manufacturing associate

production

manufacturing specialist

craftsman

field service technician

JELD-WEN

I worked at JELD-WEN for seven years. I started as a temporary employee and eventually worked my way up to group manager, so my experience was not based on a brief stay, one bad week, or an outside opinion. I saw the company from multiple levels. I gave that place years of long days, hard work, and personal sacrifice.


There were good people there, especially among the hourly employees. I worked with people who showed up, worked hard, and did the best they could under difficult conditions. I also had three amazing group leaders who worked extremely hard, tried their best, and helped hold things together when the departments were stretched thin. I am proud of them. I could not have accomplished anything without them.


During my time as a manager, I managed Siteline Casement, Paint Line, and SDL simultaneously on third shift. I also managed or had responsibility for 2500 Casement, Classic Line, Multi Department, Hinge Door Line, Warranty, and briefly had experience managing Siteline Double-Hung on third shift. I was expected to cover a lot of ground, solve problems quickly, and keep departments moving even when the resources needed to succeed were not provided.


The hours were brutal. I often worked 14-hour shifts during the week, with Saturdays usually being “only” 8 hours. Because I was salaried, I was paid for 40 hours regardless of how many hours I actually worked. The expectation was that salaried managers would simply absorb the extra time, no matter how much it took from their personal lives.


The lack of support made those hours even worse. I constantly asked for more resources: more manpower, more materials, and equipment repairs. We dealt with constant material shortages, broken or unreliable equipment, and departments that were spread far too thin. I brought these concerns up repeatedly in the meetings I was required to attend multiple times each week. Those meetings rarely produced meaningful solutions. In many cases, they only added more time on top of already long shifts.


Instead of support, those meetings often became another place for blame, criticism, and disparaging remarks. I was expected to manage the consequences of problems I did not create, while the basic resources needed to fix those problems were not provided.


I was also required to manage three different departments at the same time. In practice, that was closer to the role of a coordinating group manager, but I was never given that title or the pay that should have come with it. I felt bad for the employees in those departments because they were stretched thin, often without realizing how often I was fighting behind the scenes for better working conditions. I repeatedly asked for more manpower, enough materials, better equipment, and working equipment. Those requests were ignored.


One of the most difficult parts of my experience was the management culture. I originally worked on first shift, where I was one of the more well-liked managers because I genuinely cared about my employees and tried to advocate for them. Eventually, I moved to third shift partly to get away from another manager whose behavior made the work environment miserable. In my experience, that manager often took credit for other people’s accomplishments, shifted blame onto others when mistakes were her responsibility, and seemed to take satisfaction in firing people, including in situations where the reasons did not seem justified.


After I moved to third shift, I noticed a clear change in how I was treated. When I was on first shift, I was respected by many people because I cared about my employees and tried to do the job the right way. Once I moved to third shift, it felt like anything that went wrong in the department suddenly became my fault. Rather than working together to solve problems, too many managers relied on blame, petty insults, and finger-pointing. There were exceptions, but in my experience, many group managers cared far more about protecting themselves than supporting employees or improving the company.


I am college educated and earned two bachelor’s degrees. I do not say that to look down on anyone. Some of the smartest and hardest-working people I knew there were hourly employees without degrees. But it was frustrating to watch people in leadership positions speak down to others while showing very little actual leadership, poor communication, and a lack of basic professionalism. At times, even basic written communication from leadership was careless enough that common words like “there,” “their,” and “they’re,” or “to,” “too,” and “two” were confused. That may sound minor, but when the same people are making decisions that affect employees’ livelihoods, accountability should go both ways.


Politics also mattered far too much. I have a family with young children, and when I went home, I spent time with them. I was not interested in playing golf with the production manager or becoming part of that social circle. That was not because I was antisocial. It was because I had a family and a life outside the building. But at JELD-WEN Rantoul, politics often seemed to win over performance, effort, and results.

One incident summed up the culture for me. During shift changeover, a fellow group manager screamed and cursed at me in front of his entire department. It was humiliating, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable. Instead of addressing it seriously, the response from the production manager and coordinating group manager was to sweep it under the rug.


Immediately after that incident, I was terminated by HR for allegedly missing three consecutive shifts without calling in. I dispute that completely. I missed only one day, and I have the emails and dates to support that. After seven years of working long hours, managing multiple departments, fighting for resources, and giving the company everything I had, my employment ended with termination paperwork that I believe misrepresented what actually happened.


I also had serious concerns about conflicts of interest and workplace politics. I will just leave it at that. For those of you who worked at the Jeld-Wen Rantoul location, you know exactly what I am talking about.


What made the ending even more revealing was the silence. After seven years with the company, only the continuous improvement manager sent me a message thanking me for my contribution, outside of my group leads and employees in the departments I managed. Not one other member of leadership reached out. That told me a lot.


To anyone considering working there, I would say this: there are good employees at JELD-WEN, and you may learn a lot. I did. But be prepared for long hours, constant pressure, limited support, resource shortages, broken equipment, and a management culture that often relies on blame instead of solutions. If you care about your employees, advocate for better conditions, or expect fairness and respect in return for hard work, this environment can wear you down quickly.


A company can demand hard work. It can expect accountability. It can require people to perform under pressure. But it also has a responsibility to support employees, provide the tools needed to succeed, treat people fairly, and respect the time and effort they give. In my experience, JELD-WEN Rantoul failed badly in those areas.


Toxic work environment, management is overly concerned about production, and doesn't care about safety. In the beginning I enjoyed working for Jeldwen, the HR team leads training and paints a very unrealistic picture on what to expect. Very little training on the day to day work flow, or what you'll be doing when you hit the floor. Run away and don't look back if they say you'll be working on the A Frame(beading, glass dropping) or finalizer positions(lifting 100 pounds + windows 200-300 times a day). Employee retention is their biggest problem from a management perspective, because they will make you work through injuries, and show very little appreciation or consideration to their employees). In training they promise you will be rotated every few hours, but leads ignore that(as they are always understaffed). When you start to ask questions you realize the training is just propaganda, and no one is really happy working there. Every employee there will say so, managers will feed you a line and walk away. The work is hard, and often leads to injuries (hands, back, shoulders, random scraps, cuts, ect). When you discuss that with management, they ignore your concerns and expect you to work through it. You will be in pain every day. I'd often get home at the end of the week, and couldn't move my hands or unscrew a pop bottle. When you express any concern over your any of this, they will tell you to suck it up and keep working. I found myself in a two week training program that lasted maybe five days. The expectation is that new employees should work hard(even while injured), meet production goals(that they haven't achieved in years), and keep their mouths shut. Don't ask for support, don't ask for clarification, and don't ask to be treated fairly or with any respect. They are perpetually understaffed, and every employee is expected to do the work of two people on a daily basis. When you question that, and request support; you will be fired. When you don't meet production goals; you'll be threatened with loosing your job. When you're unable to keep up the work flow doing the work of two employees; you'll be told you aren't trying hard enough and then fired. Overtime is expected as a normal week is 45+ hours with 10 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch. They also schedule every other Saturday as mandatory overtime(usually a 6-8 hour shift with one 10 minute break and a lunch if they feel like it). Most of their long term employees are drug users, that will redicule you for anything and everything. Most of the leads/managers will lie to your face, and then act surprised when you question their word. I guess if you're a drug user, a felon, or don't really have another choice; Jeldwen is the job for you.

Before the first day, I had to fill out the paperwork twice because they just switched to the PeoplePoint system. It took them four weeks to get me a log in. The HR representative gave me a pre-paid payment card that was over one year out of date. I had to get a prepaid payment card because I didn't trust them with my personal information. There is no training structure and you are expected to do a task by being thrown into it. People with serious attitude problems are tolerated by the management only because they are fast workers. They yell at people and are kept on with little or no discipline. The management plays favorites. Your job assignment changes everyday and there are no defined roles, even if you are hired for a certain role. The management is not aware of what goes on on the floor and give poor, misleading and ill-informed instructions. Individual thought and respect are not shown here. You are on an outdated points system and you can be let go if you reach your maximum points. The benefits that they have do not go into effect until after 90 days. The job posting says full benefits. But it should be made clear that it is after 90 days. From what I recall, I was told you were covered from the first day of employment. HR is honestly clueless and if you have legitimate important question, they will just hand you a brochure or card and say "contact so and so to get this done". I had to set up my own account on PeoplePoint because they simply did not know how to. My pay was delayed a week or so because HR gave me me incorrect, outdated payment information. So I had to Email accounting in Oregon for about a week before an of my concerns were addressed and sorted out. You have to call or Email I.T. in another state just to get your account set up. Apologies are offered often for their incompetence, but that doesn't mean the consequences of those actions are not going to happen. The bottom line is that this company only cares about producing doors and keeping their clients happy at the expense of their workers. Overtime is expected whether they inform you in time or not. If you legitimate family or personal issues you have to deal with, you will most likely get points even if it is an emergency. Basically the approach is you are a number and not a name. The turnover rate is higher than any other company I have ever worked for. I am writing this review because I want people to AVOID this company and not waste your time or life here. There are better places to work and I found a place and have moved on. So please avoid any jobs posted by this company.

Received weekly e-mails on how our employment was in jeopardy. Management likes to threaten you constantly, thinks this is motivational for sales people. 
 Commissions in the Sales groups were taken away in 2004. Management lied,  and said they couldn't track the sales, but they could tell us weekly how we were falling behind in their expectations. Bonus program implemented but if you were to receive a bonus feel lucky. Top salesman in the Home Center group received 1500.00 in 2007 even though the numbers they had were the highest ever (since 2000) in that group. For 2012 the sales people received a 1000.00 bonus. Company used the profits to build a multi-million dollar office in Charlotte NC to impress the HD and Lowes people, and for the soccer stadium in Portland OR. 
The management believes sales people are not needed. Only have them because the big box stores require them to have representation. Limited access to products offered if you are not HD. You can not compete with the Home Depot pricing if you are a salesman for one of the other big box or dealer networks. 
No support from the service warranty department or plants you will deal with. The plants will loose your request for Return Authorizations and service request. They try to stall the process until the customer gives up on the warranty claim, or return authorization instead of just taking care of issue. This causes the store associates to loose confidence in you and your sales numbers will decrease significantly. Then the company will blame you, instead of fixing the real issue at the plant level and at the service warranty department. 
Request for displays in 20 stores I had taken over were denied several times. When the customers came to the stores they wanted to look at displays, store associates lead them to a competitors products and completed the sales with it. Management refused to listen and sales numbers did not increase in this market.
Sales Job turned into merchandising and reporting excel sheets to the marketing department weekly. Marketing department likes to change signage and brochures every six months in your stores. (Management believes this is what truly sells product not sales people working with the associates). That is a direct quote from one of the managers in the Midwest (Illinois).

The workers for the most part are great. Just like any company though there are a few bad eggs. The union totally stinks. They renegotiated a new contract and patted themselves on the back and it was a 100% loss in pretty much everything. I've worked in numerous union plants and this was a complete failure. Avoid the union would be my advise. The negotiators are only self serving. The contract will most likely be renegotiated again because Management changed verbage in part of it and this group of negotiators will more than likely lose even more and somehow pat themselves on the back claiming another win.
Management for the most part just really doesn't give a hoot about their employees or retention. They have a way of running their good employees off and cater to the lazy worthless ones. I would say their training leaves a lot to be desired, but in reality it toally sucks. They have trainers who bully new hires telling them if they can't handle them then they can't handle the job. Seriously, they make windows and doors not rockets. The jobs aren't that difficult and the pay is good for the area. However, if you are in Maintenance and in the top pay scale, they don't want to pay you more. Example, last year they gave a pay raise to "EVERY HOURLY EMPLOYEE" except the 3 Maint Tech III employees because "they wanted to remain competative". Another example of how bad the union is because they completely rolled over and slept on that one.
The company has a really cool thing where you work hard and above expectations and you are given other peoples work to do along with your own. The ones who work real hard are totally run into the ground and overworked to cover for the lack of work from the lazy worthless employees. The Maintenance team is great except one guy who everyone in the plant including all of the area Supervisors know he is incompetent and doesn't belong in Maintenance.
They are on a hiring freeze right now, but when hiring there is a continuous revolving door of employees running through the plant. Maybe 1 or 2 out of a dozen that go through stay and half of those may not stay 90 days. HR stinks with only one member of HR who truly cares about the employees. The workers are great but management pits one Dept against another.
Plant morale in the past 2 1/2 years has tanked. Everyone is miserable and only stay because the money is good. Most love their job, but totally hate the way the plant culture has changed the past couple of years.

I worked for both Windows and most recently Doors, the pay rate has increase recently to a good pay rate but the company as a whole is still as of yet to change itself as they promise they would for years, so they still have their infamous out of touch attitude and conduct towards their workforce, essentially they are quick to accuse, blame and punish their workforce without any exceptions and are slow, difficult and virtually impossible to change themselves for the betterment of the workforce.
As a typical day at work depending your department is as follows: you arrive to clock in then you go to your designated area for briefing then you start your work for the day, depending your job function will determine how difficult it would be and how stressful, my case as forklift operator I was assigned to interior department, my job was unique compare to others.
 I was tasked with more jobs than usual due my ability to get things done rather quickly or things that were risky and extremely difficult that no other drivers were able to do as effectively as I can and because of that I was over used and I wouldn't recommend that to anybody and as a result in my attempt to complete my excessive tasks I violated a Safety Rule thus I was terminated without exception, there were no injuries or risk to personnel just minor damage. I'm not saying I shouldn't be punish for my error but automatic termination - that's excessive, they could have done differently, that's how they teach others what to do and not to do. 
They should looked into what lead up to it  and why it happened that way it did, which then they make a reasonable decision on rectifying the situation.
The people that you work with is what gets you by on the day to day at this place, the lower management such as leads and supervisors are ok depending your department, they're stuck between us and the upper management and do the best they can to make it reasonable for us to endure.
so inclusion, they pay well, good benefits, poor work/life balance depending on what shift your on and short breaks and unreliable upper management with their ridicules demands without scratching our backs in return.
I hope this help you have a general insight on what you are getting into, I'm not saying don't work here just don't expect a lot or a carrier option, its a job at best for awhile...

I have filled in on 7 different jobs, none of which I was trained for. The equipment is outdated and unsafe to the point that I called OSHA before they would fix it. Maintenance is lazy. I was showing one man a problem and asked if he planned on fixing it and his serious reply was "No!" We have had 4 factory managers in the past year and a half, one was only there a month before he decided his personal business was better suited to him. Managers are unsure what is going on, none could do the job the employees are doing so how can they coach you to do better? Communication is non-existent. We've had one manager we were getting out early and another say no we aren't. They fired my boss, no explanation given. In a meeting the new factory manager got upset because employees questioned him on a new goal. He made it apparent that we are not to question his decisions. 
Decisions are made, modified and changed in the same day. Policies change or are just forgotten in a week or so. Management has made promises that they were starting a program to pay everyone according to how many jobs you knew how to do. Now, that program has been put on hold. They posted a assistant manager position and took 2 months to decide that they didn't like the candidates and so eliminated the position. Production is so terrible we are on track to trash almost a million dollars in product. We've had semi trucks pull into a customers lot, the manager come out and tell the driver to open the truck so he can inspect and then turned the truck away refusing to accept it. We've lost several customers. Home Depot puts it in their ads that discounts won't be given on our doors because they are terrible quality. Repairs are made with the cheapest materials (why would you use auto Bond-o to repair a wooden door???) We have people who build doors inside out and yet keep their job because they are so desperate to make quota. I wouldn't put these doors in my home even if they were giving them away for free. Oh, and we get one ten minute break and twenty minutes to wolf down your lunch.

Typical day was checking email and my voice messages, usually from Home Depot employees who were trying to locate their door orders. Then it was usually off to the back of the building where our trucking company office was located to obtain the bill of lading so I could determine if the doors were shipped to that particular store or not. If they were, I would instruct the employee of that HD to re-check their inventory or we would have to send a Jeld-Wen representative out to find them.
Also delt with our warranty specialist in conjunction with our Jeld-Wen reps concerning any warranty issues.
Occasionally I would recieve a phone call from a customer who purchased a door from the Home Depot, when the HD refused to help them and told the customer they were supposed to call us.
Was also responsible for the end of month accounts receivable, for which I had to "hound" the Home Depot for payments of door deliveries they claimed the never recieved (another area where bill of ladings came in).
Learned that Home Depot stores, espeically in the New York areas were notorious for "losing" doors. Fortunately, my tenaciousness worked to Jeld-Wen's benefit.
Most of my co-workers were great to work with.
I enjoyed my boss. If there was a particularly difficult project I was working on, he was more than happy to assist.
The hardest part of the job and most stressful was the end of the month financial reports for our accounts receivables.
I found the most enjoyable part of the job being the investigating end of it. Finding out whether or not the doors got there or not, as well as helping to resolve warranty issues with our warranty specialist and representatives.

Ever wanted to work for a company that does not have their communication set, organization, or poor management? As title says, and my experience working for JELD-WEN, they definitely need some training on how to manage a plant and their employees. The work culture seems to have it's focus on safety for the most. There were recent changes of quality over quantity for production, because of loss of businesses over the last couple years.

A typical day at JELD-WEN is just anything you'd expect at a workplace. Work, sleep, work again.

They do take safety seriously for their employees and always want to end the work day safe. Spring and Summer will have promised overtime hours (and possible weekends depending on orders) but when Fall and Winter times hit then the hours will plummet. Management will offer skip days, and skip weeks for slow production. Making the biweekly paychecks very inconsistent..

Besides the mess with management, the co-workers are awesome to work with. Always working hard, and help out with a hand in need. I enjoyed the position and department I was in. Very productive and focused on work.

In all, the one thing I've learned about working here. It's a average workplace. The co-workers are great. The management is poor, confusing and often miscommunicating with their employees. They do "care" for your safety, but don't ever get that comfort feeling that they can work something out for you. For how selfish they are, they only care for their business and hope that you seek a career base focused on their terms.

Don't ever mention about going back to school, or else they will let you go.

Horrible place to work. Management team is the worst I’ve ever seen. Promote their friends to the better positions even if other candidates are more qualified for the position. You’ll constantly be working overtime so you’re family life will suffer plus you’ll be working rotating swing shift for a minimum of 7 days before any time off so you’ll be drained of energy on your day/days off. Instead of actually fixing issues they just wait until someone gets hurt and then attempt to resolve the issue while at the same time passing the blame on the victim (depending on the victims job position). Most “remedies” to issues involve making that job more difficult to perform. JSA’s are so outdated and present misleading information as to the actual OSHA Standard and in some cases one policy will counteract another policy. Forklift policy is becoming a joke as management has attempted to rewrite the dismounting procedure without actually researching the official OSHA Standard for such an action. They seem misinformed and oblivious as to how tasks on the warehouse floor actual get accomplished and most of their policy changes seem to be directed at slowing the workers down and making the jobs that much more difficult. They take what should be an easy task/process and make it as difficult for the employee that actually has to perform that task. You’ll be forced to do tasks outside of your jobs spectrum. Overworked and underpaid when all things are considered. 

YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A NUMBER TO THEM! An asset to be forcibly used to their liking!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Manufacturing associate 1 salary reported	$20.66 per hour
Production 3 salaries reported	$22.30 per hour
Manufacturing specialist 2 salaries reported	$19.20 per hour
Craftsman 32 salaries reported	$27.50 per hour
Field service technician 1 salary reported	$25.44 per hour

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