Kennametal reviews

-High turnover in upper management: In my time there, it was a game of musical chairs between the GMs, VPs and CEOs. -Corporate initiatives are unsupported: Can not count how many times various metrics and initiatives were dropped on the plant with zero support (or understanding of whether or not they apply. Kennametal has a very diverse portfolio of businesses/industries they work in) from middle/upper management. Everything from EHS to HR to day-to-day operations. One time, had corporate dictate what label maker to use for printing EHS labels only to find that it did not work with the software also dictated, or the new OSHA format. -Mismatch between expectations and reality: Listening to the quarterly updates makes it seem like the company is doing very well only to have nothing but doom and gloom come year end. This results in "postponing" cost of living income increases (read canceled). -Too many hats and not enough heads: Dwindling headcount (due to layoffs or attrition) force too much work onto engineers, managers and supervisors. This includes HR responsibilities (went only 1 year where we had a dedicated HR person. Rest of the time was/is a corporate hotline). -R&D capital is awarded based on "proposed" sales dollars that are not scaled for the plant: This does two things; make sure that sales wildly exaggerates potential volumes (which might have something to do with the issues above) and makes sure that only the really big hitters get any money for development. This creates a cycle where smaller plants cannot justify projects that would be big for them, but small compared to a larger facility. This in turn means that they struggle to get the resources for new business opportunities, which results in poor growth performance. This then harms their ability to justify new capital. Rinse and repeat. -Quick for bad things, slow for good: Quick to add responsibilities and drop headcount, but very slow to add new personnel and compensation. Plenty of successful companies make efforts to update worker compensation periodically to match industry standards when responsibilities have increased over time. Kennametal waits until you resign to offer you more money.

Horrible management! Definitely not worth the efforts. Extremely too much paperwork. When they ask you to hand in paperwork it may be same day and have no time to finish it. Not good managing. When the managers have been there awhile they are able to treat their employees however they wish and get away with it! This is so unprofessional on so many levels! Can treat you as horrible or unethical as they wish! Does not matter to Kennametal’s HR. Seniority rules!