Good Work, Ok Benefits, Competitive Salary
Pros
Salary is competitive. Work schedule is flexible and 9-80's are awesome. Each contributor can really make a difference at Fluor. The Sugar Land office is nice and comes with perks like an on site gym and cafeteria, as well as a credit union branch in the building. It's also close to restaurants and the mall as well as other shopping. The projects are usually excellent at providing the tools required to complete the required work. Management also seems to be concerned with the well being of employees. Even in the economic climate the company is operating in currently, management could have laid a large portion of the workforce off, however they chose to balance the workload so that could be avoided. Also, they seem to do a fairly good job at moving employees into similar roles if the exact role an employee is in isn't available. It's also quite rare that a company will allow the accumulation of a full year of paid time off, a full 2080 hours. This is, of course, in case management has no choice but to push a RIF. The hope is that employees have enough banked PTO to be able to live until Fluor can hire them back. Since Fluor employees work on individual projects, it's actually quite nice that even though they may be "salary", one can earn straight time for every hour worked over 40 in a given week. Also, the push from clients to deliver results can lead to a mandatory amount of overtime for every employee. This is especially helpful when it comes to increasing the amount of compensation for project team members. If an employee is able to come up with an idea to improve efficiency, it is easy to submit that idea to project management. IF management reviews and decides to implement it, the employee who submitted the idea will likely be compensated in some way for it. The employer match for the 401k is nice as well. Fluor matches dollar for dollar, up to 5%, and deposits the match into an employees retirement account bi-weekly. The company also has a discretionary contribution they can make each year, though it doesn't seem to happen very often. With regards to the 401k, vesting is immediate though, which is nice.
Cons
With Fluor being a project based company, when there is a downturn in the global Energy and Chemicals sector and/or the project load decreases, the possibility of getting laid off is real and can cause a lot of anxiety. When working on a project, though it can be a huge benefit, mandatory overtime can lead to burn out as well. It makes for great pay checks though. As Fluor is a huge company, it is hard for any employee who likes to solve problems or participate in refining processes to make an impact. As with most large companies, there is an excess of red tape to be cut through. It isn't likely that one employee, no matter how good their ideas are for improving an aspect of their work, will be able to affect change of any type. There is a written process and/or policy for every operation and task. Additionally, it is well known that project management in all disciplines are usually given compensation bonuses based on meeting goals. Subordinate employees however, do not have the opportunity to participate in those programs. Another area that could use improvement is the amount of time provided for lunch. While the office is located close to many restaurants, employees who are only provided 45 minutes for lunch can barely make it out of the parking lot before they need to turn around and head back to work. The insurance benefits, while decent, could use some tweaking. The plans offered are expensive and have high deductibles and co-pays. Also, the prescription benefits really are terrible. Employees pay a minimum of 20% for each prescription. There are employees who require certain medications that can not afford to pay for them even with insurance.
