production worker

production assembler

warehouse worker

industrial mechanic

machine operator

Milgard Windows & Doors

Milgard is almost a good company, i think if you're thirsty for long hours and have a miltary mindset and no personal life its a great company. But if your like anyone else who has family or a social life or other commitments outside of work then you will not like working here. They tell you in the interview its only about 45 hours a week but the reality is it's consistently 60 hours 5-6 days a week. Going 3 hours without a break at times and the workload never ends even if you finish the days work, you have to finish the nexts days work and the next days work after that so on and so on. It literally never ends and its very easy to fall behind, and if you fall behind you have to work more days. They say it slows down in the winter but your still working 11 hours a day instead of 12. The swing shift pays 2 dollars more but the turn over rate is so high and no one is trained there often times long time workers on swing have to run entire 14 manned departments by themselves. Benefits are pretty good paid holidays off, the reason why I say its almost good is I think the overtime should be optional instead of mandatory and the workload should be more reasonable. if it was a normal 9 to 5 I would have zero complaints but its 5-5 5 days a week and if your someone who wants to run a side hustle outside of work its basically impossible, getting doctors appointments are difficult. And if you have medical conditions or develop medical conditions do not work here they will not accommodate you. I like the feeling of being a skilled craftsman building windows and doors it just the business standards are really bad and biased towards the office workers and management. I did the math my department only has 8 people and we make about 80 doors a day each door is about1-2000 dollars a pop. So thats about 80,000 dollars a day the 8 of us are producing money for milgard add it all up for a month it's about 1.6 million dollars were making milgard a month and how much do we get paid a month, 3000 each times it by 8 you get 24000 dollars milgard is paying doors department to make them 1.6 million dollars. So thats about 1/5th of a percent of a sale i make for doing 1/8th of the work. More like 1/4th of the work because I run two stations by myself most of the time. The only way to be happy at milgard is to give up everything in your life thats not milgard and love the grind and you'll be happy but the reality is getting financially robbed and making a company alot of money. Am I really worth 1/5th of percent for 1/4th of the work and the only appreciation I get is a shirt. Trust me do not work here your better off making and selling your own doirs at least you get paid what your worth.

I started my contract as a software engineer with Milgard corporate working from 06:00 until 17:00 Monday through Thursday, and 06:00 until 15:00 Friday. For most people those hours would be inhumane, but it wasn't that bad. I had to leave the house every morning at 05:15 to make the drive (10.3 miles) where the project was located, which landed me there between 05:35 and 05:50 every day. Leaving work at 17:00 I would get home between 17:55 and 18:20, with just enough time to eat and get ready for bed. Because of that it became my life, and there wasn't room for much of a social life. Once I arrived every morning and sat down at my desk is where the real issues began. Every morning, we had a meeting at 07:00 to discuss the previous day's accomplishments and lay out the next 9 hours worth of work. Because of this, the first hour of my day was often spent scraping through old code looking for something to keep myself busy. Our morning meetings usually lasted about 5 minutes, the quickest I remember was between 45 seconds and 1 minute, and the longest was about 12 minutes. That was the extent of the social interaction for the day. I did enjoy the peace and quiet, even after other employees began to show up around 09:00 it remained quiet most of the day. The problem I had was the incredibly slow work pace. I prefer to always have a task on my hand, or at least one on the back burner to fill time, that was often not the case here. I don't believe that was because my work pace was above normal, but simply because the team managers were hesitant to assign new tasks and allow other team members to gain new skills, or possibly use ones they already had but weren't provided the opportunity to use yet. The work was tedious, and was very heavy in data validation and testing. Despite it being painfully tedious, I commend the company for being so OCD about finding and squashing bugs, as it really did help smooth the road as we went into deployment. The company compensated us well for a base salary, and we had overtime on top of that. I think that more than made up for the type of work we had to do and the hours we worked. My biggest issue with Milgard was the massive lack of communication. I was brought on with a 3 month contract, which is extremely short, but told that there was a great possibility that they would be extending contracts. I expected to have even a hint at the final decision at least 3 weeks out, but as the deadline approached there was no word. I had asked my manager three times to determine if my contract would be extended and was not given a straight answer until the end of my contract, when they chose not to renew them.

I have worked a cumulative 5 years at this company across several departments and shifts and I can say with absolute certainty that the management is the biggest and most infectious problem here. Accountability is an absolute joke, they only use it when they don't like someone but otherwise cut deals and favors for everyone else. Nobody cares enough on a management level to hold each other accountable and make positive change, instead each retreating to their individual responsibilities and yet still generally failing those too.

A company can only be as good as it's management and most of this management cuts out early, takes regular vacations, doesn't show up for the Saturdays that you're forced to work, and then somehow still tries to tell you that you don't care enough. The office is treated like royalty with an extreme lack of accountability, employees are regularly goofing off and talking but nothing seems to be getting done. Employees in the plant generally are hard workers, put in the hours, and take a sense of pride in their quality. They are however overworked and consistently pressured to work faster, not better and do so in the face of almost zero positive reinforcement. Pay is mildly competitive in the area but decreasingly so, while the commuting employees are finding better opportunities in their areas. Turnover is excessively high, leading to a blind training the blind situation.

This company prides itself on quality, yet actively lets product ship to reach their numbers since they can just be serviced later. I've watched top management, people I used to respect, forge numbers ahead of corporate visits. We can't get proper tools or care for the plant but have no problem buying new faucets, chairs, computers, etc. for the office when they want. This destructive mentality and general disengagement from management has put the Simi plant in a position of having too many problems to realistically fix while continuing production.

Have been here for a little over a year. Was told at time of hire, many opportunities to advance with good pay! Not! After reading other reviews, i do notice the racial favoritism and preference. Equipment that didn't work properly a year ago still does not work properly causing enormous amount of unnessassary extra work. They do not abide to their own quality standards and push out poor quality. Good talk, no action. Leads favor "their own" when it comes to horse play, cell phone use, tardiness, etc, and they just laugh it off. Safety is a big issue as they stress safety, but do not take action to address the daily work hazards such as hard, sharp, pointy corners of fiberglass and wood eye and face high. Vary high turnover rate. Poor pay. They will tell you point blank if you mention reviews or pay, "do what you have to do." Unorganized, disorganized and unprofessional! True, do not mention an improvement, suggestion or a solution to a lead or anyone. Because it is now "their" idea. Poor or no training whatsoever. Everyone gets paid the same, except those there a long time. So, you can do several things, which is what they want you to do (for no more pay) or you can do just what you were hired to do, 1 thing. Same pay period. Do not let then know you are versatile, you'll be doing numerous things for the same pay. I would never buy a Milgard product. From what i see, you can "yes" your way up. "Used" to have monthly bonuses, they took that away for a .25 raise for everyone across the board. They said it was better for employees. Seriously? Can barely get an 8 hour day in. Was supposed to be booming in January, now April, it is slow as ever.  EVERYTHING is only getting worse as previously mentioned. Looking real hard to get out of there ASAP. Don't expect to advance or be promoted. Was told by a well respected MGR, he's trying to change the Milgard Way of promoting "their own" and overlooking the people who work hard trying to earn a promotion. A temp job only, not a career job by any means.

The Pultrusion Plant in Fife has made improvements on machinery, equipment, and processes that have made the work safer, easier, and less strenuous. 

Over the past few years management has implemented a safety committee, employee engagement committee, applied for the OSHA VPP Star status, and provided many incentives. 

Pay has increased greatly with a shop floor job starting at $22.50 and a potential of MOD up to just under $30.00 (not including merit raises). 

The onboarding process used to be, "fire hose" the new person with information, then, send them out to the floor the same day to sink or swim. 

Now, new hires have one full week of  some floor training with a hand picked certified trainer, safety and HR broken up into sections, and training lab hours to learn key on-the-floor skills to equip them with the ability to advance the MOD system faster. 

I have witnessed management going above and beyond to make Milgard (Pultrusion) feel like a family atmosphere. We have catered food at least once every few months to socialize, we have fundraisers for local organizations, we have paid time off to volunteer at our favorite 501 c3, Milgard even has a program where they assist employees in need. 

Maybe it was awful in the past (according to some reviews) but it has changed since then and it is a pretty great place to be a part of now. 

A very stressful job. I'd only recommend working here for experience and then getting out! Underpaid employees for the amount of work given, unsafe workplace, lots of stress on your body without much recovery time, company seems to only care about the number of doors scanned out versus the well being of their employees, hard to advance/ get pay raises, seems to always be constant bickering and sabotaging between day and swing shifts, management has always been pretty bad about fixing problems and listening to employee concerns, quality problems always seems to slow everyone down, machines also often break down and slow down your progression, overtime...overtime....overtime, kiss your Saturdays goodbye especially in the summer(10-12 hour days+Saturdays), HR is not friendly and at times not useful, there is a lot of problems within the company and its best to try out somewhere and avoiding all these unnecessary stress factors...

I loved working with the company. The employees were my drive and learning what they knew made the days go quick. Everyday was different being that we make custom windows and everyone was always learning. BUT, micromanagement is a huge problem there as well as they expect that every window take the same time to produce i.e. a small picture window to a 7ft x 12ft custom window. Then question why weren't we able to meet our UPH Goals. They Preach safety yet they have us working 12 hours a day 6 days a week and still expect these outlandish goals. They blame it on the employees that are quitting and getting fired but in reality it's the company's pressure and expectations.

Lastly, the training. There is none. They have Job Instructed Trainers (that normally work on the line) to train new employees, but also expect them to still work on the line and hit their hourly goals. Not effective. Takes 3 times longer to train someone like that. Most new employees are just thrown onto the line and left there to figure out what to do. If they make it, great; if they don't, they're gone! There's a review down below that said it took them 2 months to get trained. That's insane.

Working here can be described like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, but not every single day. Some days are boring, some days are terrible, but some can be fun. 

Most of management unfortunately do not care about the employees; instead, they are too concerned with the director’s ideas, even if they don’t make sense or will cause more harm than good. They do not effectively ask and listen to employees concerns, and prefer to push things off and ignore issues if it will cause them too much fiscal harm.

This is a problem when you have people who are hard workers, who have been employed with the company for over 3 years, but are only making 30 cents more an hour than a new hire. It just doesn’t add up. 

This place could be much better than it is, but unfortunately this will not happen until a mass exodus or “cleansing” occurs. They need managers who can effectively listen to their workforce.

They also have a tendency to hire “warm bodies” instead of skilled laborers, which has led to a sharp decline in quality and the reliability that Milgard USED to be known for.

Milgard has a very good name but it's all a Facade. For starters there is no room for advancement and no type of development program in place. I was expecting a world class company with opportunity to develop my career but that was not the case, training consisted of shadowing your peers and learning as you go. I was given a clip board and told "good luck". the technology available is ancient, ERP system is outdated I believe it's from the late 80's or early 90's  it's a green screen with very little accuracy and limited control from inventory to sales orders to running reports. In addition to that drawing specs and configurations are very difficult to look up, only a select few have access and it makes work more challenging then is needs to be. The culture is very bad and that's from top to bottom, my employees, peers and coworkers never have anything positive to say about the company. Honestly I can go on and on about how bad this company is but it'll take too long. I just wish someone had warned me about Milgard before I accepted the position now I'm stuck. I feel my skills and intellect have diminished since I started working for Milgard.

I worked for Milgard (Fife) until the Covid shutdowns.  We didn't worry about stuff getting stolen from the fridge or the lunch room, or lockers either.  

Management was management.  I can't say they were lazy and I can't say my managers didn't care.  Like most places you get flack and you get love.  If you play the game, stay professional (after all it is a job), work hard, and learn as you go along...well it can be a very bearable job with some benefits like bonuses...and overtime...and sick leave...and PTO...medical...dental...vision...ahem.

I had managers and leads from other departments who, ALSO, actually cared about me, and my well being there.  I didn't complain much and I didn't argue.  I did my job and the appreciation was reciprocated until my last day there.

Don't go in expecting stripes from the jump.  Earn respect if you have to.  How else can you prove yourself worthy of promotion if you complain or slander and/or work lazy out of spite?


Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Production worker 13 salaries reported	$23.15 per hour
Production assembler 37 salaries reported	$21.96 per hour
Warehouse worker 22 salaries reported	$21.68 per hour
Industrial mechanic 3 salaries reported	$32.39 per hour
Machine operator 32 salaries reported	$23.81 per hour

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