Schwan's Reviews

Pros

People and customers. The relationships you develop

Cons

Hours and pay. No holidays. Have to work weekends

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your current employees better

Pros

Lots of opportunities for those who aggressively pursue them and who are politically astute. New management has squeezed a lot of inefficiencies out of the business, and the company is producing many new products and getting them to market more quickly.

Cons

There is often unnecessary and unproductive competition, "silos," and a lack of collaboration in some areas. The business is subject to the mercy of the commodities market, and the change in customer and employee demographics. The food business is very competitive, and the company has not yet figured out a way to profitably stay of ahead of commodities, internal challenges, and the competition.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Pros

A check. Out in the sunshine on nice days. Great networking tool to find other employment.

Cons

This is a job for the uneducated definitely. They are counting on you not to do the math and go figure this: you are away from home on average fourteen hours a day. So that means you work a minimum of a week and a half for every week worked. Add that up and I'm sure that money you make seems small when you realize compared to a regular year you have worked in hours a year and a half. Wise up. I asked the vice president what can be done to maximize efficiency or what technology can be used so we can become more profitable in our runs, he couldn't answer. Senior management is extremely untalented and have no idea that they are. They are getting huge checks working forty hours to play with your lives. I quit after one month.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire all of the management except for a select few. Most are yuppies and have never ran a route EVER! One must know the business to effectively man manage it. Put some COLOR in your senior level management. Get some real talent from the guys who know what they are doing, THE ROUTE SALES REPS.

Pros

You get back what you put in. this job requires personal drive to be great. If you are just looking for a paycheck look somewhere else. If you like a challenge and want to be the best and have people skills, man, this job is awseome!

Cons

Not for a young family or with young kids. Those who thrive at Schwans put in long hours to build the business. Done it for a couple years now and I have never made more money than what I make today! This job will show you what your made of.

Advice to Senior Management

I felt intimidated by the application and job explanation when I was applying. Sure glad I didn't give up.

Pros

benefits are at least acceptable

Cons

blow to ones self worth

Advice to Senior Management

pay the employees a fair wage

Pros

Ability to take time off when requested. Schwan was great about allowing people to take time off when they wanted to.

Cons

Schwan has a passive-aggressive style that is prevalent. They say one thing to your face and then stab you in the back as soon as they can. Management says, "We are in this together! What can I do for you?" and the next week you're totally on your own.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a good look in the mirror. You are leading from within a bubble. The board needs to understand that to really excel in this market, leadership needs to be able to play against the big boys - and with such limited experience, i.e. 20+ years with only Schwan by Flack and Olsem, it just isn't there.

Pros

Dealing with great customers that are like family. They are great people who care about you, and your well being. They not only they care about myself, but they care about your family also. All of the customers I see are genuine, very loyal, and caring individuals. They care about not only my safety, but what little time I get to spend with my family also. If it wasn't for my customers being such great people, I would've been gone a long time ago ! ! ! !

Cons

The long hours don't bother me. But when you put in the long hours and you never get enough product on the truck, it's very frustrating to tell the customer you don't have what they were looking to buy. The drivers are told "Give the customer more than they expect", and to "Sell them something else". When drivers fill out an RTI, they are never acknowledged. Instead of the facilities manager listening to the drivers, they seem to ignore you even though the drivers are the ones who hear it from the customer about why they never get what they want. The only time there's a lot of product put on the trucks, is when a semi is due in to replenish the stock in the freezer to make the facilities manager look good on his forecast. It's always said that the team needs to work together, but when you have one person looking out for thierself , that's not team work. That's called selfishness, and self centered. It's very hard to be professional and pleasent knowing that your customer isn't happy when you leave. Also not knowing how long they will put up with not getting what they want, and wanting to remain as a Schwans customer.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to start listening more to the drivers about what the customers wants and likes are, not people who don't have any contact with the customer base. If it wasn't for the loyalty of the customers and the hard work of your route drivers, Schwans upper management wouldn't be needed. We are in the business to sell food and make people happy, not to tease people with products that never make it to the trucks so they can enjoy them. A happy customer is a buying customer ! It's not hard to sell Schwans products. But when customers say if it wasn't for the customer service that is provided, they wouldn't buy at all !!!!!!

Pros

In this economy.. "At least you have a job!" The customers are great and wonderful relationships can be entered into the longer you run the route.

Cons

No Family Time, Long Hours, Management attitude: "My way or the Highway!" Even when it is shown that some of the policies are unfair.. they continue to remain unfair.

Let me give you an example of a real world experience!

I started working for Schwans just prior to the "Transformation" that began Mar 7th, 2011. The people who were guiding this transformation really had no idea how it was going to work in the field. They did not find out until much later that the computer program (dynamic routing) that creates your route manafest needed the time windows not to overlap. i.e. (1p-3p) (2p-4p) (3p-5p) did not work. Quite often you would be running your route and find many customers you are currently seeing being far outside their time windows. To many of these and guess what? No $50 for meeting the metrics. Therefore.. the windows needed to not overlap to keep this from happening. i.e. (1p-3p) (3p-5p) (5p-7p).

The problem was that durning this period of time, two things were happening. 1. You were missing your time windows because of the dynamic routing. They said the were giving DSR overrides.. but that did not happen consistantly. 2. If your GPS mapping of the customers location was not accurate, you would not be "at location" and therefore too many of these and again.. no $50 for meeting the metrics. Just because you knew that you were parked in front of your customer's home did not necessarily mean you were "at location". When the transformation started.. It was the first week I was running my route ever. I relied on the GPS mapping of the driver before me and found out that many of my customers were not mapped. Plus the GPS software was so out of date that it really tried to take me though cow pastures on roads that did not exist.. so quite often I was not "at location" because I never found the customer.

The biggest problem I found was that when payday came around.. it was only then that you found out you had done "something" wrong as the shortage of $50 would show up as missing in your pay check. The company never felt it was necessary to account for why they did not pay you. They never told us what metric we had missed so we had no idea how to correct the error... or even what the error was. So week after week.. paycheck after paycheck.. $50 kept disappearing here and there with no explanation.

The most recent debacle was over Thanksgiving. Our depot was informed that we would be running a mega marathon so we could have the Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. So we were all handed a piece of paper with a calendar on it and asked us to show what days we would run the "make up" days to get these four days off. Because my only two days off are Sunday and Monday.. I had to make up 3 days (for Thursday, Friday & Saturday) So.. I took my Thursday route and moved it to Monday the 14th of Nov. I took my Friday route and moved it to Monday the 21st of Nov. And finally I took my Saturday route and moved it to Monday the 28th of Nov. This was approved by management and set up in my handheld.

On Monday the 14th.. I was running my Thursday route.. and after starting into it.. I realized that I had just run this route 4 days ago. All but a few people bought and I ended up with $85 for the day. Then they informed me that I could not run my Saturday route on Monday the 28th.. but I would have to run it sooner. So I decided to run my Saturday route on that Monday the 21st... and then I would run my Friday route on Friday.. and I would not have a four day weekend. So it was.

The next payday.. I was shorted $100. I missed my metrics for two days. Which two? Well.. Monday the 14th. It got classified as a build day because I sold less than $100. Did anyone know that if you don't sell at least $100 in a day that it is automatically classified as a build day and you only get paid $50? Well... I didn't.. and neither did any of the vetrans that have been with the company for 4 or more years. Surprise! I was told it was policy! Nice of the company to share their "policy" with all of us.. eh? The second day I didn't make metrics was because my hand held was not connected to the company.. and therefore I was NOT "at location" all day long. You can ask my customers if I was at location.. but it does not seem to matter. Even as of last payday on the Fri the 30th of Dec.. I still have not received payment for a DSR that was supposedly put in.

So.. Fair? I would say NO.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit trying to micro manage people and start treating people with the same loyalty you want from them. Try treating your employees the way you would want to be treated.

Pros

My boss usually lets me take time off when I need. Paychecks are reliable, with direct deposit.. There's a 401k plan.

Cons

Management is unorganized. Different departments compete for resources. Information is not shared.

Work life is very political. The decision makers have been there 20-30 years, and they do not want to try anything new. It's a good-old-boy's club.

I don't have the tools and resources to do my job. My coworkers are friendly to my face and they stab me in the back. People don't help each other.

Schwan's is going down hill in a hurry. For 20 years now, they've failed to invest profits in new equipment and technology, and now everything is old and antiquated. Rather than try to fix the problem, they're looking for someone to blame.

Schwan's is a terrible place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire Greg Flack and bring in someone who knows how to run a food company -- someone with experience and a proven record of success. We need someone who has seen different ways of doing things. Our new CEO should evaluate senior management for effectiveness, and most of them should be fired, too.

Before it's too late (and it may already be too late), invest in new infrastructure.

Pros

professional development, ability to make an immediate impact on the business

Cons

poor pay and benefits, very few promotional opportunities, not enough resources to accomplish goals