product development engineer

operator

data entry clerk

HNI Corporation

This company uses people and takes advantage of their best qualities to use them to their benefit and once they have exhausted all of your resources and are no longer seen as valuable in their eyes they will find a way to get rid of you. Seeing from both the floor and management side of the company I have seen how poor the management is and how employees are treated as less than human beings at times with very little leadership from management. HR is corrupt and will change and manipulate the system in order to get what they want and what they think is best. Rules and regulations  are changed and things are done in secret behind closed doors to make themselves look good and in order to protect the company from say having to give employees their earned and given benefits as an example. Worked with this company for years and got to the point no matter how above and beyond I went with my job there was no room for growth. Was promised raises and promotions in which again "Corrupt HR" portrayed on paper that I was receiving the promotion and raise but in their system it was never changed and disregarded. But when I left for a better company was asked why I wasn't happy and what they could do to keep me. Would strongly recommend that you reconsider working for this company as I know many feel the same way as I do and the numbers show all of the people leaving to find better. It is also terrible pay. For what they pay you the company down the street for the exact same job would pay 2-3 times as much. Management has the buddy buddy system. So unless you're in good with one of the higher up managers and are willing to pucker up you have no chance here. There are people in management who are no where near qualified for the positions they are only there because their friend is a manager and hired them. There are only 5-6 people total who have moved up or advanced in the past few years. These same 5-6 people have received numerous raises and promotions. They are the only ones who have progressed.

At first you will be treated fairly, and almost as family, but very soon after your training is finished, you’re thrown right into the fire. Management is very keen on keeping lines as short staffed as humanly possible, regardless of how many people are doing multiple jobs. Sometimes they’ll even keep a line so short staffed they’ll have employees doing jobs that are above their pay grade. Also, very hard to move up, as long as you’re a line worker. Favoritism, and bad decision making runs hard here, so someone who is not even remotely qualified for a higher position could potentially beat you out for it, all because the supervisor liked them more, even though you break your body every day you go in, and work as hard as possible. A lot of problems, or complaints don’t go ignored, however most of the time you get told either “you get paid too much to be complaining,” or “is what it is.” You’ll mostly get told that by people who sit in offices all day. Point is, when I first started, it was nice. Fair treatment, and understanding. Now, it’s just a job to pay the bills.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The people are great. I enjoyed working with the team I was on a lot. I was sad when my time came to move on due to my service contract ending.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
I was a contractor working and had taken "ownership" of an IT product as requested. Suddenly they informed me that in 24 hours, my contract would be ending and thank you for your service, and we sure do hate not having you with us anymore. I left on good terms, but it caught me and my contract staffing company off guard. It would have been nice to be given a little more notice than 24 hours.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
They are an old-fashioned thinking company. Onsite or nothing. I was able to my job 100% remotely without issue and did it well for the contract term, but they believe employees need to be onsite. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A normal 8-5 work day. I had a critical issue come up once and I handled that with a little overtime, but overall, it was 8-5 and low to medium stress.

As an assembly line worker from the day you start and every day you work on the line your body will be in some type of pain, it just depends on the job. Of course your body will adjust to it, but it will always be there. Management doesn't care about each department/line equally. Some lines get all the attention, all the new employees, and all the updates while others are stuck struggling and not getting the recognition they deserve. Management will shut down the "unimportant" lines and have those people move to the "important" lines to work or they will flat out just take people from the struggling lines so they struggle even more. 1st shift is not held to the same standard of goals or organization as second shift, 1st shift also has twice as many workers as 2nd shift but 2nd shift is still expected to hit the same numbers.

I had a lot of fun working in the team I was in and they helped me grow my skills but the overall environment was rather caustic.
Teams did not try to help each other with problems but instead constantly played a finger pointing game.  Middle management was ineffectual as no one wanted to try to institute changes that would actually benefit the IT department or company.
Senior Management and Directors were commonly left in the dark about many issues and didn't really get out and talk to or listen to the employees.  This left a great divide between the people working with the problems and the people that could help with them.
Many problems were caused by employees that realized that there were no real consequences for doing a poor job, not doing a job, or just passing the buck to another team.

YOU WILL NOT ADVANCE WITHOUT A BACHELORS DEGREE!
They will tell you that an associates degree is merit to advance but it is a ploy to fill lower paying hard labor jobs and suppress you into place.

Compared to immediately surrounding area companies of the same size THEY PAY THE LEAST STARTING WAGES and LACK STABLE MERIT INCREASE and offer absolutely no cost of living respect.

Should you get injured on the job you can see there company Dr. Who will search your medical history for "preexisting" issues to use against you should you need improvement in your treatment.  YOU WILL NOT BOUNCE BACK 100% FROM INJURIES SUFFERED BUT WILL BE RELEASED BACK TO YOUR WORK AS IS BUT SITED AS 100% TO DO YOUR JOB. 

HNI puts on a huge Intern program for the summer. They give most of the Interns free local housing and provide various events throughout the summer. They put on all intern Lunch & Learns every week, as well as job specific Lunch & Learns for each group of interns. They grouped up the four IT Interns and put us on one project for the summer. They gave us a few days to dive into the software we would be using, then put us to work. Some of the tasks were typical intern tasks, but most of the work was challenging and engaging.
The workplace environment is fantastic. Everyone is willing to help you and point you in the right direction for anything. I wanted to learn more about Cyber Security, so the next day I was able to shadow the security team. 
Overall, great company and a wonderful internship experience!

What is the best part of working at the company?
The money, they keep raising your salary by just less than cost of living until you’re making big bucks then treat you badly however because of the pay you can never leave

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Attitudes of all the self centered self absorbed me me me people that make up the computer

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
They claim to be a “Member” oriented company and maybe they were back in 1946 but that culture changed decades ago YET they still make that claim in advertising and company memos

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Do the work of 10 men, put up with garbage from management while they sit in meetings all day arbitrarily coming up with more garbage to feed their “Members”

To me personally HNI is a Great place to work. I started around the mid to late 80's and quit in 2006 and came back in 2014. In saying that I've meet a great deal of people that came through here so I'm very people oriented i think. So just by that and having the opportunity to work on every line within every department has given me skills I never imagined. Here's a few things I've picked up over a little portion of my career....Painter, press and brake press operator, CnC operator, lead person, assistant group leader and the list goes on. So yea HNI has been Great to me. They will prepare you, but It's all up to the individual. 

Typical work day includes meeting members to help them understand how to get more involved in their job and how to make it a better place to work, safely and profitably. 
I entered information in several different data bases concerning members training as well as attendance, member numbers.  
I also kept track of any and all certificates of insurance..
I learned how to communicate the proper way with members and management.  My manager was very eager to help me learn and taught me a lot.
Hardest part of the job was listening to their complaints about their own job and not being able to help them in my position.  Also having a heavy workload at the end of the week.
Most enjoyable was without a doubt working with everyone and helping them in any way I could.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Product development engineer 1 salary reported	$62,000 per year
Operator 1 salary reported	$15.00 per hour
Data entry clerk 1 salary reported	$21.50 per hour

Working at HNI Corporation: Company Overview and Reviews

HNI Corporation

HNI Corporation Ratings

Popular jobs at HNI Corporation

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected