Pros

As a production supervisor you are not stuck behind a desk all day. I enjoy being out on the floor and seeing direct results of what you are doing. Hormel pays okay and the benefits are good. They do a great job of offering continuing training opportunities. They also put a nice show on for new employees at orientation.

Cons

A lot of what you do is out of your control. Politics play a big role in promotions. Plant locations are not ideal. Working 2nd and 3rd shift hours with a lot of weekends is not fun.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to be a leader in the food industry. Keep paying attention to the Kenexa surveys and help employees, especially on the off shifts with their work life balance.

Pros

They pay well & there's good job secturity. The sales field is really good to work for, you get a company car its interesting work. They also have really good benefits.

Cons

In the production side the hours are brutal, I quit because I was forced to work 7 days a week, 10+ hour days. Cold wet manufacturing environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Simple, work life balance. Get some!

Pros

Strong company; publicly traded. Pension plan is great for employees. Everyone within the company works very hard...if not too hard.

Cons

Publicly traded company. Hard, hard work ethic. Lots of gossip always floating around due to the corporate office being in a small town enviroment.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to get out of Austin more often and see everyting that is going on in the markets. Austin is too sheltered from the rest of the world.

Pros

At Hormel, there is a great opportunity to implement your own ideas. Management expects you to promote positive change. Training is important at Hormel. The company provides a week long new employee orientation seminar and another week long meat science class after a year into the job. The pay at Hormel exceeds similar jobs elsewhere and the benifits are above average.

Cons

The number of hours you are expected to work far exceed other companies. Hormel management has a problem with equating the number of hours worked to how well you are doing. Many people will kill time at work for the sake of appearance.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management should work to eliminate the notion that the number of hours worked equates to how well you do your job.

Pros

The name will read well on your resume. You are able to join the union after being employed there for ninety days. They put you in teams in most cases where your numbers are weighed together. That could prove to be good if you have great team members who are also willing to work hard to meet the numbers put forth by management. They start you off with a certain hourly rate and increase you a few cents per month until your ninety day probationary period is completed. Off-street parking is there for you so no parking troubles necessary. Close to the bus line for 1st shifters. Bus does not run late enough for the other shifts.

Cons

It is run like a sweat shop. The management does not seem to care about employees. Some people have been there for months before they receive the pay raise promised during the orientation meeting. The health insurance sucks terribly. They hype it up to be more than it is which is really a big deductible for blue collar workers that's hard to meet, and all sorts of caps of usage attached. The union rep. doesnt seem to understand what's going on with certain aspects of compensation either. It could be a better place with some process improvement too. Like a new Lean manager to help scheduling instead of the consistent start time changes, overtime, etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Take into consideration what your employees are saying. Make it more of a family-like atmosphere than adversarial. Take initiative to recognize great employees who don't miss a day, who are on time and who meet their numbers. Be realistic in those numbers too. Train your managers who are on the floor about how to speak to others that are subordinate. Yelling and degrading does not build teams.