Alcoa Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Alcoa full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great team members.
Very interesting work.

Cons – Company is a strong supporter of doing more and more with less and less. Stripped down engineering staff to a level where everyone is over-worked and nothing can get done because managment keeps adding more and more projects but continues to take away the needed resources to get them done. Company has a lot of procedures that need to be followed that take a large amount of time and effort to get anything done, and they continue to add more.
At this point in time, the best decision as an engineer would be to leave the company or never apply.

Advice to Senior Management – Need to actually recognize that the level of support is not present to allow engineering staff to be successful. The company will continue to fail until this is realized as there are a lot of highly technical programs being developed at ALCOA, but not enough educated personel to actually make it happen.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Alcoa full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Learned a lot. Great beginning job if you are a go doer. Will never get bored. Lots to do and learn.

Cons – If you are not male, pack your bags.

Advice to Senior Management – Get Real. It is the 2012 open your eyes.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Alcoa full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Solid tools and processes
Deep manufacturing / operations talent
Pockets of effective leadership

Cons – Terrible work-life balance
Excessive focus on short term results...1 y payback on Capital Investment
Di is out of control....stop using a project mgt tool to tie to financial results

Advice to Senior Management – Need to wake up and really "talk" to the workforce. Too much airtime w/ CNBC and 60 minutes. Lets engage our workforce with first genuine appreciation and then real changes that give them back their lives....this should only be a "job".

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Alcoa

Pros – Spends lots of money on hourly overtime...if you're a hourly employee Alcoa Fastening Systems, is a "cash cow."

Cons – No regard for customer service.
Poor middle management leadership.
Leadership lacks focus.
Middle management has very little, if any technical understanding our processes.
Managers have no credibility with their employees.
Middle management too focused on how to cheat our business system to show financial profit.
Compliance team lacks teeth; has no power to affect change.

Advice to Senior Management – Go back to basic. Fix our dysfunctional leadership the right way. Stop protecting the people that have destroyed our factory. Remember, as a leader your are accountable too.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Alcoa

Pros – Willing to invest in technology

Cons – Lacks knowledge manufacturing knowledge at mid management level
Inexperience leadership at senior management level
Poor business ethics
Leadership quick to eliminate american jobs
Very low morale thoughout the organization
No work life balance
Leadership has formed an adversarial relationship with the workforce

Advice to Senior Management – Realize that the AFS senior leadership is a failed experiment and start all over before you lose more talent.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Alcoa

Pros – Alcoa offered me a ridiculous amount of money out of college to work at their Corporate Headquarters which was a beautiful location, very clean with lots of training opportunities.

Cons – Many of the managers are promoted and/or hired in with no competency whatsoever. Men rule the roost while women back-stab each other for the scraps. I saw many talented people get disheartened and leave while many incompetent managers have stayed and prospered. There is no system in place to get rid of the "dummies".

Advice to Senior Management – Go back to what made you great - valuing your people. This was once a great company but you have lost your way and lost a great deal of talented & dedicated people. Act now.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Alcoa

Pros – The safety of the employees is the number one priority. They communicate work schedules very well. They have a very good benefit package.They respect the work we do overall.

Cons – They recently took our company over (Traco) and they are making salaries for new (temp) employees more than the salaries for the experienced employees that run the products. We work hard building windows and we can't hold alcoa responsible for our previous employers mistakes with the salaries but they are creating a poor work environment by increasing wages to unexperienced employees while not increasing the current employees wages.

Advice to Senior Management – We as employees try hard to make our shipments but the current moral over the wages has become a real problem. Employees on the floor with years of experience need to be compensated fairly and recognized for their achievements and knowledge

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Alcoa

Pros – Great people to work with, a lot of the areas are old North plant was built in 1942 South plant was built in 1909, over the years the plant has upgraded a lot of the facilities.

Cons – The union allows a lot of people with no skills getting jobs are not qualified for, also the union make special deals with other people and ruins the quality of life at the plant. The company allow unqualified people to get certain jobs when their education and skill level is not where it should be. A lot of these people do not have but high school educations and because of seniority they slow the company down to get qualified people.

Advice to Senior Management – Do not allow people who are not qualified to stay in their jobs, more accountability to the workforce, the apprenticeship programs should not allow people who come in to keep their seniority they should come in on day one seniority. This will eliminate a lot of people just coming in the jobs to hold them and hold others back.

Current Employee – been working at Alcoa

Pros – Alcoa has great benefits. You will learn how to work quickly and prioritize. You will meet alot of very smart people with alot of great ideas that they are afraid to share. Alcoa values their minority employees and takes that kind of diversity very seriously.

Cons – Alcoa is a very old, conservative company that values people who stay there a long time and not necessarily the people who do a great job. Innovation and new ideas are discouraged in favor of ABS dogma and the way we've done it for 100 years. What you accomplish will never be as important as who likes you. They are very suspicous of people recruited in from other companies and their ideas are marginalized.

Advice to Senior Management – Be careful about the kind of talent you are cultivating. Many talented people were chased away by the lack of opportunity to make an impact. What will you be left with when your huge population of baby boomers retire?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Alcoa

Pros – Great product and strong history - decent benefits- great technical knowledge-employees are dedicated and hard working- capital investment and interest in giving back to the community.

Cons – Since the economy tanked there has been a tendency to intimidate workers. As is now becoming part of the great American tradition fewer people must fill in for those that have been retired or laid off. People must be careful about what they say, there is a great fear to be seen as disposable.

Leadership much more concerned with public relations and appearances than actually providing employees with recognition, basic clean work areas. Yes, we have a new fitness center but since working 12 hours a day is expected, you don't have much chance to use it. If you have a company phone, you are on 24/7 and better not forget to be available.

Don't come here iif you have a college degree and want to grow. It is too bad, used to be a great company but leadership has shown that it has no interest in employees, it is all about appearances and revenue. You get the feeling that they are minutes away from putting you on the auction block.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop the drama and put your money where your mouth is and show that we value customers and value our product and that employees are a critical part of this process. You can't engage the employees unless you show trust and respect.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend