Pay & benefits
My pay and benefits at Pilgrims pride Fresh Plant, Could use improvements, higher pay walmart cashiers make around the same amount of money
Management
In general, managers at Pilgrims pride Fresh Plant, are nice people.
Culture
Collaboration with my colleagues at Pilgrims pride Fresh Plant is USDA inspectors need to be monitored some treat us poorly, some don't do there job, some actually sleep on the job, they need training on the hand signals we use to communicate what's wrong with the birds & where they go, when there's a bad or defective bird, some USDA inspectors just point & expect us to know what to do with it, they are the one's that got an actual college education to know what's wrong with the birds & where they go not us, we are just the USDA "helpers" so tell us what to do, we can't hear you we have loud machinery & ear protection learn the hand signals, like wash out is rubbing your fingers together, gall is touching your gallbladder area or at least chest, airsack is a scissors action with your fingers or a knife cutting action on the tail, ascites is pointing at your open mouth like your saying ahhh at the Dr, septacemia is making a little pinching motion with your thumb & index finger, cut leg once is just a finger across leg, cut leg twice is two fingers across the leg if its both legs do it all the way across, hang back witch is guts or the string of colon & bud is just pointing back over your shoulder. We have developed a sign language of so
90% of Supervisors and Manager’s in Russellville, AL are snakes. You can’t trust anyone here. In shipping you’ll work 6 days a week every week, period. You’ll be required to hit numbers like the other shifts while being half staffed. I was never fully staffed the entire time I was there, and don’t expect any help from HR to hire you people. No hourly employee wants to come to shipping and work 6 days a week at a lower rate of pay when they can work in production and work 5 days a week and higher pay. Nobody, and I repeat, nobody around that place looks at anything with any logic. You’ll be asked to cut corners on safety, and put people in danger in the hopes of increasing productivity. The pay is average and the benefits are decent. The work/life balance is absolutely horrible. Upper Management is a joke, they want to sit in the office on another shift and question you about yours and how you’re running things, or in their minds the “lack thereof running it” when they haven’t worked a single night on your shift to see what is really going on. Upper management will base their opinions of you off of “hearsay” from other people instead of doing their jobs like they are supposed to and investigate and form their own opinions about you. There is zero communication or transparency there, absolutely none. Upper Management let’s the Sales Department dictate too many things in shipping about what and who needs to be on the door and when, and wonders why you can’t hit numbers bc you ha
Its a great place to work... it just wasnt for me.
Pilgrims was a fun place to work everyone talked to everyone and they were patient with new hires. i enjoy my job but its start to pay a toll on my body after having to stand on an elevated stand for at least 8 hours and to stand in a 50 degrees climate was causing my body to ache. We rotated every hour to a new position but that still didn't help.. a typical day would start off by putting on long pants, rubber boots, long sleeves, hair net, earplugs, safety glasses, badge, and hard hat on then the shift started at 11 pm. You get a new smock, a new pair of cotton gloves and a pair of rubber gloves before you clock in everyday and a new hair net every Sunday night. i would normally clock in by 10;53 pm. We do our quick stretches then production would start. We would have two rotations then we would get a fifteen minute break at 1 am.You would have to take off your smock and gloves before leaving the department for any breaks also if you were cutting something you would have a third glove on and an arm guard. We'd then would come back put all PPE* back on and get back on the line in our new rotation spot then work another two hours and have a thirty minute lunch at 3 am. Come back put PPE back on and get back on the line in the new position then work another two hours for a twelve minute break at 5 am. Go back put all your PPE back on and work until 7:30- 7:45 am depending on what orders we had that week. i would work Sunday- Thursday (night) and sometimes mandatory overtime ev
ProsOpportunities to advance, weekly pay, great employers
Conscold, stand for long hours, cant really converse, loud
Extreme physical activity. Basket Unpacking involves the removal of frozen products (i.e. chicken) from stacked crates, which are then placed on sloped belts. The crates will weigh 40-200 pounds depending on the product. Tenders, breasts, tenderloins, thighs, drum-sticks, whole birds, and other variations, etc...
Box-pack, conversely, is much easier. Though the pace is often much faster.
Smocks and other clothing will often rip. Freezer suits are available for purchase from the company. Due to the moisture/water which collects/beads on most surfaces, Boots (Also available for purchase, Steel Toe preferred) must have tread. The equipment is often loud (and cumbersome). Earplugs, Safety Glasses, and Hard Hats must be worn at all times for your protection.
The Break Area and Bathrooms are often dirty, as is to be expected. This is a Chicken-Plant after all.
Weekly training sessions/meetings are required, though not in the form you'd expect. PowerPoint questionnaires coupled with point and click Q&A sessions can be tedious (Employees must answer all questions correctly before they are allowed to leave [as a collective]. As you'd imagine, easily answered questions are intentionally missed to prolong the experience. To be fair, many of these individuals have earned a brief respite. The work is hard. Very hard.)
Parking can be problematic.
Hiring Staff in HR are polite. The majority of floor supervisors are usually well adjusted and sympathetic. At some point,
ProsManagement is courteous while supervisors are generally understanding, etc...
ConsDepending on your Department, the work may become extremely physical (constant exertion), fluctuating levels of extreme heat and cold, etc...
2.0
Maintenance Technician | Elberton, GA | Aug 29, 2019
Management is a joke
(This review is for the Elberton plant in Georgia. I cannot speak for the rest of the company in other cities or states)
I’m just gonna say it how it is
Maintenance Management is a joke. They have no idea what they’re doing or even which way to turn a screwdriver.
All they know how to do is be a boss. Pilgrims doesn’t need any more bosses. They need real managers.
I’ve worked here for over 2 years and it seems as the there’s a steady decline in moral and work ethic. After about 6 months I started to realize why that is.
There is a reason that you see so many jobs posted for this place on indeed. That’s because the turn over rate is so high.
Throwing out some numbers, as I conducted my own personal interview with a bunch of the employees while working here.
-90% of employees stated they wish they had more time off. Yes. 90%
If you want to work 7 days a week and get zero time to be with your family or friends, then by all means, apply.
72% of employees said they felt unsafe working conditions.
The whole plant is basically safety bypassed. They would rather run chicken down the line than to fix something as hazardous as an ammonia leak. Not only that, the building is old. The roof leaks and the floors are tore up. There are trip hazards around every corner. (Safety Manager do your Job)
78% Said they are unpaid for the conditions and work hours they work.
This is self explanatory, they want you to work the maximum hours legally with as little pay a
ProsThe only pro I can think of is that you’re not working outside in the heat.
Their method of getting out the meat is horrible. They have the line turned up , just so we will have to tub it out, for them to put it back in the freezer. Mixing the old meat with the good meat. Literally and you will smell it. All the supervisors need to be on one accord. You will have a supervisor (who has control of running the line) yelling at the Bone Inspectors Supervisor because of the fact that they have the line turned up and Bones Inspector line(s) is backed up and they hve to turn the line off til they get unbacked up. That's sometimes rest of the time it get backed up because everybody not cutting at their best speed because they know that a write up is nothing. It do not make them cut any faster. And the ones thats cutting at their fastest paste and stay at a consistent paste, is basically worn out trying to pick up the next person slack just so they won't get backed up just to still get backed up. I love the diversity of other race at the the plant. But a lot of the good workers are gone and fed up witht the job. We only getting 1day off. Although they had gotten a tad better working every weekend. The hardest part is to deal with co-workers who don't care about backing up the line or picking their meat. and the supervisor don't do nothing about them just to tell you to deal with them just worry about you. but then want to ask the line whats the problem. when you tried to tell them whats the problem and who the problem is. the enjoyable part through out this
A typical day would be getting up at 4:30 am to run the rooster feeders because the feeders would, 90% of the time, have some sort to problems and would require some sort of maintenance, assuming that they started up on time when the timers kicked on. Then I'd go home for about two hours and relax. Come back to the chicken houses, and gather eggs from 8 till the belts ran all the way around on all four 400 ft houses. The second pickup would start at 11 and the third at 3. Most of the time, they'd just run together so I'd just gather form 8 till 5 or 6.
While working there I learned that the boss is always right. Even if they're wrong. Just do what they say and even if something goes wrong, you have given your opinion on the subject and it then becomes their responsibility... That you will inevitably pay for.
Management is relaxed. Usually leaving the day to day to the grower. They only seem to intervene when there is a real problem. (Grower neglect, etc...)
Didn't really have co-workers other than the people I'd subcontract to do labor or building thing, in the event I wasn't able to do it myself.
Hardest part of the job; too much time to myself, no days off (24/7), very confining, if the power went out for more than a few minutes during a storm, the whole flock could die. You are constantly on call. Well over 40% of each check went to paying for related bills(water, electric, repairs, etc). Even for the 2-5 weeks that there were no chickens in the houses, you still h
ProsDecent pay. Return on investment
ConsPotentially dangerous, no vacations.
1.0
Refrigeration Technician | Elberton, GA | Jul 15, 2015
Toxic enviroment.
A typical day at work is stress. Overworked and underpaid. I learned a lot here. I had no choice given HR's general lack of interest in hiring. Great at firing employees; not so great at hiring. I spent a lot of nights by myself with a monumental workload and no help. Gives you the opportunity to figure things out on your own ( my new strongpoint). Upper management is atrocious. Numbers oriented and gives off an heir of self-importance. Very corrosive to morale. Middle management was better. I had some excellent supervisors that tried to bridge the gap between the nonsense upstairs and the reality on the plant floor and I had some that did not want to rock the boat. Co-workers were outstanding. The only thing that made this job worth going to everyday. They often kept their heads up and their sense of humor. The hardest part of the job was dealing with management. Their general lack of people skills and expectation of getting something out of nothing made everyone's job difficult. The schedule leaves little time for a life outside of work and you can plan on working every holiday with minimal compensation. There is little advancement from within and a pay raise takes an act of congress (or five years; whichever comes first). My co-workers were the only enjoyable aspect of this job. Their ability to maintain a sense of humor through it all is the only thing that kept me going. That and my need to pay my bills.
If you've got bills to pay and just need a job or experience; the
ProsI am longer employed here.
ConsPay. Retirement. Self centered management.
2.0
Customer Service Representative | Pittsburg, TX | Jul 1, 2018
No Raises or Advancement Opportunities
I worked for Pilgrims in a few different departments over the course of about seven years. My biggest complaint were the lack of raises and opportunities to advance. We only received a very small raise which covered the cost of living increase when the benefits went up. Since there were no raises, the only way to get an increase was to move around in the company to a different position. As a whole, the company paid very low wages. I was on government programs to help supplement my income and support my family while working there with a Bachelors degree.
It was hard to get promoted unless you were related to the owners or went to the same Church. Most of the jobs have now moved to Colorado so there weren't any opportunities left, which prompted me to leave. There was a lot of back stabbing in our department and the culture was not good. Management was extremely negative. The performance reviews were very stressful as management used it as a tool to tear down the employees. I now work for an organization that uses a strengths based performance review and it's much more motivating.
Different rules applied to different people. A lot of people came in late and for some it was overlooked; others it was not. Management had an "open door" policy but their door was shut a lot. If you wanted to ask them a question, they acted like you were bothering them. It was a joke in our office that when you needed a manager they would disappear. They all took long meetings at the same time
ProsDiscounts on poultry
ConsStressful, Fast Paced, No Raises, No Advancement Opportunities, Bad Culture, Very Low Pay
I worked as production. Debone. 1st shift. Fast paced, loud, cold. They say 30 minute lunch but until you undress and basically fight half the factory to get food you might luck out on a 15 min lunch. Food is ridiculously priced also taken out of your check. (No fridges, limited microwaves, good luck getting a seat inside. you basically keep your packed lunch sitting out on tables for anybody to grab) clear bags only, everybody can see what you have in them and they will steal what they want out of your bags. Dont leave phones, ciggs , money, clothing, in your bags it will get taken) Also both 15 minute breaks are cut down to about 5. People are rude, management is a joke. Nobody knows what they are talking about and the lack of communication is bad. You get points for everything !!! You cant even go to the bathroom at a normal pace. they have a bathroom monitor which basically rushes you to get in and get out right away. bathroom police if you ask me. Hours are extremely long, you never know what time you are getting off work. 1st shift is from 7am till who knows, could be 6, 7, 8..... If you have a family and you work 1st shift. You will never see them. The pay is good, benefits are good. Everything else miserable. You pick up the slack of 3rd shift. Re-work is always 1st shifts job and its 1st shifts chicken that you havent finished and 3rd shifts chicken that they didnt finish. They work you like dogs. You get in trouble for piercings but half the people there have pier
Revisión de la información turno a turno para ver en la situación que me encontraba parado, par saber como estaba trabajando la planta en los demás turnos, para saber por donde se tenia que direccionar a la gente para resolver los problemas del día.
Lo que aprendí es que todos somos parte de un solo resultado, que si necesitamos un resultado se ocupa el trabajo en equipo sin importar el puesto que tengan ya que cuando era necesario uno mete hasta las manos para sacar el barco a flote ya que para eso nos pagan, para que se cumplan los objetivos de la planta y del departamento.
La dirección creyó en mi y por eso me pusieron en ese lugar para sacar el barco a flote.
mis compañeros están muy agradecidos por el trabajo que realice dentro de la planta , ya que no se les tomaba en cuenta, se les proporciono herramienta nueva, plataformas arneses para trabajar el día a día ya que cuando llegue se tenían que trepar a los equipos para sacar el trabajo , por lo cual se mandaron adecuar las instalaciones para que ellos regresaran a sus casas tal cual como entraron y la planta dio un cambio de 360 grados en cuestiones de seguridad
la parte mas difícil de mi trabajo fue trabajar solo ya que no contaba con el apoyo de mi jefe nuevo que llego después de haberme puesto la dirección ahí y me la vivía en la planta los últimos veces para poder sacar la planta adelante.
Lo que mas me gusto del trabajo fue que cuando uno se propone hacer las cosas y uno va viendo que se van logra
Prostrabajo en equipo sin importar los departaamentos ya que todos somos parte de la misma empresa
Consfalta de apoyo de los nuevos jefes por fusion con tyson y calidez humana
Questions And Answers about Pilgrim's Pride
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Pilgrim's a better place to work?
Asked Dec 7, 2016
If we must work weekends(Which we do) have alternate weekends broken down to and A group and B group. Each group works 2 weekends so theirs a work life balance. It would also cut down the turnover ratio and motivate staff members who look and are worn out.
Answered Oct 8, 2021
Let the plant run itself it makes the day go by smoother
Answered Oct 27, 2020
What is the interview process like at Pilgrim's?
Asked Jun 29, 2016
Talk with HR then take a tour of the plant. Sit down with the supervisor and go over what we do and the expectations.
Answered Sep 28, 2020
Know the company values ,mission,vision ,disciplinary process and how to improve the process.
Answered Jul 25, 2020
How are the working hours at Pilgrim's?
Asked Jul 3, 2016
Depends on where you work. My department its 3 12 hr days and one 6 hr day and 3 1/2 off.
Answered Apr 24, 2021
Depends, sometimes you get off early, sometimes you work really late.
Answered Dec 20, 2019
How do you feel about going to work each day at Pilgrim's?
Asked Oct 28, 2016
Could use improvements, higher pay walmart cashiers make around the same amount of money, more time to get to work station from time clock , paid lunch on 8 hour schedule , 5-10 days paid sick leave per year.
Answered Nov 1, 2020
Not really a place you look forward to going In at, Constant confusion on what's really going on.. Told something different by each person you talk to.
Answered Sep 30, 2020
What tips or advice would you give to someone interviewing at Pilgrim's?
Asked Feb 10, 2017
If applying for plant in De Queen, I really can't speak for nobody else, only share my experience working there & it was HORRIBLE, nothing fun or energetic at all.
Answered Jun 27, 2020
Don't get involved with people. Just do your job and go home. Also be prepared to spend most of your time there.
