Owens-Illinois Reviews

Pros

Very good work-life balance. GReen and environmental issues are good to see from a large company.

Cons

Upper management sometiems appears detached to the plant side. Not much different from most other places. I feel we need more "plant experience" in corporate to represent our plants vs college grads and accountants steering the ship.

Advice to Senior Management

Hold on to your gems in the company. Recognize the commitment given by them. Do all you can to hold on to the youth and new hires. They are too quickly jumping ship due to "old school" ways and mentality. Continue to drive the Wellness culture. I feel it can be a powerful tool if we are all on board.

Pros

Opportunities for advancement due to population eligible for retirement
Opportunities for possible travel
Opportunities for networking with higher management and customers

Cons

Lacking in training employees (employees are not trained properly nor are they trained to be versatile/multifunctional)
Groundhog day, too reactive not proactive
Compensation is lacking in comparison to hours worked
Lack of accountability
Lack of sustainability
Lack of communication between departments, management, hourly
If you have a personal life, forget it. Long hrs and oftentimes weekend duty

Advice to Senior Management

Take the time to really invest in your employees, instead of taking shortcuts with different "programs" for improvement every year.

Pros

Technical knowledge. Concentrated on production, less on the market.

Cons

LSS program faded quickly, and no real repatriation for most practitioners.

Advice to Senior Management

Hear the voice of employees. Not really satisfied with management and corporate culture.

Pros

Fortune 500 company
Domestic and international travel opportunities
Global corporation, presence in 5 continents
Good reputation in Toledo area, the "Glass City"
Michael Owen's heritage

Cons

Cost cutting across the board
Old buildings in HQ
Not supportive of employee growth
Too much emphasis on United Way, misguided donations
Laying off Americans, hiring South Americans

Advice to Senior Management

Social responsibility entails more than measuring carbon footprint
Need to develop local talent, starting with local universities
Allow regions to develop own business
Retain engineering centers in Europe and Asia-Pacific

Pros

The pay was good and most of the people were great to work with and supportive though there were a few bad apples.

Cons

I really question the ability of some of the senior management. Some people were just plain rude and disrespectful and it was a major turn off too the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Get people who are actually qualified and liked for a position and REQUIRE all upper level management to go through a 360 evaluation.

Pros

the pay is decent, benefits package is decent and medical isn't too expensive. a lot of overtime offered so it helps when you need extra cash.

Cons

who's your daddy hiring practices, lack of competant management, union and front office workers are segregated.... management doesn't give much incentive to work harder or offer much praise to employees.

Advice to Senior Management

I do like what I see from Al Stroucken, however management at my local plant could be better. There is always that feeling that management feels they are royalty and union employees are the serfs. There needs to be more communication to the union employees, involve us in more things and meetings, and incentive and reward for good work is lacking and needs to be improved.

Pros

Benefit package is decent, however stock is very low. Support for continuing education is appreciated. Various locations in U.S. to transfer to which is good.

Cons

No support by HR department or senior management. Downsizing efforts are random and not well thought out. Policies are made without employee engagement. Internal issues are not addressed nor explained to current staff. No work/family balance - basically give your life over to company. Expected to check/reply to vm and e-mail while on vacation, even if out of the country. Unrealistic expectations.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop worrying about cultural diversity and pay attention to the employees you've already invested in.

Pros

The pay was great for what we did.
The atmosphere was great among the employees.
The Compensation & Benefits were excellent.
It was closed to home (5km)

Cons

Shift work, (rotated every week), 8 hour shifts, No family life.
We were not payed for sicked days!!
It was a extremely hot, dirty & a smoke filled atmosphere.
We were nickle add dimed for every little thing.
senior management favouritism towards the suck up workers for all the over time hours.
Senior Management were incomptent & not hornest , (a one year contract was redafied, ten days later then informed us the plant was closing .

Advice to Senior Management

Be more hornest.

Pros

They payed us quite well, although I work in an older plant with a union so the starting rate is good to begin with. This is not necessarily a reflection on O-I but the people that you work with and the obvious friendships that are formed were a good thing. I must say though that personally my immediate supervisor is an absolute joy to work with and for, his communication and flexability regarding work or family issues are second to none. In terms of the other people that I worked ie. engineers and tech people they were also great to work with.

Cons

The absolute lack of communication was brutal.. There really is not a whole lot more to say other then the company , as a whole, are very "shady" in there dealings with the employees, better yet backstabbing might be a better term to describe the way that management treat their workers.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice is to thee management is to learn how to deal properly with people and to have an OPEN partnership with your employees...The CEO is an absolute wingnut who is set on shutting down a plant that was,in plant mangements own words, was very profitable....In time that idiot will bring down O-I....

Pros

If you are a senior manager it could be good, they get fancy management retreats and education, but have to participate in addition to their full 40 hour workload.

Cons

Not at all focused on employees, CEO worships stock price plain and simple. Not that that's bad, but it is not balanced against any apparent concern for employees. Senior management is simply not interested in knowing employee feedback, they never asked me once not even an exit interview. I got worked like a dog to cover my own and an unstaffed position for over 6 months, yet somehow all I did was never enough for my manager, no praise was ever given. And that manager is still there and is considered "successful" despite incompetence with employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop spending such a high percentage of money on other senior managers programs, have some programs for the common professional employee, help them get someone on their side if their manager isn't. Take an interest in your employees and how your senior managers are treating them, request employee feedback on those managers. Pay attention to what is going on!