production associate

maintenance technician

material handler

laborer

maintenance mechanic

Sonoco

All in all #1 concern at Sonoco is safety safety and safety again! 

I enjoyed working for this company I absolutely loved my coworkers (Most of them at least) 

Upper management and  supervisors are typically what you expect from a big company

Production Expectations must be met 

Safety must be and will be enforced (It’s a good thing but they’re overbearing about it) 

Upper management and supervisors tend to be overbearing but This is expected with a production Manufacturing facility- I learned a lot (good and bad) from my upper management- gotta give credit where credit is due 

Room for Career advancement Is hands-down available if you work hard and earn it but the opportunity is definitely there

Pay and benefits were great- did not have a problem with that at all

Expect overtime And expect to be required to work the overtime! In most cases several 12 hour 7 day weeks! The hours are long very long but the pay makes up for it. You will lose time with your family and time for yourself so be prepared stay healthy physically and mentally 

Breaks are met per state requirements But they could be a little bit more lenient (2 -10 min breaks and PAID 20 min lunch)  the breaks are two hours apart and consistent  always 

401 k - 100% match which was GREAT!!

Point system - Absolutely hated it - No sick days points are supposed to substitute for sick days 
Every plant is different but where I worked 
it was a quarter-point if you were one minute late or clocked out one minute early 
Half a point if you missed some of your shift a whole point if you missed your entire Shift
A whole point if you didn’t call in on time 
a whole point if you Or no call no show (This is on top of the point you get for missing the day) 
You start with zero and have a max of seven and it takes a whole year from the Date  of your first point To fall off (or get back) 

Paid vacation and holiday pay - Great and if you don’t use your vacay it will be paid out at end of year

Also want to know note my plant had employment rewards which was a great opportunity to earn a little extra money - again you have to do the work to reap the reward 

I loved the people i worked with - maybe not necessarily the job -I had to work very hard to learn my press but hard work paid off and I was good (enough) And I was proud of how far I came in the end 
 One last word- repetition!!! If you don’t like repetition this is NOT the job for you

I wish there was more employee recognition from managers - it helps the employee feel valued and know they are appreciated. A simple pad on the back goes a long way
 









The supervisors, trainers, maintenance & people on b crew are horrible. All these people care about is money! 60-84 hour weeks are common, even though they tell you in orientation that they work 36/48 hours with MAYBE one OT day. The seniority list is ridiculous, you can have more seniority than a person and will not get the day you signed for & when you talk to the supervisors about it, it’s oh better luck next week. HR is wack If you work night shift. You would have to schedule a meeting with her & how can you if she doesn’t answer the phone!
 The supervisors are vindictive & bipolar. You’re doing something wrong every day, even though they just told you to do it like this YESTERDAY! You’re always going too slow, but 4 things will happen at once & they want you to be there & fix all of them in .3 seconds. (how can you be in multiple places at one time?) One day you’re doing great the next day they have you in the office wanting to talk about your performance. They ALWAYS scold the temps for everything but once you get hired in they don’t say anything else to you. 
When it comes to maintenance it’s never a mechanical issue it’s always an operator error, they stay there 2 seconds before telling you it’s fine and walking off. Their response time is greater than 3 minutes & by then the line is down, so it’s your fault that you can’t fix it. And again you’re in the office talking about your performance & production when it wasnt your fault to begin with. (I cant make production with a broke down line!)
It’s supposed to take 17 days to train but it doesn’t because most of the trainers don’t want to train, (there’s a lack of trainers & you can spend 2 months waiting to get trained) but they will because it’s a pay raise & they can stretch it how they see fit! (some get stretched to 28+ days) Most of the trainers are sleep/not there with you so you have to learn almost everything on your own.
On nights as a temp, they say they will hire you in 90 days but it’s more like 120+. After you get your background check back, you still have to wait 2 weeks before HR even thinks about putting in the paperwork. And then it’s another 2 week wait because HR “didn’t have time”. By then you’ve spent 5-7 months AS A TEMP! When you get hired you have to wait till the beginning of next month get your insurance, 90 more days on vacation & to get off probation! While if you were on days you would have gotten hired in on time.

The turn over rate is ridiculous, you can start with 12 new hires & end with 1. Some get paired with the wrong trainer,  some don’t have what it takes, some get on the supervisors bad side & they get fired! Moral of the story is, avoid B crew.

My job was a Mold-Setter and i absolutely loved it, My job was to put the molds in the presses so they can make the parts, and i was really good and fast at it and i really liked the fact that i loved coming in to work unlike some jobs I've  had where i absolutely dreaded going to work and made my life miserable in the process. But While working at Sonoco it was nice to have a Boss/Supervisor who actually cared and wanted you to do good but the main concern is Safety. Sonoco is really big on Safety and the health of the Employees. The Maintenance Supervisor witch was my boss he was just awesome and actually cared about us whenever we would work overtime witch was voluntary he always told us if he seen us getting burnt out and tired from working the extra hours he would take us off overtime, but i was one of those employees that always volunteered to work all the extra hours and all the Saturdays i could get because i loved cashing those checks. But All n All Sonoco is a really good place to work and the pay is decent and most of the people are nice and try to help you out when they can. The Only Problem I had was with there insurance well the prescription part anyway when i switched to Express Scripts if you take any Medication non-narcotic  you have to switch it to be home delivered by Express Scripts because you can only fill your Medication 3 times at a local Pharmacy after that the insurance wont pay for it and that's mainly why i lost my job there, Im type 1 diabetic and they wouldn't fill my insulin because i was never told by anyone that i had to switch to home delivery so i ran out of insulin and had to take multiple days off work to go to my Doctor in Indianapolis to get insulin samples from him all the while Express Scripts told me that i would have to buy it Out-of-Pocket until it  transfers over witch took over a month, and the two viles of insulin i did buy out of pocket witch totaled over Five-hundred Dollars, Hr at Sonoco gave me a paper to fill out and send in to Express-scripts to get reimbursed for the money i had to shell out for my medicine, when i had insurance. So i filled the paper out and sent it in and they are still giving me the run-around about reimbursing me for about Eight Months now.

Sonoco Corflex (the company) I honestly appreciate. They are the ones that provided my check for the work that I've done. 

But not the same goes for the actual people hired from Sonoco. SOME employees (In the factory) DO NOT practice equal opportunity. They honestly make the company look terrible, and unprofessional. 

Favorites, favorites, favorites! Line Coordinators have a huge say so in whom they would like to work. They choose family, friends and ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE. And if your not one of them, your chances to work are slim to none UNLESS they are short. 
What do I mean by attractive people?
If your appealing to the line coordinator, that's a good chance for you to be welcomed agian.

GOSSIP! 
What work place do you know that does not have gossip you say?? Relating back to the unprofessional part, the gossip in this place is HEAVY.
And if you are the topic, or the one that's not liked that week, you will find yourself unemployed. 
Or working slim to no hours, they ban together for you to be rejected by everyone and you end up going home. 

PRIMARY? 
What's a primary?!..
A new comer will take your spot if your not a FAVORITE primary. 

UNFAIR
Unless you are a FAVORITE; as I say again...you have to eat in the main break room, but if you are liked well enough you go to a special break room, where you can be a little more private. 
Again there goes that equal treatment out the door. 
Same goes for bathrooms.

SUPERVISORS,-Some-
Same issues
FAVORITES, 
Supervisors have the last say so. 
They will believe Sonoco employees before a staffing company dealing with issues. 
And as you know, if your not liked ________ I'll let you guys fill in the blank.

HARASSMENT......

I'm going to end this review.

This might seem a little outrageous, but its not even close. 

Bottom line, if people worked as much as much as they are nosey and messy. 
Production would sky rocket. 

My advice, get better respectful leaders to represent this well grounded company.

Micro managed. If the machine isnt running people are alright with watching you struggle for 8 hours straight instead of asking for outside help. The lead team has someone who doesn't know anything getting the pay someone else deserves. Everything is the techs fault which isnt a "team" oriented environment and causes significant stress. Saying that, I had one good supervisor and I hope they get out of there. 

Their "trainer" was as unprofessional as they come and was thankfully reprimanded for it which surprised me because being called into the HR meeting I felt like I was being interrogated rather than helped. This place is a click work environment which means if you dont allow these guys to treat you however they want they are not only passive aggressive in a hostile way but they get their way with management every time. 

I saw the red flags right away during orientation but wrote it off as one of the upper management having a bad day. I was abruptly shut down when asked about advancement opportunities and was told I need to stop rushing which isnt what I was doing at all ans was a weird thing to say to a new hire. Well, after learning that they only give people within this click promotions and seeing that time and time again these people were not fit for the job due to unprofessional mannerisms I realized why I was shut down. 

My last red flag was a former employee being extremely passive aggressive because I wouldn't just let him sit there while I did all of the work. I get tired out too and if you can't handle the job (super easy if you work as a team) then you dont need to be there. No, I didnt take it to management because the first time I asked for help I felt like it was to reprimand me as this particular person was a friend of upper management. 

They created this environment themselves and this is exactly why their turn around rate is high. I just tell the truth when I see potential within a company. 

I've worked for sonoco phoenix almost 5 years now and I can honestly say its been the worst 5 years of my life. I was hired in as a technician in 2008 and was told that overtime was optional and there was a great training program for new employees. Nothing but lies! I started off working 6 days a week 10 hours a day. Which I didn't mind at first but it never stops. The scheduling is so unpredictable and usually 6 or 7 days a week with 2 or 3 twelve hour days mixed in. This only happens to the people working on the production floor and when you voice your concern about it they are quick to let everyone know that they do not care about your life or your health. As far as training on equipment that I was highly uneducated on how to run. I was pretty much just thrown on a line and was told to figure it out? It sounds ridiculous considering their overboard safety program. The safety program is so overwhelming that you become afraid to do anything at all. The management is a complete joke! They bring guys from the floor into a supervisors role and they don't know much about supervision. Sonoco forces them to enforce rules and write people up even when the supervisor does not fully understand the rules or why he's writing you up. You almost have to have a really good sense of humor if you want to work for sonoco. So for the final nail in the coffin. Like I said I was hired as a tech and have been forced to pack numerous times which wasn't terrible until they forced me to do it for top packer rate which was a cut for me and a few other techs forced to do the same. Sonoco over hired for business they never got because apparently their sales team can't land any new business to save their lives. Do not get a job here unless your looking to take a job in the office or with quality. Anything else is not worth it.

This review is based on a temp position through an employment agency and does not reflect upon full-time permanent employment with Sonoco. Primarily a Packaging and Display company providing services for various companies, Sonoco's main labor personnel is acquired through an employment agency. Full-time, permanent employment is reserved for Management or Supervisory positions. The workload required by Sonoco on a day to day basis can vary. For this reason, the employment agency maintains a "pool" of potential employee's to be sent out to the jobsite according to need. This varying need creates a situation where they maybe understaffed at times or the opposite, more people have reported to work than is needed. If there are more people than are required, those people, unfortunately, are told to return the next day to see if they will be placed on a line, no guarantee. Employees are encouraged to report to work everyday however this structure does not always translate to employees being placed everyday, which creates uncertainty. On the other side is the fact that if you are placed on a regular basis and your performance is at an acceptable level, you "can" be placed as a regular or "primary" on a line. Meaning you would be considered for placement before "non-primaries". At best, this assignment is ideal for those with some flexibility in availability, given their individual resources (i.e. transportation, travel time, etc.) accommodate this structure. At worst you're spending more resources to report for work than being compensated for. 

1. Management and Leadership Problems
Workers repeatedly call out poor leadership at various plants:
• Managers perceived as out of touch with day-to-day work and unwilling to listen to floor experience.
• Favoritism and “old boys’ club” behaviors where advancement isn’t performance-based.
• Supervisors criticized for micromanaging or failing to support staff.
• Decisions slow or unclear, with blame often put on workers rather than process issues.

2. Work Environment and Culture Complaints
• Toxic or hostile atmosphere at some locations, especially when leadership is weak.
• Employees reported gossiping/leaders discussing personal employee matters in meetings.
• Some locations described as unsafe or “sweat shop”-like with heavy workloads and little respect.
• Burnout from constant pressure to meet quotas and production goals.

3. Work-Life Balance Struggles
• Long hours, mandatory overtime, frequent weekend work, rotating or last-minute schedule changes.
• Reports of little time off even with doctor appointments — sick/vacation usage criticized.
• Employees feel they work “like a slave” to meet production demands.

4. Compensation and Advancement Frustrations
• Hourly employees feel raises are small, flat, or unrelated to performance — sometimes just a standard 2–3%.
• “No incentive,” with little reward beyond the base paycheck for extra effort.
• Reports of stalled advancement or outside hires being brought in above internal candidates.

5. Training and Communication Issues
• Inadequate training, especially for new hires.
• Poor communication between management and shop floor causes confusion.
• Multiple reviews mention that rules (especially safety or point systems) are enforced inconsistently.

i was in thremoforming making plastic protectors for bic, robert boss, etc. I would set up and change over my machines. I would run 2 machines on a normal day but, some times i would run 3 machines if someone was out for the day. When i would have a change over. I would have to change out the dies that form the parts, the knife that cuts the parts out, and the stacker that pulls the parts out of the matieral. Then i would have to make the form to where it has no bridging, holes, or round corners. By fixing the temp, the die speeds, or the vaccum suction. Then i would have to set the knife by cutting a peice. Then take 2 parts from the oppesite corners. If they don't line up i'll have to move the knife which ever way i need to make them line up right and lock it down. Then set the stacker which I would just bring the bottom of the stacker up and line it up with the formed matieral lock it down. Run the matieral all the way out of the machine. Then i would bring the topand the bottom of the stacker together locking it down. Then i would start the machine up and get it running. then i would pull 2 or 4 parts out to meassure and make sure they are in the quilfied specs and sign off on them. Then tell the packer they are good to pack and just keep the matieral going to the machine and just wait til the job finished. While my machines was running and they was good. I would go help anyone elsa with there machines. the best part bout it was is most the time i stayed busy but sometimes I would get some long jobs and just have to keep matieral going. That meant a easy going night. The hardest part was when a bunch of machines was down and I had to change over a big job by myself because some of the jobs have big HEAVY dies.

If you're a temp in the Rural Hall area, don't expect to earn much. Line coordinator temps only earn 14.50 and hired line coordinator gets at max ( after they laid off several hirees and huge pay cuts) will earn 17.50 max from what I was told. If you do plann to be a line coordinator, expect to learn how to do count backs, expect to know how to use Excel, you will screw up... A lot. Expect to be stressed out because of date code changes from small pallet of items that should have been scrapped out in the first place. Doing all the work on the computer has no difficulty at all... Most of the time the difficulty comes from machine failures or your assigned workers who don't wish to cooperate. Do expect to hear a bunch of excuses from the maintenance associates, some will tell you there is no way to fix the issue at all and you will have to deal with it, while others will get the job done. But that's just this plant, I was told there were more but I can't speak for everyone else. I will say though if you do plan to be a line coordinator, you will need to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable... You ( unlike me) will be assigned different projects everyday or every other day. One day you may do a project that requires very little workers, next day you may do projects that require at 15 workers with 4 different products that you have to keep a count of and track of every hour or so. One more thing, after about 4 or 5 months or so the supervisors will have higher expectations from you as I witnessed from other line coordinators. Within that time frame you should know how to use the computer system, count back, issue all products on the line, inventory tracking etc

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Production associate 10 salaries reported	$19.50 per hour
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