handy man

renovation contractor

painter

plumber

renovator

THE BYNG GROUP

I resigned from a secure position to join The Byng Group, I was interviewed and hired by the Director of Operations, a woman who portrays herself as confident, strong and empowering to other women in business.  My first day I witnessed chaos, yelling and screaming by many staff members and management frantically attempting to reactively rectify errors and meet deadlines.  As the days and weeks passed, the chaotic atmosphere seemed to be a way of life at Byng, with little or no time for orientation, answers to questions and direction from management.  The general unhappy and stressful mood that emanates from this company is toxic and it is wearing on the mental well being of its staff, causing a high rate in staff turn over.  

To combat the stress (again a reactive remedy instead of proactive attempt to alleviate/eliminate it) there is a family physician on staff who makes his rounds to specific (not all) people to offer advice and moral support.  Everyone else is left to deal with their stress on their own, which in turn has caused a disjoint between the staff.  There is no sense of teamwork or bonding amongst the staff but rather a great deal of rivalry and finger pointing.

Work demands, and duties increase steadily with calls and emails at all hours of the day, night and weekends.  Although business hours are 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday to Friday there is a level of expectation to be there well past 6:00 pm or 7:00 pm.  Weekends are consumed with email requests and phone calls to perform duties with expected “immediacy” to their directives at any time of day or night.  There is no family work/life balance here.

Errands are expected to be done on my own time with no offer of reimbursement for mileage/gas.  It appears that I have signed up for a 24/7 on call position that was not divulged during my interview.

An HR Department does not exist at the Byng Group, although they do employ an excess of approximately one hundred people with a constant turn over.  Management will conduct interviews, hire, but when it comes time to stand up and speak to an employee or to deliver unfavourable news, they hide and delegate the job to someone from an unrelated department.

Oh where to begin...

Nobody really knows what's going on (left hand has no clue where the right hand is and what it's doing), there are no true policies in place and rules get made up as it comes and whenever beneficial. 

There are a few good people who are willing to go the extra mile to help, but those are very few and far between. Most have no real experience in construction and are learning as they go, making things up in the process or simply don't care to make things better; that being said, most people are more than happy to point fingers and find a scape goat to cover their own behind regardless of whether they're at fault or not. Blame game really is a sport.

Trades are not being paid much, and the saying "you get what you pay for" holds true. Trades get tested in the field, and let's say most (new and old) perform less then stellar, making it very difficult to successfully complete projects with even passable quality and on time. Delays are an accepted constant as a result between scheduling dept not having any idea what they're doing, trades doing whatever they want, and the quality being so bad jobs need to be redone multiple times (the vicious cycle).

Office environment is hectic, with everyone yelling and shouting across the room, blaming one another and covering themselves by any means necessary. There's no reservation to throw anyone under the bus if needed. Any employee with self respect and skill/knowledge leaves and those who remain keep this cycle going, it's like a revolving door where only the good ones leave.

Not a single client was happy with either the work or the company, most seem to be contractually obligated vs willingly choosing this company's services. 

Fast paced and can be fun at times....but overall it's very disorganized and a toxic environment with barely any work/life balance.

Where do I start? I was coaxed by these people to come work for them for what seemed to be a great opportunity. I was hired for a specific position only to have the owner call me a week later and offer me an "upgraded" position since the guy they were going to fire they somehow decided to keep aboard. The position was made up and they didn't even know what type of work to assign me.

They offered me less than the posting described for starters but since I needed a change I accepted. As the other reviews state, there is NO training. 90% of the staff have been there less than a year due to the ridiculous amount of firing or people quitting. 

The staff is miserable and unprofessional which starts from the top. Trying to be social and courteous to others seems to be frowned upon, they want you working every second of the day.

Your hours/lunch break/duties change depending on the mood of the owner. These people schedule more meetings than the United Nations! Mostly to hear themselves regurgitate problems they have always had but are ignorant to.

Very cheap and petty ownership/management with zero people skills. Everyone acts like they know what they are doing and are quick to throw you under the bus.

I can keep going but you get the idea. Stay away from these people are they don't care if you have family/mortgage/financial obligations. They will get rid of you without thinking about it.

One other thing, they love to avoid scheduling you some days and give you "UNPAID" days off even though you are salary. You will be treated and paid like an hourly employee.

Run the other way, companies like this should be shut down! I hope one day someone exposes these people. When they want to get rid of you, they will give you a project they know you cannot complete especially since they virtually give you no time to complete every task. Once you fail, you're out the door just like that.

I sent my resume, they called within 5 minutes for an in-person interview the following week. 
They seemed like they wanted a quality tradesperson and I was happy to have found a great job offer. They gave me a few trials and I was hired. It all went downhill from there. They have this system in which you show up to the warehouse at 8 am and load the supplies into your truck and go to work for the day. This system seems like it would work well but on any given day I would have to wait for 1 or 2 hours for the warehouse to figure out the supplies I needed. On top of that, the jobs are mostly in multi-residential buildings so working past 5 is not an option. Now that 2 hours of waiting in the morning for materials will hamper any production value and it all will come down on your shoulders if the job is unfinished. One time I was sent to install a bathroom countertop and I asked wheres the sink was and was met with such condescending tone from their scheduler that I felt the question wasn't even being heard and it seemed they felt their authority was being undermined. The next day they sent me back to the same job with the sink because I was right and they were wrong. Quickly I became distant from asking questions because it wasn't worth the arguments to make sense of the place anymore. Their attitude was " you have work instructions, do them, NEXT!". Among other things, one day a pebble hit the windshield of their truck while I was traveling to a job and they deducted the cost of the replacement from my pay. I am now seeking lawyers' advice on how to get back that money they arbitrarily stole from my earnings.   

I would warn anyone of a sound mind to stay away from here.

All in all, there are some good people working there but no one was immune from the feeling that today was their last day on the job.



Too many bosses. Everyone wants/except different result from you. They don't even listen to your answer and  start to ignore when you need them. 
NO WILL ANSWER YOUR PHONE OR TEXT AND WONT PAY FOR THE WORK YOU HAVE DONE. 
 
-BYNG group will tell you that the site / apartment will be clean but they except you to clean apartment which is not even your job to do it and wont pay you for the extra work.

-After 2 days, company will start calling to check upon you expecting the work is about to finish soon. 
- They are lacking coordination such as material isn't even arrived at the apartment which your expect to start work. They will tell you to pick up material from other places/ building and wont pay you for that too.
- The amount of money for painting the whole apartment including ceiling,kitchen, Closet, washroom is  just $500.

- When the cheapest and hardest task is completed, they will start to finding a fault in your work which can be easily fixable. They will force you to stop work. 
 
-They will start to force you to do certain task in their own way. They have many bosses. One will except to work the way they want. Other person from the management will have an issue and will tell you to finish the task in their own way. 
The management is poor as they cant make any desicion. Once you complete your work, they will send unknown person to check your work and that person will have whole new problem with your work. He/she will force you to stop work. They wont listen how come you have done specific task even after you will explain everything what has happened so far. 

- After removing you from the work. They will put you in ignoring list and wont pick your phone or reply your text. Will not pay you either.  


Sub contract skilled trades-person: From the beginning at the initial interview and beyond, as the review summary states significant lack of communication and/or feedback to work related queries. When queries were acknowledged, it was with confusing and/or inaccurate information. Difficult to gain bearings and direction. Very poor and inaccurate written work instructions for trades (significantly under valued and missing much actual work required). Overall an extreme challenge to perform skilled work effectively and efficiently. Much confusion (chaos) even after several months with no improvement in site. Disregard for individual feedback and suggestions. The retention rate in some trades is nearly zero. In the few months referenced here the invoice process was altered and/changed with little (and confusing) or no notification. I could go on and on here but, in conclusion this company and business concept has great potential. Sadly I think it may never be realized. The leadership and organization needs a major re-think, because they are loosing some really excellent talent and don't even know it!

Working for this company is fine as long as you have nothing to do with management. As soon as you become management you sign your life over. Your always getting blamed for things you didnt even know were your responsibility. Your job title and duties changed by the hour mainly when upper management needed someone to blame your responsibilities would change to whatever they needed to blame you for. They hire you for a position but dont give you what you need to do that position properly. They say your a manager but give you no authority to make decisions, you would 15 approvals to change a toilet paper roll for example. All in all the idea of the company is amazing, the potential they have is huge but cant tap into it, the workers they have are hard workers but are treated as their job is always on the line. My advice for them would be to let the people they hired do their job not just what you think is right. Upper upper management needs to back off a little and let their managers run with it, why else do you hire them.

You need to up your standards. Having been here two years now , I know what I am talking about. I seen more people come and go than you should in a life time. No support / no direction / no clear job description... no reason to join this mess. If not for my age , I would be gone , come on early retirement . We all play 649 and super 7 in hopes of getting out of this mess. There are few good people left , majority of the remaining will back stab you in a heart beat. No management skills at all. COO is a doctor that will visit the people he likes in hopes of keeping them. Upper management must spend time , weekly , with the doctor. Rolls change daily because of the high turn over. You get hired as one person and soon have the job duties of three. Keep looking for work , do not make the same mistake I and many others have done. If you do not listen , I will see you on the other side. Good luck and may the stars be in your favour.

No clearly defined roles. If you were good at something, it suddenly became part of your job. Management was condescending and foul-mouthed with employees. One management member actually asked the receptionist why she was so "flipping" (derogatory swear word used rather than word indicated here) stupid. Those who were berated and became defensive were let go after being treated in a passive aggressive manner. 

When people were let go, management was nowhere to be found. They appointed others to be the bearer of the "this position is no longer relevant and we have to let you go" message, while they went on a Caribbean "management meeting".

Poor direction was given by those in charge. No less than 30 action items given each and every day. Had to be "on-call" 24/7.

Poor working atmosphere. Sucked the life right out of the employees with not so much as a thank you.

I have been working at The Byng Group for 2 years now. I Started off as an administrator, where after a couple months my hard work and dedication was recognized and I was given a promotion to be responsible for coordination of all Project manager events. After another few months I was given my second promotion to the Validations department which came with both added responsibility and an increase in pay. The bottom line about The Byng Group is that management recognizes hard work and dedication, and rewards it handsomely. 

This place also has some of the best people you could ask for as co-workers. Everyone is helpful, kind, and the workplace is an environment that breeds innovation and new ideas on a daily basis.

No two days are alike here, as each day new challenges and opportunities arise. If you enjoy fast pace, thinking both on your feet and outside the box with plentiful opportunity for advancement-- This is 100% the place for you!

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Handy man 39 salaries reported	$34.76 per hour
Renovation contractor 14 salaries reported	$29.07 per hour
Painter 6 salaries reported	$27.53 per hour
Plumber 3 salaries reported	$40.83 per hour
Renovator 5 salaries reported	$29.50 per hour

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