SLB reviews

3.9

74% would recommend to a friend

(11,619 total reviews)
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Olivier Le Peuch

84% approve of CEO

61% positive business outlook

SLB has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 11,619 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The SLB employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Energía, minería e infraestructura pública industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

12K reviews
2.0
Jun 1, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits are pretty good...I mean not bad. Good training. Lots of training material. Fixed step training program for progressing in the company but even that is very hard!

Cons

Work and life balance means nothing. Shift is 2 weeks on and 1 week off. In that 1 week off, we would still have to do work IF the jobs we did didn't go perfectly. A coworker of mine was working on fixing wireline logs for over 2 weeks after the job including his days off. They work you like hell and at the end its not worth it. You don't get back for what you put in. The management sucks! The field workers get treated very bad. The management doesn't know how to manage the company. You are just a number in that +120,000 employees. The company is so big that they will invest in training you to the point you feel that you are a meaningful asset to the company but when it comes time to cutting cost, they will chew and throw you away, just like that. They laid off 9000 then 11000 employees all over the world. I didn't survive the 11000 round. Training is extremely intense! There will be times when you will probably asking yourself, "Why the hell did I apply for this job???" The Field Service Managers (FSM) that are promoted are sometimes not good managers. The result is that the team falls apart and they start hating their jobs because of the managers that make them do things that are not necessary and because of the management in the Calgary office. I am glad that I got laid off. I didn't like my job there. It was a good learning experience, I learned what kind of job I hate! It is a dirty job and you are expected to work in any kind of weather conditions. It is never too cold. Put on 10 layers and wear all your PPE and work. Doesn't matter if there is snow, hail or rain... There should be no NPT and you gotta work fast and efficient. The rig doesn't like to lose any productive time.

2.0
Sep 4, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Training programs, structured careers (until you complete approximately 5 years seniority) and then it is up to your ability to network or be lucky enough to get a manager who cares about your development. Good systems, knowledge management, technical careers. Diversity is motivating and probably the reason why people stay.

Cons

If you are part of the structured career there is visibility of your career progression the first 5 years. After that, even when you have systems to list your preferences and a meeting where you are supposed to come up with a plan for development, you can get the job you didn't want to do. This is not necessarily bad...but the culture is sink or swim, predatory and not much mentoring going on. The International population is tied to their work visa so they work longer hours, accept any assignment, do whatever they can to keep their job as they do not want to be sent back to their home country. Also, if you are a woman you can be favored just because they want to increase their diversity. That is not necessarily good, your peers will hate you and make your life hell. If you are American or have the freedom to go somewhere else, you will soon realize you can find better opportunities at an Oil Company and better pay, benefits and lifestyle. Schlumberger is good for learning (some people in my group would call it SLB University) but then move on. If you are a foreigner, they will not sponsor your green card. They have started to do that for some very technical people but it is random and driven by friendships with HR. Also, in support positions (Finance, HR, Supply Chain, etc..) you can end up stuck for years in the same job as there is no clear development plan. The Company is becoming so big that the "human" part is lost, people are put in management roles with no people skills or interest in developing others. Bad managers get away with breaking all the policies and rules and the ethics line is useless. It is NOT confidential and you ALWAYS end up being retaliated against. Again, good systems but they are not used correctly, there is a lot of corruption that cannot be reported.

2.0
Jun 25, 2014

Grade policy sucks

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Internationally recognised oil services company. Industry leader in many technologies. Excellent training structure.

Cons

The strict pay grade structure is limiting and I would hazard a guess that it is one of the main reasons for the high attrition rate. If you are not internationally mobile for SLB then your chances of progressing are limited. It appears you have to be willing to up sticks every 3 years to get anywhere.

Viewing 52 - 54 of 11,619 Reviews

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