I just recently discovered this site and I’m surprised by how many disgruntled employees we have. Perhaps it’s just a vocal minority but down here in the south, morale is pretty good considering. Not perfect but it’s better than what I’ve been reading in these forums. That said, I wanted to give an honest review of how things are at Crown in case prospective employees read these threads.
Full disclosure, I hold the same job title that some have been very critical of. I’ve been with the company as a Supervisor of Network Construction for 3 years. So here is my honest review.
The pros:
- Crown pays well. I make a base salary of $110,000. My March 2021 bonus payout was a little under $20,000. My RSU payout of the equivalent to around $25,000 but they won’t vest for 3 years. My total that I have vested sits at around $30,000 currently. This will increase next March of course. The point being, we are well compensated.
- The 401k match is awesome. The company automatically matches 3%. A decision to match an additional 3% is made at the end of the year for a total of a 6% match. I have yet to see Crown not make the additional match. On top of that, we are awarded stock in the company in the amount of about 4% of our salary which is added to our 491k accounts. All combined, that is basically a 10% match on your 401k.
- The workload is manageable for supervisors. This is where I feel kind of guilty. My direct reports are working their tails off in the field and they have enough work to easily pull 20 hours of OT a week. I take work off of them as much as I can but even then, I still don’t work a full 40 hour week. Having less than 5 direct reports also helps which is a typical team size for a supervisor in this region.
- Crown will never hold anybody accountable for failure. This really isn’t a pro since not holding people accountable will ultimately lead to failure but at least I know I won’t be fired for poor performance. This is known as being “Crown nice”.
The cons:
- Our reporting systems suck so when the Managers and District Managers want detailed production or budget reports, it won’t happen. Not a good way to manage the business.
- Crown has silly metrics. I’m measured by how many one touch make ready applications I submit and how many feet I microtrench. I’m not measured by how efficient I deliver fiber or how much money I save the company.
- Most of the staff and leadership who make the business decisions came from either Lightower, Comcast or Google. We know that neither Lightower or Google did well in the fiber business so you can imagine that using their ideas will only lead to failure.
I don’t know how long Crown will last in the fiber business. I suppose since the tower side is swimming in cash, they can cover us in fiber for a little while. But until the hedge funds force Crown to shape up, I’m going to milk this easy gig as long as I can and I would recommend that to anybody else who is considering leaving.