machine operator

senior maintenance technician

line lead

crew member

material handler

Great Northern Corporation

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part of working for the company was the friendly coworkers.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful thing was the poor staffing decisions putting incapable people on the hardest machines and expecting the experienced employees to do the work of three people to make up for new employees mental of physical incompetency. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The work environment is dusty and extremely repetitive and physically demanding depending on your position. The culture revolves around keeping your mouth shut and not communicating any problems to the supervisors or else they will see whoever is presenting or communicating the problem as the one causing said problem. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
The typical day at the company involves cleaning up all the messes from the shift before you while also trying to prepare your order list for the day while also running the machine. All while trying to work with coworkers who are not fully trained and have no idea what they are doing.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Great fellow employees !  After 29 years i have 400k in my retirement. Ten or more hours per day required during the busy seasons. Free doughnuts & pizza if you work Saturday or Sunday. Free coffee, ketchup & mustard in the break room. At least 500 to 750 lumens of light everywhere, all year round.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Being responsible for finding all the mistakes of those that came before me from people that make more per hour than I did.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Comfortable environment, unless you are highly sensitive to light or odors. Bring your kiddos for halloween, secret santa for Christmas season. Elves on shelves. Great giveaways at the end of year party. Summer cookouts and sometimes games. Wonderful hourly people to work with.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Web based task system to show what work is on list to work on. Always be ready to get a call, email or walkup for someone with questions. Hour lunch for office staff. Prompt exodus when work for day is complete.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Co-workers are friendly. Many major holidays they shutdown for.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Sometimes you may have one huge order that can take more then one day to complete and if your assigned to that machine as an assistant, it can be long and difficult on the body for the 12hr shifts that you work. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Diversified culture and work environment on days can be somewhat stressful when top brass is there watching over you. Company is not flexible with employees unexpected personal/family issues that can arise. Will not work with you to try and make up your time so as not to affect your missed time. They will dock you points if your out for Covid and if someone around you has Covid, they force you to where a N95 mask. If u can't where one due to heart issues they will send you home and dock you points.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A lot of down time and waiting around for machines to get started as machines break down a lot.

Working at Great Northern is challenging. You need to be willing to work hard and learn new things in a fast paced environment. Many of the jobs require constant heavy lifting at a very fast pace. Better to be mechanically inclined here as there are a lot of positions that require operating machinery and a considerable amount of troubleshooting. Overall its a good place to work. The overtime requirements can be taxing at times, but it always seems like management does try to avoid unnecessary overtime. There was still some "good ole boys club" stuff going on when I left the company. The PTO system is not handled very well where anyone with less than 15yrs in is concerned. One of the things that stands out the most about Great Northern Corp. is their commitment to safety.

Been an employee for many years. I still have no idea why they do so many things to hinder their own production. 
Yet, they still expect you to hit goals that are rarely achievable. Unachievable, mostly because management is ignorant of the machine capabilities. And they constantly fail to make sure you have everything necessary to complete  jobs. 
That's something you don't find out until you are getting ready to start the job. Pulling jobs off the line because of poor management affects your numbers. Your numbers affect your raise.
Maintenance is almost non-existent. Preventive Maintenance is sporadic, at best, and the culture is to run it until it breaks. Even if you have told them about the problem(s) prior to it breaking down. 
You should also expect to work overtime. More overtime if your (or another) machine breaks down. 
Mandatory overtime, at their discretion. 
They would have to change so many things, starting with management, before I gave a recommendation to work there 

Overall GNC is a good place to make a decent amount of money as soon as you start. But you'll probably have to sell your soul to the place because they don't seem to care how much they screw their employees over. 8 hours between shifts can be expected especially when you are new.  And expect overtime up to 12 hrs/day 5 days/week plus Saturdays...even if they let people go home during the week. The way management runs the place just doesn't seem to make sense half the time. And they will not hesitate to criticize your crew if you aren't hitting your numbers, but they won't give as much as a pat on the back when you have a good day. NOT a good place for people who have depression or anxiety. The machines run so fast sometimes you can't keep up. Also makes for a very dull place to be when you cant even listen to music. Most  co-workers don't have a high opinion of GNC. 

They are so short staffed they will hire anyone to fill positions.  Plan on getting plenty of lip service from the VP and supervisory staff without any progress in the end.  VP likes to boast that we are all a team and do what others cant or wont.  Apparently that means making promises to customers and overbooking machines in order to deliver on said promises.  Plenty of overtime, hope you dont have a life because you wont know til Wednesday if you're required to show up for Saturday OT.
All machines are severely understaffed at the moment so operators are required to come in early or stay late to cover some of the "empty" shifts

It is a small pair of facilities that wanted to have one person fulfill Operations Management and Manufacturing Engineering tasks.  I was tasked with appraising the efficiency of the satellite plant.  When a list of deficiencies was found, I prioritized them and called the Team together to introduce some needed changes.  When Team Members could take on the tasks, they were delegated appropriately.  Other times, I was able to influence and train them up to speed.  Other times, I headed up the tasks myself. The path of the produce was streamlined and the warehouse was set in order.  The Team and I were able to increase throughput by 10%.

I am a long term employee at Great North Chippewa Falls. The facility has had its ups and downs over the years and today is the best it has ever been. The main reason most people work is for the compensation. Great Northern pays fairly, has really good benefits, and the people are good to work with. I have worked many jobs over the years but have stayed with Great Northern the longest. I plan on being here till I retire. 

I was the lead material handler at great northern for 4 months before being promoted to a fulfillment lead because they saw my potential. After i was promoted they failed to hire someone to replace my old position and I was expected to maintain both positions without adequate compensation. I had to coordinate a 6 man team of material handlers as well as supervise anywhere from 100-150 people on the assembly floor. I was under appreciated, under compensated, and way too over worked. I do not recommend this job for ANYONE, there are a lot of companies that will appreciate a good work ethic and attendance, and this company is most certainly not one of them.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Machine operator 62 salaries reported	$25.45 per hour
Senior maintenance technician 22 salaries reported	$40.00 per hour
Line lead 4 salaries reported	$23.38 per hour
Crew member 2 salaries reported	$20.50 per hour
Material handler 7 salaries reported	$24.55 per hour

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