production associate

industrial electrician

machine operator

maintenance technician

maintenance mechanic

James Hardie Building Products

This could be a great place to work but management is just terrible, which is one of the main causes of all their problems. And I wish I could say this about a specific department, but unfortunately is all over the place and it’s basically a matter of luck whether you get a good manager or someone who doesn’t even know what they are doing. 

Managers will ask you to do things that bring absolutely no value added (or no value at all), some of them I’m not even sure how did they even get hired since you need to repeat things 3 times or more in order for them to understand topics they should be aware of (and have more information than you do because of their manager positions), micromanaging is a popular trend here and asking you to do things in the hardest and most inefficient way is apparently part of their daily tasks. And don’t even think about pushing back, they will come back at you abusing their manager positions making your day to day just terrible. And, FYI, after this you’ll be on your own, because HR couldn’t care less. 

HR fact: if you are not happy in your position and are planning to leave, they will try to convince you to just move to another department instead of leaving (so, you have to think about changing your career because of their inability to recruit/train/retain the right people).

HR fact: they will try to convince you to stay by saying  you’re being paid more than what the market offers (this is a big lie, I’m pretty sure almost everyone in a non-manager position feels underpaid for the job they are asked to do, they are quick to ask you to always do more, but don’t expect to ever be recognized for that in any way). Besides, we are not experts, but we just google what is the average salary for a position like ours and turns out we are, not surprisingly, underpaid.

Fact: turnover rates are so high here management doesn’t even know what to do. There are departments with almost 100% turnover.

Fact: if you don’t live in Chicago or are not willing to relocate there (or to some other city or country), you have 30% less chances to move up in your career or obtaining any type of managing position than others who do.

Fact: hard work doesn’t matter here, it’s all about having the right contacts, you may even have them create a whole new department for you!

Fact: they offer you 10 days of paid vacation when you sign your contract, but they don’t tell you that you have to use 5 of those every December for a mandatory shut down.

Fact: if something goes wrong, managers won’t hesitate to throw you under the bus.

Fact: if you are being harassed, abused (verbally), retaliated against or even discriminated based on your race, there’s a 60-70% chance that your manager or VP won’t support you and will prefer to make up tens of excuses why you should just adjust to all styles of management.

Fact: their maternity policies are terrible, I lost track of the number of women who quit after having a baby because there is no understanding or support at all.

Again, great potential but energy and resources are waisted in all the wrong places and no support at all for staff level employees.

James Hardie is a not so clean plant, you will start off in orientation to which they will lie about having the ability to move up, they will feed you every friday and potentially throughout orientation. However the sum of it is, an a general operator you will be confined to one area of work for 3-5 months, the only way to obtain a pay raise is by finishing a "check list" for that job they confine you to that is "determined by your speed" in actuality when approaching managers and or supervisors for signatures on this "check list" in order to get a pay raise and move to another position where you will be confined and stuck at for another 3-5 months its like fighting tooth and nail to obtain. 

If you work on the WET END you will endure a lot of shoveling cement, getting burned by process water, and (down day) which is essentially shoveling cement, pressure washing and cleaning for 12.5 hours. If you work on the DRY END this is finishing the product to get it ready for shipment, you are hounded every meeting about the quality and the rate of speed that these arent being shipped.

The starting pay is 16 dollars and some change, which for the line of work you will be doing and the amount of stress and fast pasted not clean work environment this pay is bad for the work you will be doing. If you want to spend your time confined to one area, pressure wash, get wet and dirty and potentially burned by process water this job is for you! 

This company basis their standing off "THIS IS A FAMILY" yet if you decide to departure or leave the company you are now NOT considered a James Hardie family member yet their true colors show and prove you were just an expendable number to them. 

I would never recommend to anyone to work here at James Hardie, not my kids, not my family, nor my closest friends.

A typical day: The work itself is easy and will keep you busy. 

What I learned: Keep your headset on and your head down low and MAYBE you wont get picked on. 

Management/The hardest part of the job: Department manager and supervisors bicker too much with  each other and that negativity trickles down. They tell you to feel free to go to any of them if you are having any issues, DO NOT DO IT. They will not help you, and you will pay for it dearly. 
Try telling HR, but know that they already know, and will do nothing to help. 
Supervisors get SUPER annoyed when you ask them questions. 90% of the time your supervisor will ignore you asked for help or just tell you to 'push it thru" without any explanations. Department does not work as a whole, just compare it to AR -great leadership there and you see what team work looks like and a department should be like. TRUTH!

My co-workers: 80% of my co-workers are great, they understand you as they are dealing with the same issues.

Most enjoyable part of the job: Was accomplishing so much work and helping people. The highlight of my day was when I was clocking out to leave.

I enjoyed working for James Hardie R&D Department all employees of the company are very helpful and understanding. I wish I could of had the opportunity to get hired on in a position that was needed a person. But my time didn’t come around quick enough. I would have to say working for Kevin & James in R&D side of James Hardie was extremely the best job I have ever had during my life to working and enjoyed every day to wake up and go to work.  The company take cares if there employees in the littlest ways to appreciate what they do in a daily basis. As there Employement with the company. If I ever have the opportunity to be employed by them I would leave my current position with any comelny and go back without loosing a wink of sleep.


I want to say Thank You to all that gave me the opportunity to have employment with James Hardie for the time I was with you. I appreciate all that you have done for me and taught me more then I already knew.    Thank You Kevin,James, and Chad for everything please keep me in mind if you ever need a employee for a position in future

The James Hardie plant in Reno has undergone management restructuring every few months. Many people start there in upper management just to find that the cuture there is so bad, with the yelling and disrespectful AND DANGEROUS way they operate that they quickly move on. The turn over rate is very high throughout the plant. They are known to fire people who give 2 weeks notice, as well as fire employees weeks before large bonuses are to be paid out. The health and dental insurance  was a pain to use. They reimburse you... The problems are systemic in Reno. As a whole the company seems okay, but at the location here that is not the case. This plant has a bad reputation even to the rest the James Hardie plants and corporate office. To be clear this location is actually addressed in the city of McCarren.

My experience at James Hardie was extremely challenging. The hours are consistently long, work-life balance was almost nonexistent, and management often treated employees very poorly. Turnover rate was very concerning during my time there. I noticed team morale was low compared to past employers. Despite having continuous improvement/lean roles on site, the plant culture was highly resistant to change; especially within management.

The fiber cement industry is not a clean workplace. Must be okay being dirty on a daily basis.

On the positive side, compensation and benefits were very competitive, and there are opportunities to move up if you can handle the workload and environment. The safety culture is also among the best I have ever seen in the work place.

To be successful in this environment, you will need to be able to thrive in high pressure, fast paced, and production centric settings. This is ultimately not a sustainable environment for many.

A typical day at work consist of going in and having a meeting about the day ahead of us. Relieving the shift before and getting paper work ready for the day. Inspect forklift and fill out inspection sheet since I have the forklift driver. Remove pallets from line and take measurements and inspect to make sure the quality is up to standards. Take pallets out to staging area for shippers. Management is good, haven't had any issues at all. Workplace culture is good, everyone promotes a brothers keeper environment and a safe work place. 

This was the most unprofessional, disorganized, horribly managed company I have ever worked for. Management taking credit for my hard work, job was way much more than a buyer position. Worked at least ten hours a day and when I left after only 9 hours was told that my co-workers notice when I leave and think I'm not there enough. Boss has no backbone and places blame on you for his issues. No procedures or documented process' in place yet if something goes wrong you didn't follow procedures. I went there to be a buyer and made $80k in estimated cost savings in the 4 months I was there in which I only got to spend maybe a month and a half actually doing the titled position. I was a forklift driver, office remodel organizer, warehouse organizer, and inventory counter. Beware this job is salary and they force 10-12 hour days and if it's between you and an hourly guy, they are making you work Saturday.

What I liked:
- Open office atmosphere
- Casual work environment
- Free lunch friday
- Gym reimbursement
- Great comp and benefits
- Global footprint
- Strong financials, strong cash flow

Area for Improvement
- More engagement from CEO staff with their organizations
- Organizational clarity (i.e. who owns what?)
- Better decisiveness
- Faster issue resolution
- More collaboration and partnering

Ultimately, the areas for improvement fall within the leadership category. The boundaries of each leader's role were blurred, the ultimate decision makers were absent, which left staff to argue amongst themselves on best course of action. The organization is capable of much more momentum, and I think they will focus on organizational development now that a new CEO successor has been identified.

Lots of posturing in this company and very limited focus on actual improvement. Very mismanaged from the corporate side and poor communication down the chain about goals and strategies. The culture is very competitive to the point of employees only looking out for themselves rather than the benefit of the company. CEO has not set a clear path and mircomanages to an extreme level. This is carried on down through the corporate managers and little freedom is given to the plants to work on their own solutions. All the individual plants are kept separated so no shared knowledge or best practices can be incorporated throughout the company. All the systems and reporting are at least 5 years behind the industry as a whole.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Production associate 111 salaries reported	$21.97 per hour
Industrial electrician 2 salaries reported	$43.86 per hour
Machine operator 3 salaries reported	$22.61 per hour
Maintenance technician 2 salaries reported	$32.44 per hour
Maintenance mechanic 3 salaries reported	$33.85 per hour

Working at James Hardie Building Products: Company Overview and Reviews

James Hardie Building Products

James Hardie Building Products Ratings

Popular jobs at James Hardie Building Products

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected