Highland Capital Employee Reviews about "work life balance"
Updated 13 Feb 2018
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Approve of CEO
James Dondero
37 Ratings
Pros
"Lots of perks- free lunch, great health care, casual dress and lots of happy hours" (in 8 reviews)
"There are some extremely smart people working throughout all levels of the company" (in 4 reviews)
Cons
"Work/life balance can be challenging" (in 5 reviews)
"long hours and interview process too long" (in 5 reviews)
Pros & Cons are excerpts from user reviews. They are not authored by Glassdoor.
Reviews about "work life balance"
Return to all Reviews- Helpful (1)
"Great Place to Work!"
- Work/Life Balance★★★★★
- Culture & Values★★★★★
- Career Opportunities★★★★★
- Compensation and Benefits★★★★★
- Senior Management★★★★★
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Highland Capital full-time for more than 3 years
Pros
- Great health insurance plans. - Daily catered lunch. - Business casual dress code. - Great office location and amenities. - Regular firm wide social gatherings. - Smart people around and many opportunities to learn.
Cons
- Work/life balance can be challenging.
- Helpful (6)
"Eh"
- Work/Life Balance★★★★★
- Culture & Values★★★★★
- Career Opportunities★★★★★
- Compensation and Benefits★★★★★
- Senior Management★★★★★
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookApproves of CEOI worked at Highland Capital full-time for more than a year
Pros
Lots of perks- free lunch, great health care, casual dress and lots of happy hours. Good location and building. Overall good
Cons
No work life balance. You live and breathe highland. No real lunch breaks, required work on nights and weekends. Forced overtime
- Helpful (9)
Pros
The very flat organizational structure and variety of investment vehicles provide a great amount of responsibility right off the bat and allow you to take on virtually any investment idea or project, getting anyone's ear from your peers to the CEO. There's also a real sense of growth at the moment with AUM steadily climbing and plenty of new hires, setting a great tone for the team. Everyone here is incredibly bright and, at least in my group, everyone is someone I'd be happy to go grab a beer with. Other good HR perks are zero cost healthcare, a generous PTO package, free drinks / snacks all day, free lunch, a very nice office at the Crescent, etc.
Cons
Out of principle, tracking your hours via Timekeeper is obnoxious and sets the wrong tone, but it practically doesn't matter. Work / life balance, while far better than investment banking, is no different than any other investment fund (~55 hours / week), and it's not hard to clear your requirement. The one positive thing about tracking your hours is that if you're above your minimum requirement, you can basically take half-days on Fridays without taking PTO. Free lunch is great most of the time and is always good for the bank account, but it'd be nice to go out to lunch with coworkers every once in awhile to help build camaraderie. Not that much of a con, I suppose, and partially offset by fairly frequent company happy hours and group outings.
- Helpful (8)
Pros
Some of the brightest people work at this firm. The pay is great.
Cons
The "big brother' atmosphere is stifling. Mandatory hours of 60+/week leaves little opportunity for work-life balance.
- Helpful (6)
"Potentially risky choice in this economic environment"
- Work/Life Balance★★★★★
- Career Opportunities★★★★★
- Compensation and Benefits★★★★★
- Senior Management★★★★★
Doesn't RecommendNo Opinion of CEOI worked at Highland Capital
Pros
Good experience at a large, fixed income buy side shop. I learned a bit about credit analysis and the Highland loan-to-own model. Ability to pursue investment opportunities across a spectrum of asset classes, and up and down the capital structure. Compensation can be competitive, especially for the Dallas location (no state income tax and a much lower cost of living than you will find in many cities on the East Coast or in California). Fairly disciplined approach to putting new positions in the fund as well as reviewing existing positions in the portfolio. Team structure means you'll get to work and know a couple of people well (although you may not have much contact with other teams).
Cons
Key risk is whether the firm has in danger b/c of the continuing credit crisis. The Time Keeper application, which requires professionals (including investment personnel), to clock in and clock out in order to demonstrate compliance with a policy requiring a minimum of sixty hours a week, is demeaning and inflexible. It puts a premium on gamesmanship and facetime, and discourages people from managing any sort of work-life balance. For example, you can't clock out at 7 pm (after putting in 11.5 to 12 hours already), go to have dinner or work out, and then put in a couple hours from home ... you won't get credit for the time working at home. So it's strange for a professional to feel like once you leave the office, you might as well not lift a finger or do a bit of work b/c you don't get credit. Management is fairly opaque about the direction of the firm. It's a bit of an locals-only culture, but that's true of Dallas generally.
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