Manufacturing - maybe long, but just a rant - General Boards Archive Forum

I've been with my company over 20 years. The vast majority were great and good years. It has allowed me to live a great life with my family, plus I love the product we put out, it's life-saving in some circumstances.

About 10 years we starting growing, adding more products and employees, and basically we've grown to be about 3x of what we used to be. First, growth has always been seen a positive, but the company took a weird tack. The employees that were hired to do hourly work until about ten years ago usually started at $20/hr and could quickly get into the $28-30/hr range, plus you got COL adjustments on top of that. It was a great gig locally, one this area needed.

Ten years, when we started hiring we started them out at $12/hr, they called "area competitive pay." And these folks were doing the exact same job as someone making $28/hr. So over time those jobs are now maxing out at $19-22/hr. So, as you might imagine, there's is a huge fuss over why some folks are getting paid so much more than others for doing the same job.

So a few things have happened:

1. Our small, friendly atmosphere amongst everyone, even salaried and hourly is completely soured. The managers are going to Top Golf for "retreats" while you have someone who was just hired making $12/hr.

2. There is no more "good faith communication" meaning, if someone makes a mistake, nothing but silence. IN the past, whenever a mistake was made, it was worked on in a positive manner and thanking the employee for making the process/product better.

3. A massive "us vs. them" attitude within all area departments. Hourly vs. salary, materials vs. QA, it's terrible

4. The parent org brings in a HR consultant to has listening meetings with employees and the feedback is very bad.

5. STRONG rumors of union organizing, which, has been the sites #1 goal for years to avoid.

Kinda just hoping I'm not the only one seeing this, of course, it's indicative of the society at large, but it seems the places to go to escape from the negativity of the world as shrinking exponentially fast

jroberts®

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I think you have two separate, but intertwined issues

Feb 22, 2023, 11:06 AM

The pay scale issues, as others have commented, are likely an over correction to a looming problem. This is one half of the problem. The accounting says that pay model isn't going to be sustainable for the long haul at the rate the company has grown. Somebody decided to make a correction and (maybe) the pendulum swung too far. Some of it I understand - hiring in at almost 1.5x the "going local rate" is likely to attract some of the better local talent. Which is great if you're hiring an experienced, "known quantity" machinist. Hiring an apprentice-level machinist at a high rate... to me feels like a gamble, and I'm sure the bean counters felt the same way.

Did their total compensation package change when the pay rate for new hires also changed? Did health benefits, retirement benefits or other fringe also change? Sometimes it doesn't take "higher than local" pay, sometimes it's just combining competitive pay with a good benefits program - when my former employer expanded their internal machine shop they were able to poach from the local shops simply because of that - pay equal to what they were already getting or what the surveys say they should get for their experience and, simply put, a lot of the smaller machine shops just don't offer benefits. Retirement benefits seemed to be the bigger talking point with the machinists that came in. Unfortunately, I've also seen where people don't think about that, it's just dollars-in-the-pocket.

The other side of this (the newer management "retreats," how the hourly employees are treated, etc.) is company culture. Culture is hard to maintain, especially when you have a huge influx of people over a short time (10 years isn't a long time). It has to be fought for from the top down and everyone needs to be on board. It would be interesting to know, as the company expanded and more management was needed (yes, sometimes its necessary) - how much of that management was brought in from outside? And how much was organic (i.e. longer time employees promoted into a higher level of responsibility). Typically if they're brought in from the outside, they bring whatever culture they know (I recall my former employer brought in a new CEO - a "Jack Welch guy" who was the first not promoted from within - and the culture went to all the bad things people think about the GE corporate environment).

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Manufacturing - maybe long, but just a rant

An honest question…

Fair question

Still can’t be certain if you’re serious. But…

Re: Manufacturing - maybe long, but just a rant

Public***

Good work environment for a good employer in my experience

My off the cuff guess:

I get it, and we did ship about 40% of our volume

Sounds like a mix of 1 and 3.

Root cause usually ties back to Finance / Accounting cost analysis .

There can be some truth to that....

Not just manufacturing

Smaller companies always seem to be more generous.

Uhhhh ohhhhh - somebody didn’t get invited to Top Golf.***

We're the same.

Privates are great until KKR or similar buys you up

Re: Privates are great until KKR or similar buys you up

We've been sold 3, or 4 times since 2010.

Re: We've been sold 3, or 4 times since 2010.

We bought a pretty big company recently and I am working in

That part is annoying.

Re: My previous employer changed hands twice before I got

And yet you still rarely post on here***

Re: I know right***

Sounds like it was perhaps an over-correction to a flawed...

Situations like this can typically be easily resolved by

When I worked at UPS in what "they" would actaully

That's typical of just about any job

I think you have two separate, but intertwined issues

Re: I think you have two separate, but intertwined issues

Re: I think you have two separate, but intertwined issues

I agree with most of that..except the time frame.

As a salary employee, is there any chance you could

The RADMA ?***

I work for a small company

are you at the same place where we both used to work but now

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