Holder will throw you to the wolves and stand by while they eat you alive. Kids straight out of college will be put onto complex project with an inconceivable amount of work, and are expected to complete tasks with expert level precision. You will spend every minute of every day on a meeting or phone call, and only once every subcontractor has gone home do you have the chance to begin the work that has been piling up throughout the day. 50 hour weeks is the absolute minimum time you will spend at work. 60 and 70 hour weeks are much more common. I would be at work every day, well into the night, to BARELY keep my head above water. The relentless flood of work never gives you the chance to get ahead of a single tasks, and you will be stuck in a soul sucking cycle of catch-up that never ceases. Along with this, unachievable schedules will be forced upon you, and you will quickly be blamed and reprimanded when deadlines are not met. This is how a number of Holder’s managers lead their project teams: through fear and intimidation. On multiple occasions myself and other colleagues were publicly berated by upper management in front of the office. Regular verbal abuse is used to manipulate you into thinking you’re not working hard or well enough. In turn, everyone stays for long nights in an attempt to avoid the next scolding or judgement. The result of this is an environment that is toxic to its core, absent of any moral or comradery, and does not encourage internal feedback of any kind.
This tactic of manipulation is used on project subcontractors as well, who are consistently subjected to Holder’s “my way or the highway” attitude. Holder would much rather bully other companies into submitting to their will than work as a team to overcome obstacles. Everyone is expendable as long as the project gets done and they have some sorry SOB to point fingers at. Holder will bend backwards to please the Owner, even if that means putting their employees through the wringer. Holder preaches about “family”, but will happily ship you off to a project in the armpit of our country. This company will push you to the absolute brink of stress levels a single person can tolerate on a day to day basis. Many people were unable to tolerate it, and throughout my time here I watched countless people walk away. They will try to convince you that the “grass isn’t greener on the other side”, but from my experience with other companies I can promise you that’s not the case. My time at Holder was a fever dream of horrible experiences and I’m glad I got out when I did. For the love of god do yourself a favor… find employment elsewhere.