Needs upper management clean-out and to get off the 'temp worker' fixation.
Pros
The people are nice, the atmosphere is cheerful and enjoyable and most everyone enjoys their jobs. The HVAC works but used very sparingly, for example a control panel assembly room is 76-78 degrees so people are constantly wiping sweat off. But anyway everyone gets along and is friendly and the managers are pleasant as well, and try to solve any immediate issues logically, but some things seem to be ignored if it cost money.
Cons
Xylem makes heavy use of temp-agency-supplied workers for both main assembly shop and electronics assembly and QA/repair positions, shipping, basically all the factory help. The pay is well below industry standard, and technicians who have been there for decades as full time employees report making less than $20 an hour, and a technician as a temp might get $16 to $17. There seems little hope of career advancement. Skilled workers who want to advance from any sort of important or technical "production" position to a higher/supervisory or an engineering/support position are 'kept where they are needed' or told 'we need you to be where you are'. They hire apparently permanent employees for the better positions from outside the company. One temp at least was not provided all the required PPE (insulated gloves) for working inside high voltage electrical panels, which he had to do daily to QA them. Those gloves are expensive, and the ones on-hand were too small. Sometimes there is trouble with employees understanding other employees because of the several dialects of Spanish from different countries, and other less-common and globally diverse languages spoken, whereas English is only the second language for those employees. The poor understanding accounts for having to rework much product before shipping and for safety concerns. Sometimes jobs are held up because it takes the engineering department several days to correct a drawing to be the way it should have been done in the first place. No one knows why. Much time can be wasted while waiting for these changes. All these things add up to it being kind of a whacky place, but I like working there, just had to be truthful and expose some of the negative issues. It is possible to wok there without becoming frustrated as long as it's clear things are sometimes disorganized.
