There has been an exodus of 70% of the manufacturing engineering group in the last year; they all quit. Highest turnover for engineers I’ve ever seen or heard of anywhere; read on to find out why.
There was recently a change in management for this group but, while the new manager is “nicer”, they are still just a part-time conduit for the same old problems trickling down from the top that the company refuses to address. Part-time because the previous mfg eng manager was also the molding eng manager, and now the new mfg eng manager is also the production manager. It’s too much responsibility for any one person to be even half decent at either. So, instead of leading the teams, these managers just regurgitate impossible orders on the latest catastrophes coming down from the top. Upper management keeps assigning too many teams to too few managers, in effect making it such that there is no management. They’re making lots and lots of money, 30% profit every quarter, so from a business perspective, there’s no reason to change what they’re doing, and for that reason nothing ever will.
The workload is not managed, engineers are given arbitrary due dates with no basis in reality for too many simultaneous projects with little-to-no resource support. Manufacturing engineers are basically the company’s dumping ground for problems that other depts don’t want to deal with; too much overbearing and nonsensical paperwork to navigate? Make the mfg engineers do it. Machines constantly failing because the maintenance team is overworked and under resourced? Make the mfg engineers deal with it. And so on. Everywhere you turn, what should be a five minute issue to correct, takes days because of missing/broken/inadequate business systems and having to babysit every single task because everything is urgent and no one else cares or has time to help.
HR has been notified of the issues effecting this team many times, they are in denial about what’s happening. I’m well aware that hr is not on the side of the employees despite what they would like you to think, but from a business perspective, hr and the rest of upper management here seems incapable of connecting the dots between poor management, high turnover, and declining product quality. A person who was arguably thier most valuable mfg engineer recently left, really hard working, smart, kind, and extremely effective. Everyone loved working with them. The company didn’t value them, instead took advantage of them. Worked them to the bone until they couldn’t take it anymore. How the company treated this most dedicated of employees was a clear message to all the remaining engineers that this company’s management doesn’t give a damn, it’s just turn and burn. And so, the revolving door keeps spinning.
Below market compensation for stressful, chaotic, and demoralizing work. It never lets up, there’s always a backlog of self-induced emergencies spawning from prior neglect. There’s no time for anything but bandaids because every team is so understaffed. You will work weekends in addition to long m-f days with no recompense. Little to no training. Sink or swim, trial by fire, thrown to the wolves are all common phrases used to describe how this company treats incoming engineers. Every single task is excruciatingly inefficient because of the lack of management and resources to make things better. Working here is not a career, it’s a regret.
