machine operator

maintenance technician

laborer

sanitation worker

quality technician

Hearthside Food Solutions

HFS, in many respects, is typical of most manufacturing facilities.  Production work can range from very physically demanding to pick-and-pack, shifts run 12 hrs, and management is always pushing higher output.  At best, HFS is average for the industry; however, nothing about it excels as a workplace. Management will only do the bare minimum to get by.  Pay is near the bottom for market, medical benefits are mediocre, and 401K match is below average.  Paid vacation time (PTO) is based on a 40 hr work week.  The 80 hrs allotted are not a fully paid two weeks. Production shifts total 84 hrs in a two-week period.  HFS does not offer separate sick time, so PTO hours must also be used for sick days.  

The major issues affecting HFS as a workplace result from poor management, both on the local and corporate levels.  Very little is invested in maintaining the facility.  In our facility, the backend air system stopped functioning during the hottest summer on record, and has remained unrepaired for almost one year.  The company invests virtually nothing in formal training beyond the most basic safety and equipment overview information.  Training for equipment operation is handled by production operators who may or may not be experienced. Decisions are often made without consideration for staffing or equipment limitations, driving downtime, scrap, and quality issues in which production is ultimately scapegoated.  The front office is run by an incompetent, unhelpful, and work avoidant HR that is equally tragic and laughable. I have never witnessed a more unprofessional and disorganized management group in my 40 years in the workforce. Both management and production are a constant revolving door.

I can only recommend HFS for temporary work, and only for those in immediate need of income.  In some circumstances, temporary workers are paid a substantially higher hourly rate for pick-and-pack work than full-time employees are paid for equipment operation. HFS does not acknowledge work-life balance as important and more often than not imposes mandatory overtime at 60+ hrs/week.  It is better to test the waters at this company through temp work than to commit outright to full-time employment. HFS will literally hire anyone with a pulse who can pass a drug test.  Many full time hires quit within 30 days or less. 

At present, HFS is hemorrhaging full-time, experienced staff because of the constant overwork and low pay.  Although inquiries about raises are  addressed by management, the stock response is always “we’re waiting for approval from corporate.”  This has been repeated for almost a year.  HFS is quick to blame “labor shortage” for many of its problems.  Companies with this mentality are in denial. There is no labor shortage; there is a shortage of companies who are worthy of decent employees.  



I work here through Randstad so I am a temp. No, I am not a criminal and my background is better than most– have never even had so much as a speeding ticket to my name. There are so many other reasons why people go through temp services. 💁🏿‍♀️

Anyways, the workplace environment makes or breaks a job and its a nightmare here. Some employees are microaggressive and rude asf. Everyone here has a clique so if you are the type to stay to youself, like me, you will feel alienated and you WILL be talked about. Some co-workers are ok but the overall work culture is not for me. Like I said before, its a super easy job but I have been made to feel like I do not belong here.

After I worked for 6 days in a row with no problems and got a check, our line suddenly went down one day and they started sending us home beacuse there was no work for us. Imagine driving 30 minutes to a job, standing there on the floor staring in space for an additional 30 minutes because you can't work while everyone else does only to be told to go home because theres nothing for you to do. No prior phone call, no text, email. Nothing. Like, do they really just expect me to come up here everday until I get lucky enough to get a space on a line? For real? De@das$? Serious? Like gas is free? I feel like I'm playing musical chairs but with spots at the conveyor belts.

They did this to me for two days in a row before I went to my local temp service to ask whats going on, if my contract was over or something because Heartside didn't have anything for me to do and a Randstad recruiter asked a line at HFS to hold a spot for me. Like, why should this even have to be done. My enthusiam to work here has vanished. I've only been here 2 weeks.

Upper management at HFS does not gaf about temps. Heartside doesn't even notify Randstad if they should send their temp employees or not. Ts is crazy. Overtime isn't even a question atp. Coming to work not knowing if I will be sent home or not because there is no room for me is crazy. 0 communication. My two weeks notice will be in.

A typical day at work for me, was going in an hour early everyday to get any updates from the day shift crew that worked that day before my crew. I was the Sanitation Supervisor, I had to make sure that my leads came in an hour early too so we can get our schedule for the day started and check the line cleans that we where going to be taking over on so we knew exactly where we where going to be starting off and how many people we needed in that area. We had a crew of anywhere from 25 to 30 people at times and line and area's through out the whole plant to clean which was a huge plant, we also had a time line to try to get thing's done.  A lot of my people did not speak English , so when communicating things to them I would either show them by doing it myself and then pass it to them and watch them do it for a few to make sure  they got it. Or just use my has to help explain what  I was saying. I seemed to get a lot of respect from my people by doing this, I also taught my leads to do the same thing instead of just trying to guess. If I had and someone I just couldn't get through too, then I would find someone who could speak both English and there language and have them help translate for me.  This way there would be no chance of a safety issue happening.  The hardest part of the job, I would say is when we would have a real heavy rain fall outside and it caused a bunch of roof leaks inside which would cause us to shut some line down, and I would have to rush from one end of the plant to grab people to take care of the leak and then get to anther area to get people to clean the line where it had leaked.  As for the most enjoyable part  well to be completely honest the whole job. I loved what I did and I took pride in my work, and my crew was like family to me, they knew I would help them no matter what , and I would listen to anything they needed to talk to me about , but they also new that when it came down to it and I needed to do my part as a supervisor cause someone was goofing around or just didn't feel like working then I did my part a boss.   

I worked there for 10 years. I found out that they are not hiring for packers anymore. If you start there as a temp, you won't get much hours because the hours vary depending on the order each week and you will start off as a packer. If you start out as a temp, and you want to get hired in, you gotta sign up for machine operator or other bids. Out of the 10 years I've been there, only a few people got demoted from the machine operator bid. It takes time to learn the machines but they are much better training now than before and it's an easy job but stressful some days. 1st shift typically starts 6am-2pm. 2nd shift 2pm-10pm. Then 3rd shift 10pm-6am. I was getting paid $16+ as a machine operator but be prepared to have weird hours. Sometimes they'll add Saturday if the order wasn't filled and add it last minute on a Friday night. If you have the lowest seniority when you are hired in, they can force you to work Saturday or make you stay over 4 hours because someone called off, but usually people want overtime so sometimes you won't get it even if you want it. I enjoyed the job and the coworkers. I got along great with my supervisors cause I worked hard and helped out. The benefits were pretty great also. Most job bids are easy. If you are a strong man, mixing is a great department to work for. All other job bids are easily done by anybody. It's hard to get demoted. If you are a temp and want to get an operator or whatever bid, do your job well and stick with it even if the hours are crazy and keep signing up for bids that come up. The supervisors and leads will notice who the hard workers are and if you sign a job bid, tell one of the supervisors and they can put in a good word for you. The people hired in also notice who the hard working temps are, and it helps getting friendly with them to if you want to sign up for job bids cause they'll tell their supervisors what a great job you're doing. I've actually recommended a few temps to my supervisor to put in a good word for them.

The days you work are oftenly Monday through Saturday’s or sometimes Monday through Sunday’s. The company took those opportunities away from the employees so mostly people work 4-5 days now. Disclaimer: I don’t know if they’re going to give out 6 days or 7 days later on.) A normal day working there is pretty chill. People there are friendly and talkative.  I learned a lot of things and lessons throughout the job while working there. The management is rigged because mostly the positions like leaders or assistants don’t really hear out their employees. It’s always picking their own race to protect and hear out. I don’t like the way they do that because it seems racism is going through everywhere in the job but oh well.  The workplace culture is alright. Mostly people fighting over the pay, accusations and other issues that are affecting the work. The hardest part that I experienced in the job is nobody there knows how to do more than one machine. Ex: A person only knows how to clean the totes. The other person knows how to clean conveyor belts, lines, Slicers, Mondini’s and more.) It’s really hard because once you know how to do all the machines, they use you every-time which your killing your body everyday. They slack on teaching people new areas, new things and other things that can improve a person while working there. The most enjoyable thing is probably will say nothing. You basically experience everything everyday and it will be the same people talking about the same issues, seeing leaders slacking not helping, not teaching people, not one properly trainer to train people in the job. I have way more information but it’s too much. 

I was terminated 2 times for reasons that were completely untrue and later deemed untrue and permitted to return back to work. They fired me for not signing a document to leave work early (Because there was no scheduled work) and later, found that document that I had signed. The management only "go through the motions" to seem professional and create rules simply because they look good on paper, not because they are efficient or useful. The only reason that I continued with this employer for as long as I did is because I enjoyed having health benefits and seniority. I have been praised for my work at this company numerous times from many supervisors but the upper management make the final decisions and often times the decisions go against basic logic (for what I can only assume is to ensure that every person working for Hearthside is aware that they have the final decision in all matters). Hearthside has such a high turnover rate meaning that they terminate so many people that if you were to ask around, you would quickly find someone who has worked here and they will likely tell you how terrible it is to work here (on facebook this employer has a rating of 1 star out of 5). I find it miraculous that I have worked with this employer as long as I have and am very proud to be moving on from here.

It's not a terrible place to work if you have no life or family or friends. If you have any of that don't even apply you will literally work your life away! You will literally get 1 day off a week and do nothing but work 12s 6 days a week. The machines run like garbage maintenance can't fix anything or they chop it up to machine operator error because none of them have any training or degrees to be in their positions so they don't know how to do it. The higher ups are jokes all people who have been there for years but don't care about anything other than numbers numbers numbers. You better be in the green or else! Their are straight up shift wars every first shifter hates 2nd and 3rd so on and so forth. They want to promote team work but there is none some people help some don't the ones who have been there for years don't care anymore because they are so burned out. Then new ones don't stay long cause they can't stand the fact that this job is now there new life. I would not recommend this job to anyone who wanted to be valued because you will definitely not be valued here. They fire you because they can. They have mixers who have 16 17 points but they aren't fired but anyone else gets to 12 and they fire you. They love to run all these lines when they don't have enough people but we aren't hiring certified positions anymore because they have enough people. They need to change a bunch of their policies then they could probably start keeping people! 

The HR for Hearthside Food Solutions was the worst (by far) that I had ever worked for. They were not helpful, and actively would try to work against you for the benefit of the company. It was always a struggle when dealing with the HR team. I do NOT recommend working here. They have mandatory OT, even for salaried teams (aside from the HR teams). Some rules were applied to certain individuals, while they didn't apply to others. HR was not there to help you, as normal HR teams are supposed to do, but to try to find ways to pigeonhole you into rule violations to attempt to compromise you. Anything would be attempted to be used against you if you were ever to leave, and to attempt to make sure you would not be able to collect unemployment.  Some advancement opportunities within reason, If you do not have a degree of any kind it will be an uphill battle to advance in your career, Expect to be passed over several times by outside hires with a degree, regardless of ability. NO Bonuses (even for salaried, because the bonuses are structured in a way that is not entirely based on your performance, but if the company did not get a large enough EBITA, it would exclude salaried employees from bonuses)

Huge warehouse, fast paced,  steady work with loads of untapped potential. Have learned a lot in a short amount of time and genuinely enjoy the workplace culture and day to day challenges. Upper management does an excellent job trying to work in concert with employees however direct supervisors generally seem unwilling and reluctant to provide positive reinforcement and constructive feedback. Still not clear on whether it’s due to underlying issues regarding productivity concerns or simply lack capacity to separate personal from professional matters in general. Favoritism amongst seasoned employees also seems to be a common concept at this facility as well which does not help new hire morale at all. The hardest part since I started the job I would say would be the open and obvious racial discrimination and bias against the minority employees more specifically white and black employees. Overall favoritism seems to be portrayed towards those of Hispanic heritage. I am appreciative of the overall work ethic standards seen from coworkers and support staff as well as the friendly and welcoming atmosphere given by fellow coworkers. 

First thing in the morning walk the floor look for ( things out of the ordinary) talk with operators make sure all is good. Spend time with guys during shift change, go over what was problematic and the solutions implemented.  Make sure if item is open that a crew is on it, assist as needed.  Log in check e-mail, respond. grab work orders from previous day and look at work preformed making notes ( for pats on the back, more work needed, or training needed).  Check on crew if item is open from previous shift, assist as needed.  Meet with Plant Manager to make sure needs are being met.  Head up to pull parts used sheet and match to work orders (make sure they jive).  log on to EAM check man hours to hours logged, check PM status ( make sure none overdue), check projects status ( moving on time), motivate team as needed.  Receive parts and log into stock, order parts for stock and for projects.  Walk the floor look for leaks, broken/damaged equipment, make work orders for repairs, write work orders for projects.

Always show up to each maintenance call even just to learn how we respond, helping as needed.

I learned that keeping at it and never quitting we can do more than we ever thought we would need to.  also, lean on support that is what its for.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Machine operator 52 salaries reported	$21.68 per hour
Maintenance technician 33 salaries reported	$30.57 per hour
Laborer 35 salaries reported	$18.51 per hour
Sanitation worker 37 salaries reported	$19.12 per hour
Quality technician 48 salaries reported	$20.70 per hour

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