see, or continue to chat with and how much they riffed on working at this place. I can’t believe it when the entire office was called to a halt to hear a speech from one of the partners about “why people like working here”. It was an absolute joke and just a cover to try to make people happy, but nobody was happy there. From high turnover, to limited growth, to employees fighting amongst each other, to bullying and harassment, to absolute favoritism, to poor internal systems – this place isn’t worth it. As of now, current staff, including senior staff and even some project managers that I still talk to aren’t happy there. The only difference between them and others is that they have more flexibility, such as being able to find another job or become self-employed. Others aren’t or weren’t so lucky. Even some clients haven’t been happy with the services of this company and are just civil because they kind of need each other for business purposes, but there’s a lot of friction. From paying for services rendered to scope of work, to dealing with issues, this company’s management needs several lessons in diplomacy. Yes, many clients REFUSED to pay invoices because they weren’t happy with their services, but collections of funds wasn’t done properly. I could easily collect funds so easily if I ran that part of this operation, but they can’t even do that and managers who should be focusing on, you know, ACTUAL work, are wasting time calling clients for money. Not time well spent. I hope you reading this will a) not apply to this place if you’re looking for work. Or b) don’t use their services. Due to what happens behind closed doors and that these are “facts”, I hope you will go elsewhere and not use these old school managers who can’t even keep their employees happy. If you’re reading this for 1 of the 2 reasons above, please heed this warning. Forget this company and look elsewhere. You will feel better for doing so and hopefully you will take this note and make the right decision.