Flashy from the outside, until you see the inside - Anonymous employee Holder Group Employee Review

At a previous job of mine, although it was dysfunctional, at the end of the day the right people were (eventually) fired. At the Holder Group, the problem employees are rewarded and those with solutions are fired. It can be considered a family-run business. There are a lot of blurred lines and "favors". If you are "in" with the family, you can get away with anything, like being incompetent or being nasty to your colleagues. The last reviewer mentioned a high turnover, but let me quantify that. They had lost at least 8 people in 2014 alone and they only currently have less than 10 employees. One of the employees that left shared that in a three year period, that they had seen at least 25+ people come and go. The company was established in the mid 80s and still has very few employees. They have a hard time growing. That should give you a good idea of their future. Twice I had someone ask me on the phone if they were going out of business because that was "the rumor in the industry". The Holder Group tells potential clients that they are a much larger company with multiple deeply-experienced departments. None of that is true. Most employees are their own department or cover more than one department on their own. Employees do not have the experience that The Holder Group writes on documents send to potential clients. Also, there's no HR department, so they really just "wing it" on any HR topic. They practically pull salary out of a hat since they have no experience in HR, so if you want to work there you can try to take advantage of that. They act on emotion, drama and panic, rather than logic, integrity and professionalism(read: shouting obscenities on the phone at fellow colleagues is deemed acceptable). There was a great level of disrespect from one of the Project Manager to all employees at every level. The owner knows it and turns a blind eye to it. One employee went to him about the harassment and she was fired promptly. There is a lot of time spent at work by the top management on nights and weekends, but it's not usually productive. It's usually about hanging out and ordering meals together or having "meetings" (where they're just laughing and messing around). I heard other employees being told to stop any non-work conversations, but there really wasn't a problem with the employees doing this, it's the top management. My favorite work moment was when a top executive was giving another top executive a quiet shoulder rub while in a "meeting" together. They often work with subcontractors who are friends with the owner instead of better companies who produce better-quality work. It is openly admitted that certain subcontractors are not good, but are used because they are cheaper, although they risk the quality of the project for the client. Company values are non-existent. Work-life balance is non-existent. Leadership is poor.