Never have I worked anywhere as bad as this place. Being a skilled trade mechanic I am used to working hard and doing the impossible. But never at any other place have I be asked on a daily basis to relieve production operators for breaks and run a line when they are short handed so they dont have to call in someone on OT. Then be expected to do the job as well as an operator including all quality checks. AND still be expected to answer breakdown calls. I traveled and trained at their facilities in Indy, Pheonix, and NC. From top to bottom this company is poorly managed. Pretty much my experience is the same as the other negative reviews here. I could write a book on how bad this place is. Dont let that smooth talk in the interview fool you. The talk about how valuable you are and how they care about their employees is a load of ****. I was lied to from day 1 about schedules, pay, benefits, etc. Its not until you accept a job and are their for a week or two before you realize everything they told you in your interview was just to get you in the door. IE: 12hr shift but only paid for 11.5, guaranteed days but forced to work nights if needed, was told not more than 4 weeks out-of-state training, but turned into 9 (hard with a family), etc. I was there for 6 months, had to leave early one Friday because I was in the bathroom puking my guts out (this is a sanitary bottling facility). My only ever tardy or absence in the whole 6 months. Upon returning to work monday I was fired w
ProsGot Fired
ConsPoor Mgmt, unpaid lunch, forced to do work you werent hired or trained for
I enjoy the work, even though it can be a little slow in the off season, which is about half the year.
The warehouse department is a bit disorganized, there are no set SOP’s, no written warehouse handbook, and procedures and processes vary from shift to shift (there are four shifts total). New employee trained is the same as above. There is a lack of qualified leadership as well as a lack of qualified forklift operators. The turnover rate tends to be high at this facility.
There is little in the way of pay bonuses or pay incentive, and the availability of overtime is sporadic to non-existent. There are occasional opportunities for advancement. I would rate the benefits package somewhere between ok and good. The level of pay is good, but this is Denver, a very expensive place to live.
I would rate the company culture as “ok and getting better”. We have a new plant director, promoted from within, whom I like, he seems fair-minded, competent and easy to work with. The warehouse department has been generally looked down upon (mostly in a veiled manner). Personally, this does not bother me, but can be detrimental to the support of the department overall. Often equipment maintenance is lacking and sometimes safety issues are overlooked, but mostly the lack of support manifests itself in the aforementioned disorganization and the lack of leadership of the department.
Overall I have enjoyed my time here, the experience has been good (but not great). This ware
Don't be fooled by the "entrepreneurial" and "fast-paced" environment. It is complete chaos with horrible leadership, most likely resulting from being understaffed.
Management demands new ideas to improve performance, but will meet each of your ideas with a "no," and will make you spin your wheels until you feel like you're losing your mind.
Work/life balance, career development, and any other possible "perks" offered will be arbitrarily determined by your supervisor regardless of whether it reflects the company's "culture," and that same supervisor won't hold him/herself to those same arbitrary rules.
Management sees itself as superior to its underlings. Some managers will stymie professional development, and many of these same people reached their position via the Peter Principle. They promote people to leadership positions without proper experience and these new "leaders" have to rely on their team members because they have no idea what they are doing. How are team members supposed to be mentored or grow professionally with an incompetent boss? The incompetence within management hurts their team members success, development, morale, and relationships within the company.
Teams are grossly understaffed and aren't provided proper tools to make them successful in their positions. Management claims the company is "lean," but clearly they don't understand this concept.
This misconception of "lean" leads to having an insurmountable workload with a salary that is no where n
ProsSome really great, intelligent and hardworking people
I have worked for Niagara since 2012. There is no mistaking that this is an intense workplace, but that leads to a lot of pros. The growth that fuels an average of 2-3 plant builds per year allows for constant opportunities for personal growth and advancement. Even more so if you are open to relocation. This company will put people in positions they may not be quite ready for and then push them to grow into it and succeed.
The kind of people that will love Niagara are ones that have a lot of personal drive and are hungry to succeed. The technical training opportunities are not amazing simply because we have the newest tech on the market not out of lack of trying on Niagara's part. Even the OEM technicians are often working on our generation of equipment for the first time when they come to our facilities. This means employees need to seek out the on the job training and absorb the information as they come upon it.
If you are in management or a lead technical position you can expect summers to be very demanding with not the most free time. That's ok however and is a natural demand of the industry. If you can handle the grind and have the ability, you can look forward to a rocket ride of a career by putting in the effort.
Simultaneously my favorite part and biggest challenge at Niagara is the culture. There is a serious "grab the bull by the horns" culture here which I love. As we grow in size that obviously is going to be challenging to keep. That said for now it
When I was first hired on, I was just thrown out there with no form of training at all. For the first few weeks, my trainer was someone who didn't even speak good English. Every time I asked for a different trainer, I was told "well, the guy we were going to put you with is on leave." This place is so short staffed that they rely on individuals, and if a certain person isn't there, the job does not get done.
Also, I was always there, so I was put anywhere to fill in for someone. Management is just all around bad. Some days machines will be down, and you are expected to stand around for 8 hours until it comes back up. They even moved one of the mechanics(someone who fixes the machines) to night shift because nights are short staff. Dayshift is also short staff with mechanics. So, they solved one problem by creating another.
The pay isn't good at all. I have a lot of experience in the warehouse and their pay is lower than any manufacturing warehouse around the area. Just to make a decent check, be prepared to work a lot of overtime. A normal check here just isn't going to pay the bills at all.
The only thing management here is good at is making your job harder. If one line has problems, they pull all their resources to that one line. If your line needs something, you are just out of luck. Their problem solving as managers is the worst I have ever seen. Sometimes I would be left alone, and keep in mind that I was still a new hire. I was also told that this was a fast paced
ProsFree water, good co workers
Consbad management, boring job, low pay, bad training
Like so many companies these days they could really care less about there employees. The supervisors are rude and completely unprofessional once you’ve agreed to employment contract.
As far as the family motto, let’s just say that it can be compared to 1890’s Georgia.
Extremely intrusive. If you have an issue, the entire plant knows about it, and supervisors actually treat new employees though the door like welcome mats. I actually believe management tells the supervisors to be intentionally rough. I’m wondering how in the heck are we making a good impression by belittling people who are new to niagara’s culture? There’s no clear cut training.
You are a body. Your name/face/personality/ job experience means absolutely nothing to the people you work closest with, what so ever.
Be prepared for them to take, and demand you take photos. Be prepared for supervisors to drag you through the mud. Be prepared for bigotry at it’s finest. Be prepared for favoritism. Be prepared to be followed around. You have to be there two weeks in order to walk to the rest room by yourself people!
Not to mention this 2-2-3 schedule, which insures that the first check of the month is always smaller then the second. Oh and if your looking at your stub and feeling like something is missing it’s because the pay period will always mess up what you thought you had coming.
On the other hand it’s an excellent learning opportunity for someone fresh out of college o
I had a great time starting out at Niagara. After a couple months I noticed a couple things that bothered me. Managers and supervisors have their favorite employees who are allowed to get away with pretty much whatever they want. I was put on a 90 day job performance review for an incident that happened during a water change that is supposed to be done by a supervisor. No supervisor ever showed up and due to lack of training I never knew to ask for him. That supervisor was supposed to evaluate my performance, but he was never around to watch me work. any issues or questions that i came to him with were the basis of my termination which was categorized as "unable to perform job duties".I asked after my first review that any future incidents or occasions that were to be used against me in a negative fashion be documented by time and date because i felt all evidence brought against me was vague and petty. At the same time they employed and still do employ an operator who cannot speak english and because of his age is too frail to lift materials, grasp knowledge of maintaining machines, or even train on new equipment. Due to that employees ineptitude other operators are assigned to "babysit" or coddle him because of his personal, extracurricular relationship with management and the owner of the company. Not at any time during my employment at Niagara was this individual put on any type of performance review or disciplinary action, yet I (an able bodied 28 year old man) was termin
ProsRotating schedule
ConsSleazy management, favoritism, looking for yes men, not problemsolvers.
Supply Chain: Stressful and no work life balance with never ending WorkLoad
It's about Supply chain planning department where i worked for 2 years. This team has terrible managers who have zero leadership skills and they work in robotic manner of throwing work on your table-all day.
Work life balance Sucks! Stress levels are high as Plants operate 24/7 and Planners are supposed to be on call 24/7
They have recently rolled out a so called ERP tool (a pathetic cheap one) which has made the life of planners far more miserable but unfortunately, managers only care about their own "medals" and "pay raise" ,they got in result of this so called "successful roll out!!"
And if you speak up against this culture! they label you as a person who always complains and then they start telling you the stories that how they used to work till 1 AM and how quick they were as compared to you when doing the same Job!! (although at their time company was so small and they don't give you any evidence to back up these claims and there are no witnesses of that as most of their peers have left already).
Most of the planners stay here for 6-18 months - in fact most of them realize in their initial 6 months that they have made a mistake by joining this company and then rest of the time they spend on getting a new job.
Health Insurance is super expensive and PTOs are terrible.Ideal employee is who even respond to emails/phone call on weekends and even when he/she is on PTO and never say NO to any task or speak up!
Prosthey process H1B for international students
ConsNo Work Life Balance, Cheap Tools/Software, Bad Management, Super Expensive health insurance, PTO
Management needs to attend a management class and not provided by the company they need to hire a third party to understand how to successfully manage.
This new Management is destroying this location (Bloomfield) and human resource is unprofessional. Human Resource is only available to support management. Management has went to the extend to add hunting cameras to catch employees do things wrong. Yes cameras that are NOT INSTALLED by Niagara but by management! And he stated it’s only going to get worse and no one here is worth of a promotion. Production is at its highest in most shifts and is not because of management style but they have hope new management will take over.
They pay management to watch cameras for over 8hours and criticize what is being done wrong. Even when things are at its best numbers.
If someone calls out no one wants to come in and cover when prior management was in charge anyone would offer to go above and beyond for him.
Calling out only gets you points against you even when you have PTO available it’s just insane.
The morale is so low that is effecting all employees Of all positions. It’s hard to believe Niagara as a corporation is allowing this. Too bad older management went to the travel team. They need to clean house including Human Resource she doesn’t even understand the basics of her job and sadly management stated that.
I hope things change I can’t believe this is Niagara mission.
ProsPrior manager was worth working for he appreciated all his employees. Christmas party were good 2018
Insight into the bottling and manufacturing industry
Days are long at work, especially because they're 12 hour shifts and mostly standing on your feet. I learned a lot about the bottle making process from start to finish. Working conditions weren't too great during the summer, since it got really hot and no A/C. My supervisor and the people I worked with were great, and I didn't have major problems with anyone. Some things I noticed were that some employees were extending their breaks, which is probably because the shift is long. My advice to management: Find a way to offer 2 30 min lunch breaks or even an hour lunch break. Or perhaps, if possible, go on a 3 shift schedule (1st, 2nd, 3rd shift) like some other manufacturing plants. Hire better employees with a strong work ethic and proven track record. And not just reward employees with food as a whole but also recognize them individually. Provide challenges and incentives to motivate employees! I think Niagara is getting there, especially with the pay increase, to keep good employees but it could do so much more to lower employee turnover rate. Have a more inclusive vision, not just keeping a closed door between management and production/warehouse, but having some more events or opportunities for discussion. I wish I had opportunities to get to know my management team a little bit better.
ProsOccasionally food given out, discounted water cases, pay
ConsOnly one half hour lunch for a 12 hour shift, standing on your feet, some employees extending their breaks
Questions And Answers about Niagara Bottling
Do they do random drug screening after your hired?
Asked Jul 10, 2016
You y'all test for marijuana
Answered Nov 23, 2019
Si no tengo problema con eso estare dispuesto a cualquier prueba solpresa
Answered Oct 5, 2018
What advice would you give the CEO of Niagara Bottling about how to improve it?
Asked Oct 19, 2016
Pay competitive wages
Answered Nov 15, 2020
Bloomfield CT- Have your staff rate how they feel about new management.
Management should be hired with experience or willing and able. This plant is under new management and since then the morale and commitment of the staff is not there. New manager told every staff no one is good enough to get promoted but without them they can’t get the job done.
Management can make or break a team! And Bloomfield is falling apart and corporate only listens to management sad.
Answered Sep 27, 2019
Does the company hire felons?
Asked Oct 11, 2016
Not sure about felons. But if you have a misdemeanor dui, they will not hire you. " H.R. manager deems you a safety hazard " or at least that's what I was told
Answered Apr 10, 2019
The company does NOT HIRE US CITIZENS!
Answered Dec 5, 2018
Is there any chance for overtime
Asked Jun 21, 2016
Working no problem.
Answered Aug 20, 2018
Overtime change depend on company production.
Answered Jan 28, 2018
What are the shifts hours
Asked May 10, 2017
5 to 5 here in Dallas ... we are on the 3-2-2 schedule as well, A-B-C-D shifts ...
Answered Aug 23, 2019
4 SHIFTS ABCD and each shift is 12 hours
7am - 7pm & 7pm - 7am
