Watlow = PAY-low = more turnover = We need more suckers to hire now.
Pros
Group meetings. Lots of OT all the time. Most of my co-op friends are fun to be with.
Cons
They have lots of positions to fill. Why, it's due to turnover. Why such turnover? Because if you want to move into any good paying job, you'll have to be there 20 years. My facility has only a few hundred and of those had maybe 100 non-manufacturing support personnel. So Engineers, designers, Purchasing, CI, Customer Service and on. We lost a good bunch of them already. The company feels that if they keep using these rotational kids from collage, they'll never have to worry about getting people and then they can also force the pay levels lower. This has worked so well for them. Like one post below said the rotational engineers think the job is good paying until they see what other companies will offer them. So they leave and others seem to follow. I agree with another post below also. The support team is always short and never has enough resources to get jobs done. Watlow doesn't hire additional resources, only replacements. This leaves them to their priority lists and charts. They specialize in these. Move the people around and around and around. They can't afford new people or to hang on to them. But then you hear 1 of our facilities got to celebrate a 100 year celebration. No money though remember. Why didn't the rest of the plants get to celebrate this. "One Watlow'" right? This next part goes on for all the non-manufacturing employees not just one group either. For the 3 years I was at this place, I saw only the afterhours buddies get special position jobs that don't get posted for everyone to apply. I also have watch HR strong arm pay at every turn. This is both at local and corporate level. They'll give you the "do it for the Greater Watlow". Not for yourself, but think of the Big W. They will waste money on stupid trainings for 2 days though. Everyone has to go to a program called something like Enrichment of Your Lives or close to that. People don't want to argue and just go. They spent $1,000's's's's's on the conference hall rentals, The program content from a consulting firm, CD's, books, and peoples time. Each month they did this until everyone was through with the training. It was a joke, but when asked about the program, people told them it was great so they don't get lectured. All that money that they have so little of, just to tell people to believe in themselves. That was so useful right? There was so many action items people vented in those meetings about that they had to use several tablet pages to keep up. In the end not even1 item on that list has been worked on. I've been fortunate enough to see all 5 of the big facilities and 1 small one outside the US. The US facilities, with the exception of our Minnesota plant, make it look like we traveled to some company that is making parts out of a garage. Now that I think about it, our IL or WI plant looks half like a garage and the other half is more modern. I was told to not be fooled by the modern looking side by the line operators. They told me it looks a little nicer but runs terrible and their expected to make parts still at rate even if it's down. That same facility is also spending tons of money to dress up the building outside. Really? This is wasted spending. I wanted my place to look nice to. Why didn't we get a new outside look.