Pros
Its a job. You are employed. The salary is okay. There are some people that care about there job at Challenge because they either are comfortable in their position, limited education, or no education to go anywhere else.
Cons
Culture: The culture is feast or famine. Alot of older employees have been through numerous layoffs and workforce reductions, health insurance manipulation, social engineering, and the list goes on! They use ESOP as a selling tool to lure potential employees but don't be fooled by the employee ownership that only occurs one year after being employeed at the company. Also, keep in mind that the company makes aluminum and steel stampings. Career growth: There is possibly growth in the company if you stay long enough but due to the workplace culture, most people stay on the average range of six months to a year. Multiple hourly and salary positions are ALWAYS open. This is not from business growth but rather high turnover. Benefits: Your benefits start 90 days after hire. In comparison, most companies benefit packages today starts on the first day of work. Procedures and training: The procedures are in word document format that are redundant, without any process flow charts, that leaves trainees confused. Alot of non-english speaking individuals and safety issues that are randomnly and selectively addressed. Plant equipment training is by work center than individual product training. This leads up to the next subject. Train and blame environment: All of the operations are manually intensive resulting in 80 percent effective at best. The company lists good quality as a pursuit but ships known bad material in every shipment. In the automotive world, 0 defects is the goal, however, this goal can only be pursued with successful implementation of automation and new technologies that Challenge is not willing to pay for. Capital Investments and current technology: This company doesn't invest in software to make your job easier. The use of Windows programs specifically Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, and Excel with silly macros makes work grueling and questionable accurate at best. Formulas within files are chain linked together with other documents. The use of Plex as the ERP system is limited in scope and heavily depended on daily. Corporate vs Plant: So many gaps in the corporate to plant policies. Redundant procedures run amock throughout the whole environment. Seems that the executive team love to create work for others that may only benefit themselves due to the non investment into technology that will remove redundancy. If you try to follow a logic path you will be labeled as blackhead and blacklisted or fired. In summary, donot apply to work at Challenge if you are career goal driven, or/and seeking to work in high technology, value your education and training, or outright curious. I cannot recommend Challenge to any peers or student seniors at any of the local colleges.
