Hormel Reviews

Pros

Great People
Excellent company, and get great experience and training.
Good benefits.

Cons

Limited area/regional offices. may be hard to live near family, depending on where you're from.

Pros

Hormel is a great company. 50% of the company stock is owned by a charitable organization (Hormel Foundation). They have a long range focus. Not next quarter.

Cons

Hormel promotes from within, but will force you to relocate. If Hormel purchases a new company, then future managers will be transfered from within Hormel and into the new acquisition. Employees from within the acquisition are rarely promoted (why I left).

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work. Again, this is a great company. They have a long range focus. They are stable. They believe in safety, training, and decent pay. People are generally friendly, hard working, and intelligent. Senior managers also take the time to talk to the troops and let people know what is going on in the company. The CEO even goes aound once a year to most locations to shake hands and thanks people.

Pros

Fantastic portfolio of products and commitment to excellent products. The can do attitude of the employees is truly exceptional and exciting to be a part of.

Cons

Unwillingness to adopt more current people management practices in regard to time off, work-life balance, and telecommuting. Salaries do not seem to be as competitive either.

Pros

Travel -you will definitely have to relocate
Pay- above average compensation for those that are fresh out of college.
Food- You get to eat a lot of Hormel product for free.

Cons

I don't think there is enough time in the day to describe how absolutely disgusted I am with the false advertisement this company sends to recent college grads. They make you believe that as a sales rep you are going to have opportunity for "growth' and be well respected...competely false. You literally are a bacon salesman going from one foul kitchen to another while carrying 70 pounds of food on your shoulder in a bright red bag. This is all you will do, ever. With every new "title" you receive, you are doing the same thing, just now you have to go into a lot more dirty kitchens since you have an expanded territory.

Side note, if you are of "ethnic" background, run for the hills. This is the most non-diverse, backwards company you will ever encounter. All men run it, and they treat minorities horribly. I am so happy I left this for another job opportunity. Heed the warning, explore all of your options before you become a meat salesman for life.

Advice to Senior Management

I don't think it matters what I write here since all of management are buddies and congregate at corporate in Austin, Mn over beer and small talk. But if they do glance over this, they need to do a complete assessment of all area managers...most are worthless.

Pros

Pay was good
Company car
Lots of Perks ie cell phone, home cable paid for, and good benefits
good training and continuing training
Great people-management is nice and your co-workers are good (some people suck but that's everywhere you go)
You get to travel

Cons

The future growth in the sales program is a bit limited. If I were to have stayed with Hormel in sales I would still be doing what I was doing when I first started. There is no difference between an entry sales position and a senior sales position except for the pay and territory size. If you have aspirations of moving into corporate be prepared to live in Austin (no not texas, which would be cool), Minnesota and go to Torgies everyday and live next to your boss. There should be the plant in Austin with corporate in Minneapolis where there is a good living situation away from the job.

Advice to Senior Management

I think management was great however there should be more employee involvment and more understanding of women and minorities. Hormel is somewhat whitebread, and wheat tastes good too ;-) Overall I liked my experience with hormel and I would recommend that someone start off their career with them.

Pros

-The benefits are great
-The pay is decent
-The people you work with are awesome most times
-There is tremendous opportunity for advancement within the company
-Due to the small size you are given a lot of opportunity to really show off your skill, and shine to management
- The training is really great, they want to train you to make you better so that you can get promoted within the company
- There are many travel requirements (pro if you like to travel)
- Nice, midwestern people seem to genuinely care about your best interests in most situations

Cons

- long...long...LONG hours
- due to the size and the way the organization is set up, there aren't very many people to work in each of its' facets, meaning that everyone has to take on more individually to make the machine run
- If you work in a sales capacity, you have to move around A LOT (which can be a con if you have a family or a life and want to stay somewhere long), and if you're not in a sales capacity, you usually get stuck in a tiny midwestern town near one of the plants (not an exciting life in most cases)

Advice to Senior Management

- Calculated risk is good, but it seems as if this company rarely takes risks at all. I think taking more risks and putting the company out there would help it see more success day to day
- A lot of the products need to be looked at seriously and updated. Mediocre sales are good, but something new and innovative could help Hormel improve

Pros

Hormel has great pay and benefits. They are accommodating to days needed off. They will try their best to make the company feel more close knit than most major companies do.

Cons

The position of maint. engineer is not an engineering position as they make it out to be, it is a glorified supervisor. Maintenance is often singled out for any issues resulting in lost manufacturing time even though equipment performance is not the issue. Advancement is not as quick as they make it out to be, they tell you that after a year there will be advancement available to the engineering division but that is not true.

Advice to Senior Management

Let new people know what to really expect for their future within the company. Everybody comes in looking to advance to something more challenging based on what they were told in the interview process but become discouraged when they realize that advancement cannot be expected within the first 2-3 years.

Pros

I had a great experience while working at Hormel for the most part. The managers there are somewhat helpful but in order to succeed you need to be self motivated.

Cons

One of the biggest downsides about working at Hormel is the fact that they will not hesitate to move you around the country if you are promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

I think the leaders at Hormel need to be more hands on. They give you some direction on the job but do not provide you with enough incentive and motivation.

Pros

Hormel has an excellent entry level training program. Their pay, benefits and opportunitties for growth are excellent for a single kids right out of college. The entry level training managers are wonderful and truly care about their new employees

Cons

Every job is a "pass through" job and senior leadership believes every employee should have a desire and a drive to be the next VP. You are expected to move every 2-3 years and grudges are held if you say "no". Work/Life balance is something that is talked about a lot, but it stops there, it's only lip service! Face time is valued over productivity and senior management has a huge lack of trust and respect for their employees. Additionally, there is a HUGE disconnect between senior management and the characteristics/values of the X and Y generations. Instead of trying to adapt to the changing work force, they are trying to change us- this is not going to work! Hence the reason the turnover rate among these generations is very high at Hormel
 After about 4 to 5 years, the salary is no longer competitive with peer companies and begins to fall below average.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop talking about becoming a best in class sales organization and start doing it! You can put lipstick on a pig all day long, but it's still a pig! Source ideas from the top CPG companies, it's okay if ideas didn't originate at Hormel! Start realizing that the "old days" are gone, employees no longer live to work and identify their success in life with the title on their business card. Generations, today, identify themselves with who they are outside of work. Realize this and adapt to it. If you don't, you're going to continue to lose the managers of tomorrow and then you'll really be up stream without a paddle.

Pros

Excellent training
Good pay
Lots of opportunity for career growth
High integrity
CEO who cares

Cons

Long long hours
Some senior execs are not in youth with changes in society
Few women at high levels, minorities are rare.
Most new hires are from limited schools with not much diversity

Advice to Senior Management

Search for employees more than 100 miles from Austin once in a while
Get more sincer and empathetic people in HR
Take more risks in business.