Morale at my company has been in the dumps for years. I have 28 years with them so I’m in it for the long run. I have an union pension waiting for me If my body survives. We take yearly employee surveys and local management always fail them but they never get rid of them. The new people they been hiring the last fives years are terrible. If they show up to work, that’s a plus. I can count on the guys I been elbow to elbow with for 25+ years but hate working with the new guys. They bring nothing to the table, walking zombies is all I see when I look at them. My blue collar job use to be a good middle class income and was hard to get hired on. Now days it competes with fast food places for the same type of workers.
Morale at Work
- Thread starter GMFan
- Start date
- Status
I'm not believing people complaining about 40 hr. work weeks. I'm disabled now as the result of a construction accident but from the time I went to work in 1977 until my injury in 2000 most of my jobs were 48-72 hrs. a week with most of them being on the higher end of that spectrum. These weren't cushy office jobs either. First 8 years was mainly working in the automotive bumper manufacturing industry which was usually at least 7/8hr. days a week and often 12-16 hour days. The rest were on commercial and industrial construction usually a minimum of 6/8 hour days and usually 6/10 or 12 hour days with the occasional Sunday and/or 14-18 hour day and an additional 2 hour commute. There were times when I'd go in for a concrete pour at 1-2 AM and be there till 7-8 PM doing layout for the next days work. When I had a 40 hour week it was like being on vacation. I sometimes had over 40 hours by the end of the day Wednesday. All those hours just to turn around and give half of it to the government in taxes.
1. 3.5 (we lost 50% of our team due to layoffs and leaving for better place, and our department has been mismanaged the upper management refuses to allocate more resources to it, and decided to replace a lot of the managers instead). This is way before pandemic started, I'd say prior to pandemic it was a 4.5.
2. Yes, the future career advancement in level and pay is low in this industry (relative to the ones who pay you enough to buy a good house and a Tesla). You don't want to work for a monopoly or an industry with only 3-4 players and they are always getting the same 3-4 customers.
3. Sort of, instead of firmware in an industry with only 3-4 companies I would like to do something that has more growth, competition, more promotion. Sadly I like doing firmware but I hate cleaning up after others instead of owning something I will be responsible for.
4. More pay, more opportunity to get promoted or try different things, instead of troubleshooting all day due to previous management incompetence.
5. Data storage
2. Yes, the future career advancement in level and pay is low in this industry (relative to the ones who pay you enough to buy a good house and a Tesla). You don't want to work for a monopoly or an industry with only 3-4 players and they are always getting the same 3-4 customers.
3. Sort of, instead of firmware in an industry with only 3-4 companies I would like to do something that has more growth, competition, more promotion. Sadly I like doing firmware but I hate cleaning up after others instead of owning something I will be responsible for.
4. More pay, more opportunity to get promoted or try different things, instead of troubleshooting all day due to previous management incompetence.
5. Data storage
Last edited:
Jack started this and the consequences were not immediate until way later (going into finances which is full of risks).
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
Don’t think you understand all company positions.
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
Was ?
JTK
$100 Site Donor 2025
A 96-hour week?
What an odd way to flex.
This sounds like a miserable existence.
I may be misinterpreting your choice of words, but I'm not "flexing" or bragging about it if that's what you're getting at.
I'm stating the facts of what I do to support my family. I don't work that much OT often. Maybe 6x per year? Quite a few 60hr weeks though. It helps fund the 401k, etc.
I echo the sentiments of a lot of people in this thread, aside from the frustrations I expressed in my previous post the one thing that I mentioned that has compelled me to leave my current employer was the change in the pay plan. I had been moved and was working in a pretty terrific position from April to September this year but the bottom was slowly falling out and I was asked to switch into another position due to it being a very critical position that they needed to have filled immediately by someone with my level of expertise as well as by someone who could produce like I could. I received one week's worth of training from the person I was replacing, who left for the same reasons that I am now leaving for, and after that week I was given the new pay plan that has effectively reduced my pay to half or less than what I was earning in my previous position.
My pay with this company and others like it that I have worked at before has been entirely dependent on producing intended results and the more you produce the more you get paid. I have always been on of the top producers if not the top producer in every company I have worked for. What they changed with the most recent plan is that they created a bonus structure that is based entirely on circumstances that I have no control over and also altered the criteria to either make it as difficult as possible to qualify for a bonus or base it on exceeding expectations that our business simply has no ability to generate except under absolute peak business circumstances.
FWIW, calendar year 2020 was peak business for this company and the COVID lockdown was the best thing that ever happened for this company and caused our business to boom in ways no one could have ever anticipated or even dreamed. Our management is arrogant enough to believe in their own BS that those circumstances had nothing to do with anything and they brag about the "fact" (a fact according to them) that they were responsible for the boom in business. Our GM bragged about how we've even made in excess of one million dollars more in the first six months of this year versus last year, but none of that money is being used to pay anyone any better other than our GM and business owner.
So the lockdown begins and the business experiences 18 straight months of record profits, once that ends everyone gets a major pay cut and the best employees begin a mass exodus. Now to get a bonus you must produce to the point of exceeding those record months right as we're experiencing the biggest downturn in business that we've seen in 3 years. This is all while being short staffed and expected to carry the workload of multiple people and having to go out of your way to take responsibility for your co-workers who are too inept or lazy or both to get done what they're expected to do lest it severely impacts you and makes your work life worse.
My pay with this company and others like it that I have worked at before has been entirely dependent on producing intended results and the more you produce the more you get paid. I have always been on of the top producers if not the top producer in every company I have worked for. What they changed with the most recent plan is that they created a bonus structure that is based entirely on circumstances that I have no control over and also altered the criteria to either make it as difficult as possible to qualify for a bonus or base it on exceeding expectations that our business simply has no ability to generate except under absolute peak business circumstances.
FWIW, calendar year 2020 was peak business for this company and the COVID lockdown was the best thing that ever happened for this company and caused our business to boom in ways no one could have ever anticipated or even dreamed. Our management is arrogant enough to believe in their own BS that those circumstances had nothing to do with anything and they brag about the "fact" (a fact according to them) that they were responsible for the boom in business. Our GM bragged about how we've even made in excess of one million dollars more in the first six months of this year versus last year, but none of that money is being used to pay anyone any better other than our GM and business owner.
So the lockdown begins and the business experiences 18 straight months of record profits, once that ends everyone gets a major pay cut and the best employees begin a mass exodus. Now to get a bonus you must produce to the point of exceeding those record months right as we're experiencing the biggest downturn in business that we've seen in 3 years. This is all while being short staffed and expected to carry the workload of multiple people and having to go out of your way to take responsibility for your co-workers who are too inept or lazy or both to get done what they're expected to do lest it severely impacts you and makes your work life worse.
I work on IBM mainframes as I have for a few companies since 1976. It's core the the company business (hospitality) but they have a goal to move off the mainframe to the cloud in 4 years. The morale on our mainframe team is not very high but we still keep the lights on.
Here I have to agree. If you think 40 hours a week is "too much", you're NEVER going to be happy no matter what you do, or who you do it for. I worked 42 years in the metal working trades, and I really have to think to remember a week where I didn't work at least 50 to 55 hours.
What matters is your own personal attitude, along with your long term financial goals you wish to achieve. I see a lot of younger people expect too much too soon in their lives. That, and workplace politics can sometimes be a problem. Especially today with women complaining about being "sexually harassed" if they're so much as looked at the wrong way.
Before I retired in 2014, I saw several people fired for very petty things involving this. It got to the point where I wouldn't even talk to women at work. I had my supervisor deal with them. It just wasn't worth it. I'm sure it's worse today in many places. The best you can hope for is to have a strong work ethic, along with a good attitude. Show up on time, do your job to the best of your ability. If that doesn't advance you, then look elsewhere, because your talent and skills won't be recognized by a management team that isn't willing to look. Or else doesn't care.
I think that morale is down at my workplace of 44 years. Maybe 6-7 now, down from 8-9. Of course I have no intention to leave or change careers at this stage. I feel a sense of upper management not conveying their concern and respect for the employees in general. Maybe that's just a feeling that comes at old age?
I also feel that the entire national and world situation is affecting people negatively, contributing to low workplace morale. I don't think I have seen our country this divisive in my entire life. Logic and common sense have reached new lows.
I also feel that the entire national and world situation is affecting people negatively, contributing to low workplace morale. I don't think I have seen our country this divisive in my entire life. Logic and common sense have reached new lows.
Wow, F those guys. If they're going to pay you on commission, which for all intents and purposes they are, they shouldn't screw you over when you actually meet targets and do well for yourself.
dnewton3
Staff member
That's what happened at my company.
Enter CVD in March 2020; everyone who can be is sent to work from home. It's a major adjustment for all. Our annual 2020 rasies (April each year) were frozen, even though 2019 was a good year. But our entire enginerring group, and my sub-group in particular, excel wildly past anyone's expectations and goals. For 2020, my personal work group not only met the annual goals, but surpassed them heartily, and I was at the top of the list. And the corportate proffits were outstanding in 2020; a record year. Yet in April 2021 (our annual group raises for the 2020 year), the money passed out for merit raises was paltry (not even up to the level of inflation, so we "lost" in our standard of living).
In 2021, we were breaking through barriers and exceeding goals again. And while the raises for this year won't come until April 2022, it's unlikely they will do any better for the employees. I have a friend who is highly placed in the company and he privately told me that he's heard 2022 raises (based on this year) are planned to be frozen again, even though 2021 is also on pace to be a record year! Though with the massive loss of labor, quitting in droves, they may rethink this. But it'll be too little, too late. The hemorraging is taking it's toll and there's no way to fix it this late in the game.
I don't understand what's happened to our employement landscape in America these days. Seems like hard work, merit and ability, earned experience are all eschewed for whatever it cheaper. Back in 1990, when I hired into Ford, it was presumed that if you worked hard and did a good job and kept your nose clean, you'd excel and have a career for life. But by 2000, that mindset was gone. Companies quit being loyoal to employees, and so employees stopped being loyal to companies. The ONLY way to get a significant raise in compensation in large companies now is to either get a major promotion, or leave and work elsewhere. Whatever happened to encoraging people to climb the ladder from within? What happened to developing talent inside? What happened to rewarding merit and ability?
As I said, I just up and quit. I have the money to retire early (I'm 57). But I was wanting and willing to work another 10 years because my wife is much younger than I am, and I wanted to retire with her. I left because they continued to dump on all employees and gave terrible merit raises (if any at all). I was willing to do the work, but not work under the ever worsening conditions. And so, arrogance aside, they lost a very good employee. Right now I don't plan to re-enter the workforce, but if I do, I'm going to demand a eye-popping salary knowing that whereever I go, it won't grow much at all in my last 7-10 years of work. You gotta get the money when you walk in the door, because you'll get screwed after that.
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2020
- Messages
- 1,487
I'm upper management. We're a small company, ~10 people, Electrical Engineering / Consulting Firm. We have mostly young people (under 35) working here.
I make it a known point to the worker bees that I do not tolerate sub-par performance. I tell them that those that are busting their tails don't want to be pulling the wagon for freeloaders (this goes with society in general). I make it known that I will remove anyone who is dragging the morale and company down with their "big company" attitude, work ethic and performance.
As far as the overall morale, I see mostly everyone who is employed that is under 50 today complaining about something. They are never happy. They all are saying the same things - they want more, work less, etc. They want all these pie-in-the-sky benefits they HEAR ABOUT others having at these giant companies. Well, you can have it one of two ways - we can pay you a wage through the year that competes with your counterparts at other firms and you get a bonus that is 3-5x what they get or you can have your lactation rooms, bean bags and foosball table. What do you want?
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2020
- Messages
- 1,487
BTW, we have raised salaries about 25%+ in the last year. And we were paying "industry average".
68 and retired, my man.
Additionally, most of the posts here cite management issues; management doesn't seem to care. Bean counters run the company.
While I am sure this can be true anywhere, one of the reasons people come here is, if you have the ability and are willing to be responsible for something deemed mission critical, management will put the golden handcuffs on you. Yeah, you gotta earn them, but the rewards can be substantial.
Last edited:
Morale is pretty high at 200 person tech firm I contract for where 75% are developers. I contract(minority) and not an employee however the largest issue is pay and now remote work more popular getting them because they offer lower wages due to locale. The people who leave work for high payer locales remotely.
We work 35 hr work weeks which is key for a tech firm for balance of employee happiness and people working very hard/effectively those 7 hrs.
We work 35 hr work weeks which is key for a tech firm for balance of employee happiness and people working very hard/effectively those 7 hrs.
It's is bad here, nobody has had any kind of raise in over 5 years since the kid took over and nobody gives a $hit. As people left they didn't replace and piled the work on the rest of us. Now things are booming for them with a few new big contracts but don't have the workers to do the work. Yesterday they had a job fair with free food, bad idea, some real winners showed up just to eat.
Also, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
- Status
Similar threads
