machine operator

injection mold operator

maintenance technician

manufacturing associate

technician

Freudenberg Group

Typical day: 12hr Shifts in 3 month sets. Days to Midnights. 
You will run various samples using equipment like vacuum ovens, A&D, Rheometers, Densimeter, pH testing, Karl Fischer, and vent hoods. On a good day, you'll receive upwards of twelve slurry to test and electrodes to do adhesions along with any other testing that needs to be done. On a bad day, you'll end up sitting around all shift waiting to do anything because of equipment failure in the process. These periods can last weeks at a time and while you are given the option to leave, chances are you'll burn up all of your PTO doing this. 

Working in the lab, you would assume people would work together on things, but instead people just gripe and complain about everything. Your ability to clean up the tiniest spec of dust will be held against you to the highest degree. On multiple occasions you will feel overwhelmed because it is an expectation that you're able to multi-task EVERY SINGLE test in the lab at once.

The down time is ridiculous as well. Case in point, operations is primarily clean room and human hair ended up in the process. How does that happen unless employees are using proper PPE? We had equipment without backup spares/parts that caused extended downtime. And all that you can do is sit and wait. You'll be sitting around with your thumb up your rear-end waiting for something to do some days.

Management is an insult. In the lab, it's okay. But the plant itself is a different story and has leaders who think belittling and yelling at people is going to make the process go faster. On more than one occasion, I had a supervisor blame the lab for bad results after running samples multiple times and then proceeded to belittle me because I was "new". 

Training is NON-EXISTANT. Most jobs do a 90-Day Evaluation and give you some rough idea of everything you NEED to know within that timeframe. I hired in and was let loose on my own within a week. Then, I didn't do my 30 day evaluation until TWO MONTHS into being hired! It was another TWO MONTHS before my 60 Day and then TWO MORE until my 90 Day evaluation. It was then told to me, "You lack six or seven testing methods. Why?" Because it was never communicated to me and when I asked, I was told not to worry about it. There was no clear direction on training. 

The hardest part about the job was honestly dealing with the drama. If you want a job where you can go back to middle-school all over again with the pettiness of teenagers who are grown adults, this is a great job for you. 

The most enjoyable part if anything was the food trucks they'd bring on site that were company paid. At least the food was good but the company could care less about their employees wellbeing or how things are being run internally. There are some good people who work there who will encourage you and lift you up, but don't expect to be happy very often. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Clean and safe working environment. Friendly co-workers. Detail oriented. Climate controlled environment. Very nice. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Not very stressful. There is a required rate of production, however, they train you for about 2 weeks, and make sure you know the job.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Clean and safe. The employees are friendly and will help you if you ask questions. Everyone is helpful.  Out on the floor, we want to make good parts. We have what is called profit sharing and the company gives us a percentage. So we want to make sure that we keep our business strong. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
We clock in with a badge for security purposes. There is a lunch room with big refrigerators to put your lunch in or there are vending machines also. Microwaves, coffee makers, ice, water, snacks.... lockers for your things. 
Then you go to your assigned work area. They have a list and it tells you what your job will be that day. Most usually you will run a press, and are required to use personal protective equipment,  like gloves and sleeves and you are always required to have safety glasses on in the plant. Start your job on time. 
About half way through your shift, is your lunch break, then it's back to the job at hand until quitting time. When you clean up and sweep your work station.
There are ice and water machines in your work area. There are restrooms in your work area. There is paper work to fill out during the shift.  It is usually at 1 hour and 2 hour intervals. 
It's a good job. I am proud to say I worked with Freudenberg for over 35 years.

Locally the people you work with are great. Poor management will cause you constant stress.

Local site has always been understaffed. Management will not acknowledge this and still set ambitious goals that cannot be met. this leads to constant snowballing issue. Previous poor site leadership requires heavy investment to correct but upper management does not see this and pushes onward. They do not understand that manufacturing is a system and each component needs to be worked on for a smooth and efficient system. Local site employees have the know how on what needs to be done but upper management will not hire the additional personnel for the local subject mater experts to optimize the system. The small local team is constantly fighting the same inefficient system, change takes too long.

Site executive officer expects everyone to be a super unicorn that can do everything perfect enven if they have no experience. Blunt and honest people do not apply for this company. brown noses will soar.

Time off is impossible, you will always return to a larger mess than you can handle. given the minimal headcount everyone is essential for the site to run.

Upper management is short sighted and prioritizes short term gains over longer term gains. this leads to more money being wasted in the long run. They will not invest in their people via training or education. they would rather just hire the 'unicorns' they are looking for even when current personnel have all the job requirements save for one.

Typical large corporation issues where too much money is wasted on 'upper management' and not enough at the site level where the work gets done.

Management is terrible. They don't care about your thoughts or input. You are just a easily throwaway if they don't need you. They do mass lay offs every few years when they can't keep contracts. They spend money on useless events or items for the company even when the company is drowning itself. The managers punish everyone equally for the faults of single employees. Managers will even eat the food bought for employees who do growth meetings, without taking part in them. They have questionnaires an surveys done every year, but they never address the complaints in them. They only talk about the good. They do quarterly meetings where employees can ask questions, although they try to cut it short so we dont ask them questions they dont want to answer. The managers will snap their necks an give you looks if you dare  to ask a question that may make them look bad. Everyone is paid the same for their level even if someone has worked their longer or knows more. It would be a great company to work for if it was managed better and instead of laying off the hard labor workers, they laid off the ones who can't keep contracts coming in. Also would've been nice if the president didn't rub in our faces how great her lifestyle is an how they throw amazing parties at their lake house to the labor workers. Not very professional. 

This used to be a very nice place to work. It used to have a sense of community and a strong people focused culture. Unfortunately, that culture has been replaced by that of our parent company, and it is now much more "corporate" and overtly profit driven.

The pandemic response has only made things worse. Last year, the rolled out a new PTO policy in which all of our sick, personal, and vacation leave come out of the same pot. Then, they made it such that full time onsite employees who cannot do their jobs from home and who have taken the greatest risk during this pandemic are forced to spend their own PTO covering a quarantine period (which costs about 1/3 of a year's leave) while those who got to stay home and stay safe the whole time can simply work from home and bank their leave. This year, they've decided to cover up to 5 days a year for those up to date on vaccines and boosters. Their rationale for not covering anyone else is that the CDC says you are much less likely to get a "severe" case if you are up to date. That policy neglects the fact that there is still a high likelihood of a mild breakthrough case in spite of being boosted, and that we must quarantine whether our case is "severe" or not.

On top of that, while we do have a good benefits package, the pay is not very competitive. It's about average for our industry.

The Jeffersonville, IN location, formerly MedVenture Technology, has been corrupted by certain managers over the years. They often fail to perform the difficult hands-on work they are paid to do. One project that I was involved in, over 90% of the staff did not even recognize their Engineering Manager who had overseen the project for over 3 years due to his complete neglect of the team. At the same time, the team was "led" by an engineer with no previous experience who failed miserably while blaming others for her failure. Obviously, if the manager is completely absent, they don't have any idea who is helping and who is hurting the project. Some act "nice" in groups but are extremely unethical behind closed doors. Often, people that even question their bad decisions on projects were forced out of the company in very disturbing ways. The company lost a great deal of talent over the years due to poor leadership and failure to recognize employees who are skilled and hard working. On the other hand, many of the assemblers and other staff are decent and honest people and overall there is a feel-good atmosphere in day-to-day situations for most job assignments. Benefits packages are good and the pay is fair. The reward of building medical devices that save lives and improve healthcare is a big plus.

My typical day at work would begin with checking to see which orders had shipped and which was shipping that day. I would email or fax shipping advice to the customers once the order shipped. Throughout the day as orders came in I would process the order into Intex. We would send out information/Samples to potential customers followed by alot of cold-calls.

I learned how to organize and prioritize my day and had alot of opportunitys with sales. I also learned how that marketing our products helped to make more sales.

My management team was very diversed on their ways that the business needed to be ran. But after percise planning and with the assistance of other team members, such as myself, we began selling more and making our brand more recognizable.

My co-workers was a hardworking well-balanced team that worked as a family.

The hardest part of the job for me was having time to complete everything in a timely manor due to the heavy workload. Our office was small so we each had numerous duties every single day.

My favorite part of the job was being able to talk to people from different regions and countrys.
It was a wonderful experience and I was very thankful to have all the opportunities that I had.

Pay & benefits
They under pay and get mad when asked for a raise.

Job security and advancement
I applied to 3 different positions while there and didn’t get anything. They say they want to promote from within the company but they almost always hire from outside the company first.

Management
The upper management here is TERRIBLE! They do everything backwards, make questionable decisions on a regular basis, multiple managers don’t actually know what they are doing when it comes to their job. It’s a hostile work environment. Don’t do it.

Culture
The workers are cool but the upper management are the absolute worst. They ignore all ideas from workers only to use those ideas later and act like they came up with it. It used to be a lot more fun to work there but over the last year the morale on the shop floor is WAY DOWN. All caused by two managers.

Overall
This company used to be fun to work for but over the past year it’s taken a severe nose dive. Upper management is absolutely clueless, HR acts completely oblivious to any problems, managers have created a hostile work environment. The shop floor workers and a few managers are cool and fun to work with. Other than that there is a lot of shady dealings and cut throat people that work here. I wouldn’t recommend coming here.

As a shipper at Kluber I spent most of my time unmonitored and created my own work schedule.  Policies and procedures were in place to follow although I relied on my time management and stay busy attitude to guide my work day.

I learned many of my warehouse and shipping skills at Kluber including but not limited to pick, pack and shipping process, UPS and FedEx software experience, inventory management, fork truck and material handling, purchase orders and inbound receiving.

My coworkers are familiar with each others job responsibilities and work together to meet goals.  Teamwork is a big part of working at Kluber.

The hardest part of my job was when the full time shipper I worked with quit and I had to step up and run the shipping department.  I had to train two new employees while maintaining our same shipping schedule.

The best perk of working for Kluber was the responsibility I was given.  I enjoyed going into work knowing what needed to be done and making sure it was without having anyone to tell me.

I can't speak for other parts of the Freudenberg Group because I only worked at the Hopkinsville location. The company used to be a great place to work with a family atmosphere. This was prior to the new management, which was about 4 to 5 years ago. It used to be a rarity to work overtime.  The hours started gradually going up as our new management team, headed by Mr. Daniel Wagoner, tried to implement lean manufacturing processes. While all along not caring about the extra workload this put on the people working on the floor. We went from hardly any overtime to 6 and sometimes 7 days a week averaging 10.5 to 12 hours a day. No respect is shown to the worker bees on the floor. The only way to seek advancement is to pucker up and kiss alot of butt, that is unless you are one of the good old boys. This man brought in alot of his past friends and coworkers into key positions. Little does he know alot of them talk about him behind his back. I once went for a lower management position which I was qualified for, but I dared to challenge "his" authority. In short, the place is ran by a dictator. Longest 9 years of my life... God has blessed me and I have moved on to a truly world class employer.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Machine operator 14 salaries reported	$19.50 per hour
Injection mold operator 9 salaries reported	$36.06 per hour
Maintenance technician 3 salaries reported	$29.91 per hour
Manufacturing associate 2 salaries reported	$26.00 per hour
Technician 2 salaries reported	$18.45 per hour

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