Holcim reviews

Poor atmosphere due to opposite company cultures and difficult merger. No collaboration between Business Units. Extremely difficult environment in cement industry. New CEO cutting costs everywhere. No other cement companies in Switzerland.

The business is extremely diverse, and I feel that often there are too many employees. What I mean by this is there are so many departments with so many people it is often hard to identify who you need to speak to in projects etc. There is often a lot of passing from one person to another which delays time and is extremely frustrating. It would be nice for more people to take ownership sometimes. In addition to this I feel that not everyone carries their weight evenly, there are many teams and groups of employees where only 3 people out of 5 (for example) actually go above and beyond their job role, carrying the other two with them. I find there is a huge distance between site & operations to office employees, a culture which is always apparent in most businesses but even more impacting in ours. There is often a lot of resistance to change, which hinders progression and agility. I feel that initial training and inductions to for new starters is poor. There is often training which is solely subjective to their role, and no wider business knowledge is offered. In a business like ours its imperative that a new starter is given a holistic view and training of the business to enable them to understand more in the beginnings of their role, aiding them to hit the ground running quicker. Without it (as is often the case) people only know their role and are ignorant in understanding other roles and divisions of the business which would assist them to carry out their responsibilities and tasks effectively.