operator

production

senior operator

quality control associate

material handler

Healthy Pet

I have mixed feelings about this company. I worked there for a few months, long enough to learn the job. I left for reasons listed below.

Pros: the product is cool and the revenue is great. The product practically sells itself. A few of the staff are great. The factory supervisors are the best group of coworkers I’ve ever met: hard-working, kind, helpful, and down-to-earth. And the Customer Service Mgr. deserves kudos, too. She was the only person there who made efforts to get to know me and communicate properly, in both a business and a camaraderie sense.

The “cons” I experienced may not be the same that you would experience in your position. 

The biggest problem at HP, when I was there, was that there weren’t proper procedures in place across the company, and none of the upper managers seemed to have the right experience in business operations, so they weren’t aware of what “normal” companies do. There are reasons why other companies follow certain processes, rules, and procedures. These are time-tested measures, and when they aren’t followed, operations don’t run smoothly. Because of this, some people had easy jobs and a small workload, while others were overworked and stressed. 

In my department, my boss, the Director of Finance, was a good guy. He was very smart, very nice, and really knew tax accounting and a lot of accounting rules. I liked him a lot. Despite being a great accountant, though, he didn’t have the personality or experience to be a director. He didn’t know how established accounting departments were run, and he didn’t understand who did what in the dept., and who ought to be doing what. He was focused on accounting rule minutiae to the point that some expected procedures weren’t materially sensible. But, for the most part, I enjoyed working with him.

The HR Manager was a friendly lady, a good conversationalist, and someone who I would have enjoyed going to have beers with. I liked her. But, she, too, didn’t have sufficient experience to do her job well. The biggest problem I experienced at HP was that she wielded a great deal of authority, her directives caused problems and more work for me, and nobody on the executive team had the experience or the incentive to correct her and get things right. So, she was, effectively, in charge of a ton of things that she didn’t have the experience or aptitude to properly control.

I could list many examples. Below are a couple.

Before I took the job at HP, I had concerns about what my scope of authority would be with the staff in my department. The Director of Finance assured me that if my staff were sub-par, I would have the power to fire and hire as needed to get an adequately staffed department. I’ve been a Controller and an Accounting Manager for 10+ years, and I’ve had a lot of experience with all different employees. I only fire people when necessary. I can actually be too much of a softie, and tend to “look the other way” regarding a number of bad behaviors, as long as the department functions, and other departments and staff aren’t adversely affected too badly. When it comes to my staff, what’s even more important to me than skills is a person’s personality. I will not tolerate people being mean. 

When I started at HP, two of my three staff were mean (to me!). They had been misled by my predecessor into thinking they were good at their jobs, when the truth was they were new at them, untrained, had lousy attitudes, and were fairly inept. They needed a lot of training. When I tried to train them, they took it offensively, and complained that I was saying they were doing things wrong. That’s the tip of the iceberg. There were so many things they needed to be trained on, and every little thing was its own battle, because they resented the fact that I didn’t say they were perfect (like their predecessor had). They were openly hostile to me, even yelled at me, and there was nothing I could do about it because they were protected by the HR Manager. The Director verbally supported me, but, effectively, he backed up the HR Manager. So, I was in a continuous state of battling with her in order to try to get my department functioning and properly staffed. 

This caused me to have to do my job, parts of their jobs, and train people as part of my ongoing work week.

The 3rd employee who I was supposed to manage was Accounts Receivable. In a company like HP, AR should have been a FT job. But, even though the HR Manager hired an HR Assistant for herself, my AR person was told she had to do payroll. So, half of my AR staff’s time was spent on payroll and payroll-related tasks. And HR made decisions that affected payroll without consulting us, such as having a retirement plan that automatically increased employees’ contribution rates if they didn’t create online accounts and manually change their settings themselves. In a manufacturing company with a large number of factory workers, that creates a payroll bookkeeping nightmare. And who was responsible for it? Not HR. Us. 

In addition, there was extra work funneling down to me from across the company because procedures weren’t in place or weren’t being followed. For example, there weren’t proper practices in place for warehouse supervisors to get production workers’ hours in for payroll properly, so my AR person was often wasting time trying to obtain information or making corrections that came in after incorrect data had been entered. When I talked to HR about this, and how we needed to put a system in place so that warehouse supervisors would get warehouse hours in more efficiently, the HR Mgr cut me off, intensely and emphatically told me, “[the Production Manager] has too much work to do … no way!!” I tried to explain that I wasn’t talking about increasing [the Prod. Mgr.]’s workload, but that warehouse hours needed to be managed by warehouse supervisors, not by an accounting clerk who is not in the loop on such things. But I hit a brick wall. 

It was like that with everything. I couldn’t get sales people to give my clerk who processed their expense reports receipts because the HR Manager didn’t want to upset the sales people. And asking them for receipts upset them. Accountants out there … yeah …. cringe. 

As I said, I have many examples. But, I’ll stop there. I had so much unnecessary extra work coming my way because I wasn’t allowed to tell other employees in any department what to do. So, I ended up with the flotsam. I worked all through the Thanksgiving break, which was 4 days off for everybody else, and the same with the Christmas break. I worked evenings and weekends. 

Once I’d felt as though I knew my job there, and knew what needed fixing and doing, I tried talking to upper management about the issues. First, I had communicated with my boss, the Director of Finance, and with the HR Mgr., but I had been communicating with them all along. Although my boss was verbally supportive, verbal was as far as the support went. So, I tried talking to the CEO. He seemed uncomfortable with what I was saying, and he didn’t want to be involved.

The one executive there who was good at his job was the VP of Operations. I think he would have helped. However, he wasn’t my direct supervisor, and the Accounting Department wasn’t really his jurisdiction. Plus, he had a full workload, himself. He was one of the people who did a lot. All the competent people were overworked. So, I alerted him to the issues, but I didn’t expect help. 

Despite the lack of capable directorship from above, and the lack of proper procedures company-wide, I still really like Healthy Pet as a company, and I think it’s great to have a business like that in Ferndale. I hope that by now they have learned and changed some of the things that were wrong when I was there. I hope that the new Accounting Manager(s) or Controller(s) are strong people who are able to get proper procedures and staff in place, so that the environment is healthy. With COVID restrictions easing up, people returning to the office will help, as well. When I worked there, the emailing was out of control. I’d go to the bathroom, and have 25 more emails in my Inbox when I got back to my desk, and a lot of them had angry tones. 

The company one time spent thousands of dollars to have a trainer come in and speak to staff about communicating. It didn’t help. The $$ that were wasted there used to make my stomach clench. Oh well. I guess that boosted movement in the economy in other ways. 

One of the things I liked about HP was that there were a lot of strong women there. Many of the managers were women, and they were the ones who commandeered. 

HP has a lot of potential, and, if you’re thinking of taking a job there, I hope you do, and I hope you make it a better place.

A typical day at work is a little different for me than other associates due to remote working.  The majority of my tasks are self directed to strengthen relationships with our core customers.
Particularly in the onboarding process, there are many knowledgeable colleagues that are willing to share their expertise to help.  Sustainability drives decisions, particularly with products.  This creates a vibe in the organization that you can be proud of.
Management is generally supportive - although sometimes I've found that they are overtaxed and response times may suffer as a result.
The hardest part of the job is that there wasn't a well defined onboarding path - so it can be a little trial by fire as you get up and running.
The most enjoyable part of the job is the support from the people within the organization.  Especially within the HR Team, everyone seems to have a vested interest in you as a person.  You are NOT just a number within Healthy Pet. 

Having said all of the above, it's a great company to work for and I would recommend it to any of my friends that are looking for a job.

When I was hired I was never told I had a month to learn the machine. The main machine isnt the problem,  it's the boxing machine and conveyors. Boxing machine only runs a few days a week and always has something wrong with it. If it doesn't then you have wet product or the air density is so high it weighs down the bags and causes them to jam up the boxing machine.  The conveyor system runs above the machine and always clogs and you have to climb stairs all day but there is no plans to fix the problem. If your looking to apply for the automation position save yourself the headache and dont apply, you cant control the air density or the wet product so they will try and stay your no meeting numbers.

I've worked for Healthy Pet going on 6 years now and although there has been a lot of changes in those 6 years, everyone is willing to work together as a Team! In it to Win it attitude! In my position as CES and I'm sure in other positions companywide we all wear several hats to get the job done. Open door policy with HR/Supervisors/Management. Healthy Pet offers opportunities for extra training and education. During this COVID pandemic I have missed seeing everyone’s faces at the office but very thankful to be able to work remotely and continue to have the same support at home as I do at that office. IT has been great with getting us all set up at our homes and we have an open line of communication daily with all departments.

If your looking for long term, retirement job this ain’t for you. No room for advancement, and if there is room for advancement they will tell you one pay rate but you end up with several dollars less, no matter how hard or easy the position, several long term employees have been Promoted to high paying positions but never received the  minimum pay required for position would in fact receive several dollars less on the promise that the pay would. Eventually come but never does then your giving a sorry excuse like oh you need more experience to make that amount even if you been doing the same thing several years. They lie to shut you up. Also after this year no more raises only can make more money by moving to new positions witch are never available nor do they pay any better

What is the best part of working at the company?
The over all friendly people there and great team work ..  you stay busy and get in shape at the same time . It's hard work with 12 hour shifts ,but it's worth it and you have no problem catching on quickly.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
It's a fast past job .. so keeping up is something you have to get used too pretty quickly, but with good supervisors you will have no problem doing so 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It's really cold in the winter and very hot in the summer time . But that's at every warehouse . It's also a very clean warehouse 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Fast past the whole 12 hours .. but it goes by pretty fast for the most part .. and of course when you leave your tired

Culture is key here.  I have never worked for a company with such a great culture.  People for the most part are happy and excited about their work day.  Benefits such as medical, dental, 401k, etc are the best i have ever had and the company is very proud of it.  Work hard and get the job done the best you can is all they ask.  The company understands that occasionally as a human, mistakes can happen, but if you're not working to correct it your time may be shortened as it should be. We don't have the best processes but we're working continually to advance them. 

With that said it's a great place to work.  I may not retire there but I would be thankful to. 

The job is good for jesup. I like the shift work. People come through the door like clock work most don't last 3 months that being said there are people here that have been employed for years . A new employee will now start  out making more money than an employee that's been working at the company for a over a year we teach them and they make more money if not the same. Most of the office management care and do a great job.some are just her to be here that should not be in the position they are in. Pay raise need to be addressed for experienced employees that work hard.

What is the best part of working at the company?
They have decent pay rates. They lack in quality training and the schedules suck.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Constantly changing standards and management playing favorites. Lack of actual safety standards being enforced.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Not great. The HR is even more toxic then some of the employees.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Clock in, team meeting, do whatever it is your job is for the day, you go home.

There were some cool people in the factory but management was bad and I had to work a lot with office people and they were rude and cold and unhelpful and didn't know what they were doing. Made my job impossible. Communication stunk. Upper management likes to think they care but they don't do things that actually matter and trying to make it better is like banging your head on a wall. The culture is cold and unfriendly. Judging from the good reviews I read, I'd thought there would be some nice people to work with, but I don't know what those people were smoking when they wrote their reviews.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Operator 7 salaries reported	$18.46 per hour
Production 1 salary reported	$23.50 per hour
Senior operator 2 salaries reported	$17.63 per hour
Quality control associate 1 salary reported	$14.25 per hour
Material handler 2 salaries reported	$13.20 per hour

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