maintenance mechanic

production worker

production supervisor

team leader

auditor

Hormel Foods

Typically I would go to the office early in the morning. Usually I was the first one there. I would turn on all the equipment. Check both fax machines for faxes, orders, etc.  If I had any orders I would make sure that they would be the first things I do every morning. The Corporate office is in Austin MN, which is 3 hours ahead of AZ.  Typically fresh pork orders would have to be done asap. There were many times that we would get add on orders after cut off, which is at 9 AM our time.  If that happened we had to get the manager to approve any add on's.  The management was great. My manager was very easy to work for. She was always supportive with anything I brought to her.  The most enjoyable part of the job was putting in orders. I worked with mainframe, which was a new challenge for me. The hardest part of the job was Accounts Receivable.  Sometimes that would get challenging. Many times the Reps were 100's of days behind, and I would have to try to get information from the distributors to make sure we had all the information we needed to get payback. Many times I had to write claim's because of the lateness of payback. My co workers and myself all seemed to get along quite well.  We were more like a family than co workers. This was a temp to hire position. I was told that I would be on boarded by the manager. The main reason I no longer am working there is because of my husband's diagnosis. He was diagnosed with cancer and at the beginning I had to take time off (which I made up for by going in at 5 AM on some mornings) so that I could take him to his chemo treatments. When my husbands diagnosis was public, I was asked to write a Admin Assist training manual, which I did as soon as possible.  I changed the filing around so that it's much easier to find things.  There is a thing called an 832 file. We have two territories, Arizona and Las Vegas.  I separated my files so that they would be easier to find such as AZ would be in one file by the date and another file would have such date but it would be in a separate folder for LV.  It was much easier to find files that way. When I first arrived at Hormel, it was in such disarray.  Files were so hard to find and nothing was filed according to date and trip numbers. I changed that part as well. Everything is so much easier to find now that it's all been separated by trip numbers and dates, etc. I also separated all holiday ham orders from typical orders. Holiday hams had to be done in a different way using different codes.  Those were all put into different colored folders to distinguish those from regular orders.

I deleted this once thinking I was to harsh but it’s an honest review and I added a bit.. Hormel pays well but you are there a minimum of 50 hours a week. They have great benifits if you can handle staying there long enough for them to kick in. You never know if you are going home on time or staying until who knows when. Management is vague at best and never know how much there is to get done. (I don’t believe that one bit they just lie to your face)Then they act like time and a half is this big deal and you should be grateful to work 50+ hours. It’s mostly spanish speaking in production,  so if you don’t speak Spanish expect to be ostracized, confused, and have an insane amount of anxiety. Like to the point you will probably need meds to control it. If you get hurt don’t expect to fill an accident report out because your supervisor will brush you off and be condescending  about everything knowing they can get away with it because who are you going to report them too HR? They are all in it together. The communication at this company is literally non existent and it shows by the lack of training even leads and sups get. If you are on the line prepare to learn to work on million dollar equipment with little to no training. Yes you will cut yourself, yes you will burn yourself, and of course yes like I stated nobody cares as long as you don’t bleed in the products. Even then it’s questionable..Anyone who has been there a few years (not many because most have walked out) say it’s gone downhill and people leave almost as fast as they are hired. The environment is chaotic on an average day and a complete hellscape on bad days. Also keep an eye on your overtime because the exact thing they think is gold they will try and rip you out of. They are completely anti union and are slowly pushing the union out by hiring people that don’t join. They will use the contract to their advantage but when it comes time for you to inforce what they agreed to they find ways around it. It doesn’t help that they seem to hire kids that have never held a job straight out of college and the “power” goes to their heads. Even though they can barely function at their jobs. Honestly save yourself a lot of stress and apply somewhere else it’s not worth it for 17 or so bucks an hour. I would also like to throw in that this place is more than likely a huge tax right off for Hormel because they can’t push out enough product, they hire primarily immigrants, and the place is falling apart. No money is even spent to fix holes in the roof. Anyways apply at your own risk and don’t say I didn’t tell you not to.

Hormel is a great company with potential for advancement. Great people make great successes, and that is why Hormel is an extraordinary company.

My duties day-to-day:
• Responsible for the manufacturing Master Planning Schedule.
• Familiar with Six Sigma and the DMAIC Process.
• Familiar with Root Cause Analysis.
• Conducts Continuous Improvement Process meetings; update employees on departmental progress, educate employees and product specifications, conduct SOP plant/company safety guidelines.
• Involved in Cost Reduction Projects: 1) Revised the layout of a department to increase total production as well as yield variance; estimated savings: $120,000. 2) Incorporated two job positions that increased total profit for the company; estimated savings: $108,000 per fiscal year. 3) Set up a recycling project dealing with direct departmental impact; estimated savings: $80,000 per fiscal year.
• Weekly meetings with upper management, discussing internal issues, positive/negative yield results on products, innovative outlooks, employee engagement.
• Part of the Ergonomic committee, dedicated to the physical safety of the employee; building the job around the employee and not the employee around the job.
• Controlled both day and night operations schedule; meet with night counterparts daily to ensure quality and productivity is maximized.
• Part of the “Best of the Best” competition within Hormel for profit (yield) gained on specific products.
• Set up departmental attributes specifically for employees: Employee of the Month, Product Prices, Daily Productivity Achievement, Birthday Recognition, and Achieved Daily Yields.

Hormel is a results first and people last organization. Over the last couple of years, Hormel has lost its magic. Everything is urgent and a priority, resulting in a disorganized environment. Leadership has no idea how their people get their job done. Hormel keeps adding more workloads and the lead times are unreasonable, leaving no room for employees to strategize. If employees cannot find work-life-balance, the POV is it must be the employee's lack of preparation, not leadership's demand for more. The purchase of Planter's® has put employees in RED ALERT STRESS MODE. Nothing is going right, and employees are expected to fix the problems and grow sales. Hormel hired a third-party consultant which has increased workloads. Culture: belonging, employees are expected to execute belonging on top of the insane workloads. The kicker is Leadership wants employees to tie the culture of belonging back to driving sales when belonging is about retention, talk about a disconnect from reality on the Leadership’s part. The icing on the cake is when Hormel reported recorded earnings, and in return gave the slimmest pay raises to their employees in a time of inflation. Leadership fails to understand their toxic impact on this company. Hormel is losing people monthly; these are highly talented employees that have been there for over 5 years, who are irreplaceable and have a deep-rooted connection with the people at Hormel. If Hormel does not fix this, they will continue to lose their top talent.

Night Canning Production Supervisor:	
•	Ensure the implementation and adherence to health and safety procedures.
•	Ensure that standard operating procedures are followed for each production run.
•	Monitor the quality standards of products during each production run.
•	Maintained a department production efficiency goal of 95%.
•	Implemented standard operating procedures for Lock Out Tag Out for the plant.
•	Adjusted daily yields accordingly to manage production cost.
•	Conducted monthly safety training for all employees.

Relief Meat Prep Supervisor	
•	Planned daily production schedule for each product run (According to allergen, meat and spices required for product).	
•	Ensure that employees are following USDA regulations at all times.
•	Conduct monthly safety training for all department employees.
•	Monitor the daily tonnage used for each product and make adjustments if needed.
•	Maintained a department production efficiency goal of 90%.
•	Adjusted daily yields accordingly to manage production cost.
•	Ensure that each employee is working safely and effectively.

Relief Pack & Label Supervisor
•	Carefully verified labels before each product run to ensure all labels comply with USDA regulations.
•	Accurately reviewed and verified the Thermal Processing cook time for each product.
•	Physically and accurately verified the inventory on each truck being shipped.
•	Maintained a department efficiency goal of 85%
•	Conducted monthly safety training for all department employees.

Communication between supervision and the workers was almost a non-situation, because it didn't happen.  
  The mechanic's, seemed to have given up on making a difference and just go through their daily grind with no real ambition to do more than what they have been given. 
  Making multi-craft (utility) titles attached to your title so they can ship you into a department you are not qualified or trained in to work.  This also gives them the latitude to spread out the work force and hire less people. 
  Moral is very low, because it seems to the people that no one cares, so why should I.  It takes less than 6 months to adopt this way of thinking.  Attitude reflects leadership.
  Management has no real-life experience, most are new engineering graduates, with no industry experience or in the field. 
  No uniformity in equipment or the treatment of employees.  One group will be in charge of one department, while another group will have to cover the overflow, when they are not made to do the work.  This also goes from shift to shift. 
  The job itself, would not be as hard, if everyone did their job, nothing more, nothing less. 
  Very little cohesiveness, between co-workers as a whole, but you will find many who work well together. 
  The people that work there, are surprisingly enjoyable to be around and work for, in production.

Hormel Foods is a fantastic place to work. The sales professionals are given all the tools they need to succeed, have open communication with individuals in the marketing/sales departments to help them achieve their sales goals, and have clear alignment with management. Selling with Hormel means selling the top brand in the industry, with name recognition and partnerships to achieve lift.  Sales Executives are able to set their own schedules, and can work from home if scheduling conflicts demand it. You are treated as high functioning, sales professionals, expected to achieve Results, without any sort of hovering, helicopter-like managers. You are empowered to sell and manage at Hormel Foods, but that comes at a cost as you are generally working longer hours to manage all aspects of the job, especially for a Senior Account Executive.

The compensation and benefits are above-average for the industry. Hormel Foods is a very stable company, always moving forward, and looking to innovate each quarter. The culture is slowly shifting towards a more diverse and inclusive one. Definitely moving in the right direction.  There is plenty of opportunity for advancement at Hormel Foods, although you must be willing to relocate to advance (in sales, mostly) or relocate to corporate headquarters in Austin, MN. If you achieve consistent and continual results at Hormel Foods, you will be recognized and looked at for advancement.

Great company to work for.  Supervisors are inexperienced on second shift primarily recent college graduates on their first job.  Most experienced and smooth running shift is 1st of course as would be with any company.  Management has the best interest of their employees and the company at heart.  People safety and Food safety are absolute.  Supervisors, Quality control and Camera system enforce this throughout the plant.  Those you complain about the camera system are the ones who have something to hide, not following safe food handling procedures or not willing to work and of course complain about it because they are finally being held accountable most of the employees like it because it provides for fair and consistent treatment. Hormel is a no nonsense company, fail to follow the rules and you no longer work there.  The hardest part of the job is those who don't pull their own weight.  The most enjoyable part of the job is the people, all are friendly and willing to help you learn.  The culture is definitely structured for success, bottom line again is if you can't follow the rules you won't last long at this plant.

As I first started my job at Hormel food I thought it would be an awesome place but after being there the managers did not care it was freezing cold which wasn't bad but if you got too cold and needed a break you were frowned upon if another employee didn't do their job instead of them before you get in trouble if you got frustrated it was you that got in trouble and they expected you to pick up the work of one or two other people slacking and just deal with it instead of the management dealing with the people slacking they had no way for people at different ethnicities or languages to communicate management did not care at all about the well-being or environment they allowed to be created they only come back in at last moment without any supervision but then if there was a problem they acted like they knew why and how and who started when they were nowhere around in the first place they allow for teammanship and communication which made a bad day from the start then when stuff got worse instead of giving solutions and offering a way to resolve or solve a problem they cause more problems the only thing they gave was attitude which help the situation then when the whole line already had attitudes they wanted you to do stuff against safety protocol at the same time training you and griping you about safety

Most people work 7 am - 4 pm with a one hour lunch break.  Very few people work in the office later than 5. However since the tech people need to support operations that work 24/7, there are times when a support issue or system update is needed and some tech people need to put in hours on weekends.  Though this seems to be fairly rare, maybe once every couple months but does depend on the position.  In my work group there was one person that put in a lot of weekends, mostly on their own initiative, but there was a lot of work.  Most people in my group worked remotely.  They are very willing to work with personal time off, unexpected occurrences.  I personally found my job very complicated with all the manufacturing systems and details and found the complexity kept me from utilizing my real strengths.  Not everyone has this same experience.  The best part of my job was my work group had a status meeting and we always took 5 minutes before just for random talk, not work related.  They really valued those types of relationships.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Maintenance mechanic 11 salaries reported	$33.09 per hour
Production worker 8 salaries reported	$22.20 per hour
Production supervisor 2 salaries reported	$70,625 per year
Team leader 18 salaries reported	$68,250 per year
Auditor 13 salaries reported	$23.45 per hour

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