service manager

truck driver

production worker

millwright

warehouse associate

Volvo Group North America

Pros:
The products and technology at Volvo were great to work with. 



The customer interaction and product development was rewarding as well. 



My immediate supervisors were some of the best people I've worked for.


Great starting pay and benefits package.



Cons:


There is little to no opportunity for advancement due to the unhealthy and corrupt relationship management has with the union. 



Younger, more productive, lower paid employees, are often made to perform the workload of more senior, less productive employees. This is a disincentive for high performing employees to stay with the company and build their careers. Seniority is the only form of merit, not quality of work performed. 



Management does not understand this and employees that have demonstrated to be of higher value, often find another employer that is willing to acknowledge that value. 



Human Resources at Volvo honestly had no idea what was going on. It would take months to get something as simple as an address updated. This created problems with tax documents and insurance enrollment. 



According to the contract, the way I had left the company and hours worked in 2019, meant I was eligible for full vacation payment upon leaving the company. HR disagreed and failed to provide a contractual reason for why I would not be paid my leftover vacation. 



A few months into the pandemic, more layoffs occurred, so more employees needed their vacation paid out. I was then contacted by HR with an apology that they had made a mistake, they should have paid me, and will issue a check. 



Two more months go by and I receive a certified letter saying I'm no longer eligible.



If you work for Volvo, use your time there to find another job.  When you leave Volvo, burn all your vacation before you leave.



Advice for management:



Management needs to promote people based on the value they bring to the company, not how many years they've been there. When you increase workloads and responsibility to high performing employees with years of experience, without willing to pay them for their value, other employers will recognize their added value. 



Chinese investment firms only purchase western companies that don't know how to manage themselves. 



They then bring in their own management and use the brand they purchased to push their own product. 



Now that Geely is a majority share holder of Volvo AG, this should be viewed as a health indicator for how the company is doing.





Received a job from you service advisor, read and understand the complaint. Test drove the vehicle to see if you could duplicate the complaint. sometimes you would speak with the customer or test drive with them to better understand their complaint. I would hook the vehicle to the computer to read the vehicle's stored codes to see if there was a clue.
     I often learned that with new technology you can never get comfortable with trouble shooting. always check the obvious things first.
     Normally management didn't get involved unless there warranty was just out and we may do something to help the customer out on the repair, or the customer did something to cause the problem.
     We as technicians would help each other to diagnose problems or give each other a hand lifting, positioning something, or listening for noises The older technicians understood the importance of the work relationship.
  The hardest part of the job was diagnosing problems that were very intermittent, and spending a lot of time on the job be while on commission and not getting paid because the problem is not fixed. customers did not read owner's manuals and would complain about things that they didn't understand or they didn't know, so sometimes we had to read the owner's manual and high light the problem that they thought they had.
   It was rewarding meeting some very nice customers, seeing a customer excited about the repair on their vehicle, sometimes when they didn't know warranty would cover the repair, when customer would not allow anyone but you to repair their vehicle.

A typical day involves meetings telling us how bad we are and slave masters using whips to get us to work harder, or at least that's what it seems like. You are given a list of tasks and are expected to complete them all without it using any -productive- time. The people that work there are forced to work harder and slackers are left alone. When you need help no one is around because they are all in meetings getting nothing done.
Volvo is constantly rearranging middle and upper management so that no one ever understands the jobs they are over seeing and they aren't around long enough to make a difference. Management likes to promise the moon but deliver nothing. Nothing you do is ever good enough. Management doesn't even get along with each other. They ALL talk about each other to floor employees. None of them buy into the "Volvo way". Management likes to pit the shifts against each other.
Work place culture on the floor depends who you are but is better than management. The place has groups of people that don't mix. And then there's a few people that people are just mean to for no reason. Sad environment.
The benefits and pay are barely livable anymore. Our benefits have been covering less and less and costing us more and more. The pay used to be worth it, but no significant raises in 10 years makes this place not worth the trouble. If you're not there yet, run. If you're already there, find a way out. Your health depends on it.
What I learned is, to keep your head down, do not speak up, and trust no one.

Working at Jackson Volvo had its ups and downs.  If I remember correctly, we went through 3 Service Managers during the 2 stints I had at Volvo.  A typical day would be pretty much like any other day at most other local dealerships.  The work would come in, and we would try our best to crank it out.

I learned how to be a true team player at Volvo.  There was always a feeling of competitiveness, but not in a good way.  Sometimes, it felt as though some found more favor than others, but I don't want to conclude that it was out of spite or dislike for one another.  More, the work environment created this type of ethic.  

Of course, the shop was 100% flat-rate.  Or 100% commission.  Which is a horrible situation to have to endure, though I know it is pretty much industry standard.  I won't get into how I feel about those standards, but what I will say is that it creates a workplace that gives the phrase, "Too much of a good thing, isn't a good thing" much credence.

The hardest part of the job is balancing customer satisfaction with your own personal satisfaction.  Meaning, when you get paid by how much work you produce, it's difficult to keep the customer 100% happy 100% of the time.  Especially when the work load is very small and there aren't enough jobs to spread around the shop.

The most enjoyable part of the job were the guys on my team.  In such a cut-throat work environment, having a few guys that you know you can trust is valuable beyond belief.  Watching each other's backs and taking care of one another creates relationships that extend beyond the workplace.  That's actually what I miss the most.

Working with the subject matter experts (SME) in technology, and working in a team environment, I authored Operator's Manuals for heavy equipment in the road machinery division. My day would consist of visiting the factory and checking the particular model that I was working on to validate that the text that I had authored was an accurate manual for the operator of the machine. The training, information, and instructional procedures were accurate and easy for the operator to understand. 

I would also work with the methods lab in the service engineering group so they could prepare any service procedures that required special equipment for towing, lifting, removing components, etc. and incorporated that service procedure in the Operator's Manual. The most important and difficult part of the job was to make sure that the legal Operator's Manual was a helpful tool for the customer, and also covered all of the safety warnings and cautions so that the customer could use the machine effectively with safety as his number one focus.  The most enjoyable part of the job was working with my team members each day and sharing new ideas to generate these world class documents. We began using Standard Technical English to author these manuals and learned to apply new techniques and improved our skills.

The dealership I worked at had a lot of long-time employees working there where many people had known each other on a more personal level and some for over 20 years. As the Service Cashier, I put my drawer in every morning and counted it up, reviewed our previous days income and repair orders, printed out reports, making sure everything was accounted for properly. I also helped customers pay for their bill and go through and put together their paperwork. If my coworker was away from her desk or gone, I also took care of answering the phone and answering questions, transferring the calls or paging. Our dealership was fairly slow in contrast to others yet there was a lot of work I was given since I was to be kept busy as long as I was on the clock, so I was doing paperwork for another dealership or putting papers in envelopes and gluing them shut to be mailed. Despite it being laid back and commonly fun, the most challenging part was putting together stacks of paperwork that was meant to be my "busy work" but was the most overwhelming. Most enjoyable part of my job was our customers and some of my fellow co-workers who had worked with my father and grandfather who worked for the same specific dealership. I loved getting to know more about our customers who also love Volvo or had been coming to the dealership for over 20 years.

Depending on your position, you may clock in and work yourself to death, or clock in and sit on your phone. I learned that who you know here matters more than your work ethic. Management is a buddy system who hold hands and play favorites while never making any real changes or positive progress for anyone. The hardest part of the job has to be navigating the workplace drama and finding who is there to genuinely help you succeed (nearly no one in my year plus so far) and who is there for drama and something to gossip about (large number). The most enjoyable part of the job is the pay, being higher than most entry level positions in the area, therefore (I guess?) justifying the horrible employee treatment. 

HR is completely clueless on matters within the factory, and therefore unhelpful. Their only responsibility is tracking disciplinary points and issuing instructions to supervisors on how/when to carry them out. Supervisors do not know what day to day processes for employees look like nor how to assist, inform, or guide, instead holding meetings explaining that line workers should be doing all the things THEY (as well as Repair and Facilitators) should in fact be doing instead, in an effort to shirk responsibility and lessen their work load. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The company is rooted Swedish, and as a result, many of the cultural norms in the company align to Swedish cultural norms. I count this as a plus in many respects. Yes, people are people, and personalities are diverse and some ambitious associates can strive to take advantage, but overall, a good mix.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
It is a top down organization and as such decrees come down the chain of command and are not challenged, but are pandered to. Too often the upper managers make change decrees that is not well thought out and as a result, people in the workflow feel unappreciated as they have no say in the process. They run annual surveys internally and that we know, just doesn't work.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It is an international enterprise, American, French, Swedish, Brazilian, German, etc. You can predict with relative certainty what your boss will be like based on that cultural alignment. This can also include some alignments in the company that tend to favor geo-cultural grouping

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
In my role, I was relatively autonomous in my pursuit of goals and objectives. Finding the appropriate management support was often a challenge and this can create anxiety because responsibility without authority is akin to a barking dog withut any teeth.

I never though working for a worldwide company like Volvo, would become something so insulting. Upon hire, many of us were promised, at the very least, a secure position with the company with consistant and steady work. Not true! Since the plant opened in Macugie,PA, employees poured their hearts and souls into this facility to make it what it has become today...The worlwide example of all logistics warehouses in the company. Now we're told that we should consider ourselves lucky to even have a job. Employees are now being rewarded with "shut down" weeks with no pay.We are given ETO (earned time off), but its never enough to cover the amount of "shut downs". Management is clueless when it comes to keeping the workplace positive, amoung other things, even in the face of troubling times. Regardless of what we're told when hired, there is no advancement with the company nor even a raise, no matter how hard or well you work, unless you know some one "upstairs". Your opinion does not matter, and in fact, if you speak your mind about anything that bothers you about the company, you yourself with become a target. I've always heard stories about working for a company like this, but I never actually thought I would work for one.

Wish I could give this place a zero. Management are phony. The manager smiles in your face while asking for suggestions/ thoughts/ ideas and then turns around and calls your supervisor to say the employee HE started a conversation with should not have been 'wasting time' by talking to him! He is toxic. He wants to know why anyone is given any time of the floor to talk to HR- says that is a waste of your time and tries to dig to find out what you were talking about. Thinks if you use the bathroom, you're wasting time. Thinks if you are addressing problems with your supervisor, you're wasting time.  Someone needs to tell this man that a warehouse is NOT a production line. 
I believe the rest of this company may be decent. The elkridge facility has been managed by tyrant after tyrant. The management selection was a huge mistake. There was another viable option that would have delivered great results. This guy's sole intention is to divide and conquer. He won't sign his name to anything. Pushes all responsibility (on paper) off on others so he has someone to blame, but he is definitely the one pulling the strings. 
This man will run this place into the ground, mark my words.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Service manager 5 salaries reported	$70,527 per year
Truck driver 2 salaries reported	$25.00 per hour
Production worker 1 salary reported	$16.50 per hour
Millwright 1 salary reported	$24.00 per hour
Warehouse associate 1 salary reported	$42,640 per year

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