chemical operator

intern

chemist

technical operator

quality control associate

WACKER

I work in what they call the Depo Hall which is where the product is produced and then trickles out to all the other departments. Unfortunately, we are like the honey bee making honey. We are paid the same as many others such as warehouse workers, clean room workers, etc. I average up to 20,000 steps a shift with my fitbit because of all the walking and stairs. Its hot in the hall and you wear long sleeve uniforms, hardhat with goggles, steel toe boots, numerous gloves, a radio and an escape respirator. You are much more likely to get injured in the hall due to the manual labor and moving equipment. 

Safety and quality is ranked extremely high, yet the whip cracking environment plays a different tune. The better you are at the job, the more you get put on you. The ones that cant work well with others or are unreliable from day to day seem to get rewarded with the easier jobs without repercussions and this is partly due to the high turnover rate in the hall. I am hoping this will be addressed very soon. This is a job for ex military and rough necks in the hall. You need thick skin and a strong back. 

I am doing this review not to slam Wacker, but to help others that are interested. We need long term workers, and Wacker pays for all your pre employment testings, training, uniforms and boots. When we lose a worker after a few days or a week, that translates into thousands of dollars lost. 

So, yes the pay has been adjusted, but it needs to be isolated to this department due to the harshness of the environment. Which would you prefer? All that gear with tons of walking and stairs in a hot environment or a hair net, bootie covers, and gown in the air conditioning. Warehouse job? Yep, all get payed the same. Funny these positions dont have the turnover rate like we do. Overall, the job is interesting. Schedule is rotating 12 hour shifts, benefits are fair, and management is improving slowly, Like I mentioned, it is a work in progress. I think eventually, once the details are ironed out, these will be jobs that are extremely hard to get. The safety and quality of the position will cause strict rules and write ups, which will hopefully weed out those that do not have the pride in the job. And ultimately, a fair and lucrative pay scale will hold those quality workers there instead of a constant wish to leave.

I worked for Wacker for a little over 5 years, all at the Charleston Location. I was there pretty much from the beginning.

The company is a mess internally. Management is VERY top heavy, with too many people trying to call the shots. Oddly enough, members of management seem to be rewarded for their incompetence rather than being punished- Poor managers seem to get lateral 'promotions' to positions where they can do less harm, rather than being fired. 

Human resources here is about the worst I've ever seen. Turnover rates are pretty high, and it's tough to find someone who can actually help you with problems. Most don't even know the company policies that well. In an attempt to save money, they shifted a lot of HR duties to the Adrian, MI office, meaning that if you have benefits questions, your only option was to E-Mail someone off site and wait for a response. 

From the outside, they appear to take safety very seriously, but in reality production drives everything. We were often asked to do unsafe tasks, often that were in direct violation of company policies, on the night shift or on weekends, to avoid exposure to the safety department. 

There were accidents- Many of them. For the most part they went unreported as no one was injured beyond basic first aid. There were lots of 'near miss' situations. Finally, there was a MAJOR incident, a large hydrogen explosion which closed the plant for nearly a year. They blamed the accident on the equipment involved, and brushed it off as a minor thing. I was directly involved in that incident, and was asked to keep my responses to questions asked by TOSHA to "I don't Know" or "I'm not qualified to answer that", even though I knew better and was more qualified to answer the questions than anyone else there. As a result of this accident, I was on workers comp for well over two years (though they still claim that there were no injuries), and as a result, I was terminated from my position while still on Comp because they were unwilling to deal with my work restrictions.

Work conditions are rough, and while they act like they care about their employees, at the end of the day they really don't. If you follow orders without question and don't mind your life being put at risk on occasion all for the mighty dollar, then this place is for you.

Wacker is the most unhealthy and dysfunctional company I have ever worked for.  It does not care at all about its employees, and the good talent it manages to recruit, typically leave in a short period of time. What I learned at Wacker is how NOT to treat your employees. The company is known for tolerating bad behavior from its leaders, which is the key driver of its toxic and often hostile working environment. The toxicity starts with the CEO and HR and runs throughout the salaried ranks. The executive team is completely disconnected from employees and have no clue how to build a positive culture, which is devoid of respect and trust. Wacker is a broken company with no values, and it rewards and promotes toxic supervisors. Wacker is now implementing a multi-year headcount reduction program with the primary goal of reducing its management ranks to save money. Ageism is also alive and well at Wacker. Leadership prefers to ditch valuable experienced employees who make a reasonable living for the young, hungry college grads who will tolerate anything. Spare yourself from losing precious years of your life working at this dead-end company. I certainly wish I had.

This company has made some strides in the right direction, but has a long way to go.

Management is very top heavy, with too many people trying to run the show. It almost seems that incompetence is rewarded by promotion. They address employee cost control by cutting back on the 'rank and file' and increasing management, leaving those working in the field spread thin.

Shift workers are on a 12 hour rotating shift, and work both days and nights. It is a schedule that you never can really adjust to, and can be bad for your health and rough on your family life. 

Compensation has gotten better, but it still takes a long time (9+ years) to reach a 'top out' pay. Starting wages are decent for some jobs, but very low for some of the more advanced position which makes it difficult for them to attract and keep good employees.

I have never worked for a company that had an HR department that ran things as much as they do here. Frankly, they dominate a lot of the operation. They are out of touch with the employees and clueless about their real needs and problems.

Working at Wacker has been a very positive and rewarding experience for me. A typical day involves managing raw materials, processing and closing orders, and ensuring inventory is accurate both in SAP and physically within the plant. My role requires strong attention to detail and teamwork, as everyone in the office relies on each other to keep operations running smoothly.
I have learned a lot about inventory management, production coordination, and how to effectively use SAP in a fast-paced environment. Management is supportive and encourages teamwork, which is essential because all roles are interconnected.
The workplace culture is collaborative and goal-oriented, and there is a strong sense of responsibility shared across the team. The most challenging part of the job is maintaining accuracy while handling multiple tasks, especially during busy periods. However, the most enjoyable part is working with a dependable team and knowing that my role directly contributes to keeping the plant running efficiently.


Watched the site struggle to run for years. Site leadership lacks sufficient understanding of chemical processing and business management to be effective. No vision, only react to problems once they an no longer be ignored, typically after corporate leadership in Germany has smacked their hands. Site leadership is too busy playing defense, hiding failures from their German bosses, to dig in and learn the business and effectively lead the site towards profitability. 

Wacker doesn't pay well enough to attract top talent from other chemical producers and instead prefers to hire a larger number of lower-cost professional staff. The recipe isn't working. 

Overall, I learned a great deal about chemical processing, and what not to do when leading teams and managing a business. 

Get ready for bookoo walking in steel toe boots, lots of stair climbing, overhead crane work, two way radio work, manual, pneumatic, and battery operated hand tools. Usually quite hot in here, got to wear long sleeve uniforms, uniform pants, hard hat, safety toe shoes, and various protective gloves.  If you can't handle 12 hour rotating shifts, don't apply. Basically end up working two weekends in a row, and then two weekends off in a row. If you love attending parties, sports games, church, or any other special events that are usually scheduled on weekends, you need not apply. Not all bad though, seven days off in a row every month, never work more than four days in a row per turn, and you will lose some weight with all the excersise.

Working at Wacker includes a lot of bureaucracy, which is common to many large multinational  companies.  However, at times this impacts the ability to accomplish your mission in a timely and cost effective manner.

Being a Chemical company safety is a large consideration, and Wacker does attempt to honestly make the company as safe as possible for their employees and equipment.

The people that Wacker has attracted are bright and dedicated individuals and great to work with, but unfortunately the turn over rate is relatively high, so they may not stay long.

I would recommend working for Wacker, it is a good company the insurance is good, but the salary is mostly avarage.

Decent pay, decent benefits. Swing shift isn’t as bad as people say. You get quite a lot of days off every month. And you get really good breaks throughout the shift here. Management cares a lot about the workers more than most places and actually will follow through with what they say. Really only bad thing about job is everyone expects you know stuff that you haven’t been trained on and when you don’t know it they get mad. Gets to the point where you stop asking questions and just guess and hope you are doing it right instead of asking a question and making sure you are doing it right. 

Working for Wacker is fit with my abilities .Althouth work days are 12 hours long ,but they are rotated and become familiar gradually with employees.During the time I worked, I have learned much acknowledge in technology . Wacker has managed to assign proper jobs in department reasonably. It was very clean and coworkers I worked with are friendly.This was an Ideal place to work but it has already moved to Germany.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
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