welder

material handler

software engineer

engineer

network administrator

The Raymond Corporation

This department is like a revolving door. People either join because they're close to retiring, or because they need experience. Folks who join for the latter reason typically stay for a year or two before heading out to some place different because there's almost nothing meaningful about this job. The location is very remote and inconvenient, the culture is your typical good ol' boys club with you getting to deal with office politics, and there is little to no growth after the first year.

 In this position, you are exposed to the ugly side of manufacturing with many supervisors/managers in charge of the people on the line not showing you any respect no matter how much you try to collaborate with them. At the same time, you are held back by corporate bureaucracy as you cannot do your job without the buy-in of these individuals. If any conflicts were to occur between you and a production supervisor/manager, you cannot rely on your management to support you as they are incredibly ineffective. You will be dealing with either managers who micromanage, are too busy, or simply do not care and wave you off. You will not get formal training and essentially have to 'figure it out'. According to management, their ideal way to train their young engineers are to shadow a tech for a few days, who are pretty busy people themselves. Additionally, watching corny training videos and having to figure out outdated software from the 80s is NOT training.

In this department, you'll see a lot of people burned out. Aside from dealing with toxicity from other groups who seem to blame engineers for everything, there is no incentive to try as no matter how much work is out in, the same 2% salary increase is given out. People playing games on their phones most of the day will make the same amount of money as the people down addressing problems on the floor. Annual reviews are a joke as you could try to justify why you deserve a better raise with legitimate reasons such as going above and beyond only for your manager to bump you down as 'that is what's expected of you'. This department will go through waves of hiring people, only for most of them to leave. Nobody ever gets fired. The only career progression is to go from an engineer to team lead to supervisor to management, but promotions aren't based off how much you know or what your accomplishments are, but how long you've been with the department for. You'll notice that people who are in these positions have been at the company for years, and anyone reporting to them typically doesn't have more than 2 years because everyone tends to leave. You'll see these managers eating free food in the conference room to celebrate milestones right in front of you while you are the one doing the bulk of the work with little to no support from them.

Join this role if you don't plan on staying for too long and need to get some quick experience otherwise your professional development will SUFFER. There is little to no appreciation for engineers in this group, with the only semblance of appreciation being that you MIGHT get a pizza party on your last day if you're well liked by the managers. You are just a body filling in a position to them, nothing more. 

I’ve worked for the company for 13 years. What once seemed like a place I’d like to stay and make a career out of until retirement, has dwindled down to “I’m only here for a pay check.”. Years ago they offered a pension and better insurance benefits, but they took away the pension and now offer less and less retirement benefits as the years go on. Cash profit sharing grows less every year as the company becomes larger and more profitable. Managers are given a lump sum of money to divide among all of their employees at raise time. So if you’re not on the manager’s good side, you will not be getting as good of a raise. Corporate politics runs rampant amongst the assembly management. The environment is brutally hot during the summer as there is no temperature control. They play this terribly distracting and irritating music whenever an assembly line has an issue. It’s so loud that you can hardly hear the person standing next to you. Sometimes all of the assembly lines have the music going at the same time and its border-line psychological torture after hearing it 5-6 days a week for months to years on end. Moral of the story is, if you can somehow deal with the environment and the politics then get in there and get some decent money made for yourself. But I wouldn’t recommend anyone to stay there long term. If current trends continue, they will eventually strip away any sense of employee individuality or constructive criticism to the processes or the business in general. You will be offered the bare minimum to work many long grueling hours for them.

When I was a part of HR and Raymond laid off around 150 people in 2009, they laid off everyone except for me who knew how to do the job I was trained to do. This made me invaluable to them, and so I received some benefits - but not enough to make up for the lost time as a young adult and also making 1/3rd of my former coach and the person I would go onto train was very discouraging and frustrating. When I asked to be bumped up to $10/hr to one of the Senior Management in HR, I was told "I'll think about it" and I'm quite sure he/she is still thinking about it because I never heard back. The culture is rough, if you know the right people and come from the right family background you're an ace in the hole, if not, good luck. The most enjoyable part of my job was getting free meals for New Employee Orientation, and least enjoyable part was being nagged by senior employees who thought they could get me to do their bidding because of my age. When I was rehired in a lower position, I was treated like absolute garbage and was let go for "drama" according to my business partner within 2 months of working there.I had previously worked there for 5 years, so it was shocking to me that I had been let go for seemingly no reason other than an arbitrary "get rid of em". Great place to work if you can keep your head down and bow to the masters, bad place if your master is a sadist. If you can find a different place to work, do so.

What is the best part of working at the company?
A lot of opportunities to advance i guess 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Started here a year ago helping support operations and keep production moving behind the scenes, only to have my title changed so I wouldn’t qualify for the same raise production received (1 person received a $7 increase)The divide between office and production employees is obvious, and financial growth here feels nonexistent.
The harder-working and more educated employees seem to get rewarded with more responsibility instead of better pay, while less qualified people receive better pay and treatment compared to experienced and degree holding employees. Merit reviews start in January but raises don’t happen until July — if they happen at all. Completely out of touch with how people actually live and plan financially today.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Fast paced, production oriented mindsets. Culture is not terrible all things considered for a factory. It's mostly higher management decisions that make the day to day a struggle. On top of the less than adequate benefits and rewards 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Clock in and its the peddle to the floor most of the time. None stop production with minimum down time. Hour by hour priority changes and very little if any wiggle room for mistakes. Fast paced environment in all departments

What is the best part of working at the company?
Interesting projects - trucks are state of the art

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The company is management heavy with communication passing through managers instead of co-worker to co-worker or directly to those with expertise.  Even HR seemed to be management centered rather than focusing on the employees. 

Development strategies based on Toyota Production System (TPS) or Project Management fundamentals are prescribed for employees, but are quickly ignored when management deems that they know better and don't have to follow the defined process.  

There are a lot of egos in management which impedes teamwork.  Even within departments is appeared that employees were pitted against one another.....teamwork and cooperation were not encouraged.  Bringing issues to higher level management and HR actually seemed to backfire in this management focused company. 



What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It changed greatly in the past few years as new management gained control.    Communication suffered.  Finger pointing and blame caused trepidation and anxiety and confusion.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Anxiety to start a new day
Following directed processes but fear of failure due to priorities changing often.   Felt like I was actually set up to fail.
Repeat requests to "team" members to get information that I needed to do my job.

At Raymond your typical work day is set up by your team leader and Supervisor you have one set job for the week and then it changes the week after since there are multiple jobs that need to be learned. I went into Raymond with very little forklift experience now I'm proficient at it.  When it comes to management they are a good team they really are but communication with employees needs improvement. If you can't take criticism then you shouldn't work there because there is plenty and also favoritism as well. The hardest part of the job is learning where things go the building is big and there are a lot of work stations to remember.  You must follow the rules of the plant, blow your horn constantly, make sure you stop at all intersections, check mirrors, pedestrians are always first. The most enjoyable part about the job is they do fun things like a fork lift rodeo, they have employee appreciation day, they give out a bonus, several BBQ's extra. But if you want to give your opinion about something you can that's not a problem to be honest your opinion really don't matter if the decision has been made then it's over and you have to deal with it.  (STAY OFF THE CELL PHONE)

The company is an old-school manufacturing company. It is stable and reasonably well-managed for its size. Benefits and pay are not bad for the area. Work environment is generally respectful. Processes are out-dated and very slow to change.

Most people join to retire at this place, hence there is little to no emphasis on career growth or career planning. You are hired for a particular role and expected to be there forever no matter your skills or achievements. 

Managers follow out-dated HR practices offering little flexibility. Several departments are very political and if you are a minority, expect challenges in your career growth. There are hardly any minorities above junior manager level. In this day and age there is only person who is not a white male at Senior Director and above levels.

Not recommended for ambitious professionals seeking growth and competitive merit based pay and promotions. No wonder the company has difficulties in attracting and retaining the best. I would never recommend any of my friends to work here.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The benefits and extra things they do at Christmas and thanksgiving. Plus shut down so you can vacation with your family or you can choose to work. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The coworkers. Management only puts out fires instead of doing something about things. They have no back bone. And do not stand behind you at all. Even if you’re in the right. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It is ok you have to put up with a lot of different personalities and attitudes of others and there is different rules for everyone. There is no repercussions. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Start work promptly have a brake at 9 am for 15 minutes then a meeting after that   To see where the company stands and safety issues. Then lunch at 11:30 until 12:00 then home at 2:30pm

I loved working there all except for some of the people. I guess you'll get that anywhere you go. But Raymond takes the cake when it comes to a clicky atmosphere. And if your not in the cool club. Then you get left behind,over worked, given the harder tasks while the cool kids get to just stand around and B.S. while you work right in front of their faces. And promotions usually go through a process unless..once again your a cool kid then they will just knight you in like they own the place. And no wonder the muscatine plant isn't profitable and hasn't been in years. Because alot of the employees waste company time and money by not working and hanging out instead of working while a few if the workers in that department keep the ball rolling while the lazy cool kids ride on their coat tails. So great place to work as I said. And I can only speak for the department I was in. Hopefully that was only my department...but I have a feeling!!!

The H.R. department was full service.  Nothing was outsourced.  I had the great opportunity learning all the details of administration, Generalist and Manager work.  We had functional responsibilities along with projects to be accomplished.  Metrics and procedures were clearly documented.  This was the best training as I was able to move and learn all functional areas - except Payroll.  

My co-workers were polished and professional.  We all worked very well together.  The hardest part of the job were some special projects.  It was difficult as I was learning so it took a little longer.  Value of knowledge gained is indescribable.  

I enjoyed being a valued member of the team.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Welder 3 salaries reported	$21.02 per hour
Material handler 10 salaries reported	$15.50 per hour
Software engineer 7 salaries reported	$72,293 per year
Engineer 4 salaries reported	$82,667 per year
Network administrator 6 salaries reported	$58,025 per year

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