A.Y. McDonald Mfg. Co.
4.1 out of 5 stars.
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A.Y. McDonald Mfg. Co. Employee Reviews

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3.8Work-Life Balance
4.2Pay & Benefits
3.9Job Security & Advancement
3.9Management
4.0Culture

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Great place to work but to many corporate visits

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Great place to work with good pay and benefits. Poor management but not talking about the local group, talking about the group that comes from corporate out of Iowa! Fly down, screw things up and then leave? New VP needs to be replaced...TERRIBLE! Lots going for the place if corporate stayed away.Opportunities if you come to work and work.

Pros

Good pay, Good benefits, Good local management group, Job security, Good 401, Growing, Good employees for the most part

Cons

Corporate too involved, New VP needs to go, Mandatory Saturdays
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Productive and easy place to work at

a typical day at work is easy. you go in and there's a big lobby for you to use. The HR office is nice and clean and the poeple in HR are very generous and nice. You can usually expect there to be a free lunch everyday provided by the company, but some days its just not included, and it's not really consistent. The coworkers are nice and easy to work with. I would recommend you stay away from the HR office.
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Eh

It's not a bad place to work... simple work with decent hours and pay is also not too bad. Recommended by a few people around the area... would work there again
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Good place to work if you are a brown nose or suck up... the ones who do the most are the ones yelled at the most

Poor management , high turnover , endless excuses... never hold their word. Their president is a JOKE and the foundry supervisors are even more pathetic.

Pros

Everything over 8 hrs is overtime

Cons

Long days, no weekends off, no job security
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Great place to work short term.

It's a "family company" but they will throw you out. I understand attendance is important but sometimes life happens. Supervisors nice people but not very knowledgeable and ultimately push unobtainable quotas. If your machine is down, even if it's out of control your production is hurt. Previous shift messed up, your production is hurt. The work aspect is typically easy however it can be boring/repeative but it's a factory. Short but paid breaks. Raises good but determined by quota. I've seen favoritism and some racism during my time there. Manager turnover is from what I've seen is high. Safety wise it's okay for a factory. Owner and uppermanagement do visit often, they do talk to you/involve you which is nice but doesn't really change day to day operation or the issues along with it. If you want to work here try to get hired early into the year so you have more pto. I started towards the end of the year and had very little.

Pros

Pay is great, plenty of ot you will work most Saturdays, Offer sundays sometimes, PTO is a decent amount, Good coworkers typically.

Cons

PTO allotment(6 per shift), unachievable goals both short term and long term, turnover, unsupported, machines down frequently
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Terrible

Rude, no life, careless, lack of respect, only care about numbers, lack of knowledge of management, under paid, false advertisement, cliques in management.
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Teamwork needs some attention. Your title doesn’t give you the right to be a jerk. Who’s in charge?

This place isn’t entirely bad. I’ve been here for a year and a half. I believe production managers are under so much pressure to increase productivity that they tend to lash out at their subordinates, often times distastefully. It seems as if each shift is “running defense” against each other instead of applying teamwork strategies. This problem is evident from production mangers to operators. This place has an incredible potential to be great, but mid level management needs a different training strategy. HR could vet new hires a little better, managers could keep their emotions in check much better, and operators could work harder. Instead of looking for who to blame, we need to find REAL solutions to problems like not having parts, machines having the same failures repeatedly, end of shift chores, and managers who want to vent their failures on their subordinates. I believe if we can get some solid support from Dubuque we could make this a great place to work.

Pros

Pto, paid breaks, set schedule

Cons

Poor training, management temper tantrums, they’ll hire anyone
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Family to the core

Everyone makes a point to know your name and say hi to you every day. The jobs can be stressful and it can be overwhelming but the people on shift with me in the material handler department went beyond to help me make it. Loved this job just hated working so much time.

Pros

Pay, people

Cons

Working every other Saturday
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Terrible place to work at

Managerial favoritism and discrimination against minorities. It’s mostly a disorganized work environment You can expect to work 60+ hours weekly to begin. The pay is good, but it's very physically demanding and you will not have time to spend with your family. Unless you are desperate for a job, I would not recommend working for this company!

Pros

Pay

Cons

Management, work ethic, stressful…
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Revolving Door

Poor management. Upper management favoritism. They cut corners to maximize profits. Instead of creating a position for the growing company they will just double or triple your workload. AYM used to be a fairly fun place to work. The company is ran/operated out of Iowa. They have no roots in Tennessee and try to push their culture.

Pros

Co-workers are easy to work with.

Cons

Short breaks. If required to work 10 hours, still only two breaks. Combined breaks equal 30 minutes.
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Family Company

It is a family owned company and you feel like family when you work there. Pay like most places could be better but over all a great place to work for.

Pros

Free lunches management cares

Cons

pay could be better
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Amazing place to work

Great place to work actually feel as if management cares and has relationships with employees they know each employee as a person you are not just a number in a place

Pros

Enjoy my job

Cons

None really
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Okay work with poor advancement opportunity

Work life balance was not great and it is hard to promote and people were hired from outside with no experience for jobs they were doing. Often no parts to do jobs with required overtime.

Pros

Pto

Cons

Poor advancement, short breaks, constant overtime without parts to do jobs.
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It was okay

High expectations, little rewards or promotions unless you’re in the clique. Unappreciative, demanding, inconsistent. Every department operates their own way. If they like you it’s great, if they don’t you’re out.
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Good

Good pay. Work here. Union benifets also. Very good people treat you with respect and will train you well and it is a very good place I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to work here
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Productive fun workplace

Great people to work with some management does not completely know there job the pay is good and they csn be flexible with hours but csn br hard to move shifts

Pros

Pay

Cons

None
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Awesome company

I worked for aym for three years they are a family owned and operated buissness that take great care of there employees great pay and benefits and dave the plant manager makes sure the employees are taken care of

Pros

Great pay and benefits and great upper management
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Okay Place, Not Treated as a Person

At AY McDonald there is a feeling of family that they forcefully push on you to an almost excessive degree. Whether or not you're into that depends on the person, but I know a lot of my co-workers were awesome people whom I loved to deal with on a daily basis. It could get a bit like a high school at times with drama and things at times, but what can you do it seems to be sort of common in most places. Now the bad. Upper management is always pushing numbers down your throat. At the weekly meeting every time it was always about numbers never being good enough and they want more out of you. They are not appreciative of the numbers even when you show improvement as a whole, they just always want more. So much so that supervisors seemed very stressed about it, even getting a little upset if you were to chat for a couple minutes or so. Not only this, but some of the rates are just unachievable and they never will change the rates to benefit you, only if the rates are too easy to achieve will they change it. I understand you need a set rate, but why not have a set number of parts a day you have to get through like several other factories do. This isn't a big issue on paper, but AY has a set number of work hours they want per week, so they make you work A LOT of Saturdays. Sure some are into this, but I hated it. I'd rather live more of my life than spend it in a factory. The work is very tedious at times, you can get really stiffed on jobs factory side. Very boring jobs with a lot of downtime are common but there are also overly laborious jobs so be mindful of this. Time - 
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Good company

Great company to work for. Pay for certain jobs could be more. Went thru 2008 slump with no layoffs (before I worked there). They care about the employees.
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Family oriented

One of the best companies to work for in the tristate area great pay and benefits the management is a good team of people even before your start date you are treated like family
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A secure place to work. Not fairly treated

It's a great paying and very secure place to work. Benefits are great.Some of the coworkers are great people who will help. Others are never willing to help in anyway. Teamwork is not promoted. The Management from top to bottom plays favorites. Your previous work and accomplishments account for nothing. The favorite employees always get the best of everything. They dont go by seniority.
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Overall rating

Based on 222 reviews

Ratings by category

3.8 out of 5 stars for Work/Life Balance
4.2 out of 5 stars for Salary/Benefits
3.9 out of 5 stars for Job Security/Advancement
3.9 out of 5 stars for Management
4.0 out of 5 stars for Culture

A.Y. McDonald Mfg. Co. Reviews by Job Title

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