Pros
I have a great boss who: pays me a competitive wage, gives me opportunities to develop and stretch, and genuinely cares about me. A good manager can shield you from some of the worst parts of working for a Berkshire Hathaway Energy owned company. There have been and will continue to be advancement opportunities for union and nonunion employees as our seasoned workforce continues to retire at a high rate. The company has a track record of eliminating positions by attrition instead of laying people off. Vacation time is generous (4 weeks for new non-union employees with bumps to 5 weeks and 6 weeks at certain work anniversary milestones). The company had a great history of paying >75% of your maximum bonuses until 2020. Hopefully they will recover as we get past the COVID pandemic.
Cons
BUDGETING - O&M budgets have been completely flat since ~2014 - Not even increases for inflation. You literally can’t afford to do what you did the previous year because labor and material prices increase every year. Because some large industrial accounts did not buy enough electricity from us during the pandemic they cut 2021’s O&M budget (which is really 2014’s budget) another 2-5%. People in the finance group have indicated these cuts may be permanent. MANPOWER - Directly related to the previous item. One of the ways the company tries to survive in 2021 on 2014’s budget is by eliminating positions when people retire and slowing the hiring process for those that are filled. Pressure to not fill positions has been there the last 5 years, but this year it’s worse than ever. Union jobs require VP approval to be posted. Jobs stay vacant (even after providing months of notice) for 3-6 months before they are even POSTED. Non-union jobs and union jobs with no qualified bids must be approved by Bill Fehrman, the CEO of our parent company, BHE. This means the job won’t be posted for another indefinite length of time. Once the job is posted and you’ve found a candidate you’d like to hire, there is more dragging of feet internally to approve a job offer. During all this time the company is spending to not hire someone, the vacant work load is spread to other employees who already have 40+ hours of their own job to do. In the event that some poor sucker takes another job internally, it is common for that person to do both jobs for several months until their replacement is hired. And when they decide not to fill a position, the work falls on you permanently. Not filling positions is becoming more common. This is what happens when the company has a directive to eliminate ~150 positions this year. Burnout is becoming more frequent due to higher workloads.