Berry Plastics Group Reviews

Pros

Good people and generally a good company. The benefits were good and management was flexible when personal needs arose. Divisional management was very good.

Cons

Senior management was weak at the time, although that has since changed. Advancement was limited, at least during a weak economic environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Better communication on direction and progress toward that direction would have helped strengthen a team atmosphere. Encourage and provide for advancement for those who desire it.

Pros

location- easy commute. Nice facilities. Free parking. Nice co-workers. initially sounded great, lots of encouragement from mid level and upper management in the beginning.

Cons

Unkept promises re: vacations/ pay.
Terrible point system- paying consequences for planned time off/ appointments.
Too many job titles- not enough workers.
Workers paying the price for conflicts between mid-level and upper management.
VERY reactionary environment- NOT proactive or preventative- doubling the workload unnecessarily. Uncontrolled chaos.
Unrealistic expectations for the amount of days in a row the workers work. Today makes 21 days in a row for me.
Not paid market or region value for job description.
Lack of training- all in my department are doing at least 3 jobs that we've not been trained properly to do.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Don't bite off more than you can chew without the proper resources.
2. Let your Yes be Yes and your No be No.
3. Equal pay for the region and cost of living.
4. improved training practices for new employees or moves to new departments.
5. Better planning- chaos control.
6. The CEO needs to come unannounced.

Pros

it pays the bills every month

Cons

understaffed, management has low opinion of production workers

Pros

You can get some good practical experience. The mid and lower level management are, for the most part, trying to make this an enjoyable place to work.

Cons

Expect to work the holidays. The bottom line is the bottom line, so if they need to get an order out, they will work the holidays on a couple days notice.
They understaff, so they work mandatory six day weeks.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more staff so you aren't burning out your people. A good portion of your technical people are looking for other jobs. Buy newer equipment. Your spending a dollar to save a dime in the injection molding dept.

Pros

Its a job. Pay is well below national average. Medical "benefits" are extremely expensive.

Cons

Forget raises. The culture is all about saving money and running on skeleton crews to save a buck.

Pros

Plastics are hard to ship overseas.

Smart CEO

Cons

Commodities offer low margins offer lower pay

Advice to Senior Management

Organization and communication

Pros

Great way to get your foot in the door.

Cons

Very fast paced. Don't fall behind.

Advice to Senior Management

Great job. Keep it up.

Pros

Reaonably good insurance and bonus plan

Cons

Low wages, difficult advancement, poor company direction, constant change in upper management

Advice to Senior Management

Either support the low income plants with the proper people and the proper amount of people or close them. Constantly working and being told you are losing all the time is very stressful when you are relly doing your best to make things work.

Pros

For the most part, the production and QA personnel on the day shifts are good people and very dependable. The work is steady, and if you like more hours, you will always work when someone is absent. The Corporation based in Evansville, Indiana is pretty solid and led by a dedicated CEO, Mr. Ira Boots.

Cons

The pay is pretty low and does not increase much. Bonuses are poor. There is abuse and harrassment going on by management, not production workers. At the Pryor, OK facility, there is much waste with too many members of management with not much to do. Their daily activity is to sit in the production office and talk for hours on end. Berry only recently purchased this facility and there is no allegiance to the parent corporation. Whenever a corporate person is visiting, a memo goes out advising personnel of the visit, and to be careful what is said to the visitors. I will stop here, I could write a book.

Advice to Senior Management

The corporation should transfer a dedicated employee to take over the plant manager position and crack the whip. The current plant manager suppresses problems rather than fix them. Only a person with no allegiance to anyone in Pryor could effectively cure the problems there. Please pardon the metaphor, but It seems they are all in bed together.

Pros

Excellent pay, and a company that continues to make money even in this downtime recession era in our country.

Cons

As a machine operator, you're life is Berry Plastics. If you can handle working 8 to sometimes 12 hours shifts on a regular basis, then the job is alright. But if you have a social life, or family, it sometimes can be a straining job.

Advice to Senior Management

Berry has done a great job expanding when other places are closing down.