Bimbo Bakeries Reviews

Pros

Great people and excellent work environment. The atmosphere in the bakery is great. Everyone works hard and the people care for each others safety and progress.

Cons

It is very hot inside the bakery during the Summer. However there are plenty of fans and water stations inside to keep people hydrated and cool.

Pros

Bimbo (Stroehmann's) pays well, they have about average benefits for exempt salaried positions. Due to the high turnover of salaried positions Norristown is an easy place to get a job. Conditions at the Plant have improved somewhat but upper management is afraid of real change and honest culture change at the plant does not look like its going to be successful

Cons

I could write a laundry list of what is wrong with working here but I''l let these true FACTS tell you the story. I cannot say why all these employees left but from June of 2007 the plant has lost employees in the following salaried positions. (many of which were good, qualified people) They all could not be bad.:
3 Plant Managers
2 Maintenance Supervisors
2 Sanitation/ Food Safety Managers
8 Production Supervisors (including a production manager who gave notice and was working on the floor as a Supervisor and a process improvement manager who was made a supervisor). These are called Line Managers at the plant

Recently the Company (Bimbo Bakeries USA just posted for a Sanitation/ Food Safety and a Line Manager positions) so there may be more than what is listed above.

Advice to Senior Management

Put a full time HR manager at the plant plant and be responsive to the needs of the employees.

Follow through with a work week for Production Supervisors and employees that has a better quality of life.

Have upper management (corporate above VP of Operations) engage the 1st Line Supervisors and find out what is really going on there (all shifts and lines).

Set up exit interviews with accountability for salaried employee loss coming from the corporate level.

Back track to find out why there is so much turnover by corporate for the last 4 years unless losing 15+ employees is acceptable.
.
Get serious about maintaining equipment, maintenance downtime on equipment is accepted too easily by management with little or no follow up and consequences. Maintenance does little more than fixing whatever breaks.Install a preventative maintenance program, and then a predictive one. Down days are not fully being utilized. Within a year all new equipment purchased was in the same state of disrepair as the equipment it replaced due to lack of PM.

Run the plant from the larger picture, not sacrificing or compromising safety, quality or waste to get through the current crisis or holiday.

Address heat issues especially on the bread line.

Pros

bennies, pay, always have work, no lay offs

Cons

the shifts arent fare to are familys, and days off are split apart

Advice to Senior Management

learn as much jobs as u can, they ll move u up

Pros

The pay and the benefits are the best in this field.For the most part everyone is treated with respect

Cons

On the negative side,it seems that they are never satisfied and keep adding more and more things to do.Most of that seems to come from corporate

Advice to Senior Management

Before starting new programs,perhaps there could be a survey taken, which the people who actually have to implement the program would have some input.Perhaps some things could be tested first in a select market to determine how much added time it would put on the people involved.

Pros

1. My family . my self .and the the oportunity to grow in the company. the oportunies are very good as long as you know what your doing and you are devoted and deserve you positon.

Cons

the only downside of Bimbo Bakeries is that they cut engerniers and they dont hav time to fixs all of the broken machines. The company loses alot of time and products.

Advice to Senior Management

.we need re hire more engerniers. we need them to start to fix all the problems with the machines with out machines we can work made some bread & we trow away are work...

Pros

Good atmosphere, results breeds trust with no micro managing

Cons

moving targets too many last minute changes

Advice to Senior Management

Have conviction with sales plans, see them through.

Pros

i believe in all and all we have the best product ut on the market,and accutaly have aring vendor who distribute that product,

Cons

i feel there needs to be more time spent by mangemnt to fix the product not getting here when ordered rather then if damged piece of bread is on the floor adress the large issue(the demand for are product and utlizezationof are space product affectively0 rather then the small issues that can easily be fixed.

Advice to Senior Management

acctually take a moment to care about the ios feelings and ideas rather then assume they dont know a thing.

Pros

Room for growth.
Accept input from all levels on things to change or improve.

Cons

More work, but no pay increases for long periods of time.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay increases to those who go above and beyond do not seem to be recognized and given except for annual pay raise. Need more recognition for those people in the form of pay raises.

Pros

They are constanely looking to improve and grow and are willing to invest in the future. Even with their desire to grow they haven't forgotten the importance of safetly

Cons

Sometimes communication isn't as good as it should be. Their efforts to cut cost by reducing the workforce puts a strain on people,they give people more task to proform but less time to do so after they sped up the lines. I understand the need to cut cost but there is a limit as to how much one person can do

Advice to Senior Management

They need to listen to feedback from employees better. A lot of times in our meetings when issures are brought up we are told it's a disscussion for another time or meeting that never comes about

Pros

A lot of the employees are close, even when they're not at work and that leads to a better team atmosphere when they're at work. This is a job where there are different divisions, but they all have to be constantly aware of each other because it's all for the creation of a single product. Team work is necessary, so the closeness is a good thing.

Cons

It's a 24 hour business and the hours are a little crazy sometimes. it's also hard to take time off, but there is a good system set-up in regards to vacation time, etc..

Advice to Senior Management

The management does a good job of communicating with the production staff, and make sure that nothing gets too out of hand.