Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing - Operations Manager Aptive Environmental Employee Review

For a company that has been established as long as they have been, there is a significant amount of process improvement that needs to occur related to people management, P&L management, inventory management, fleet management, and training. Entering into this position, I was not adequately prepared for the lack of organization and training resources available for me to learn my job. There is a clear distinction between white collar (corporate, regional managers, and senior managers) and blue collar (service professionals). If you read the reviews on Glassdoor, you’ll notice that a specific ethnicity, and the white collar employees, love the company and are wholly satisfied. That’s not the case for operations managers and below. Operations Managers are expected to work from the early hours in the morning to late in the evening and you should expect to take work home nightly. You should also expect to work every single weekend. On top of that, you’re required to become a licensed pest control technician and perform services in the field. If that’s not enough, know that this is mandatory (not optional) if your service center is running low on production and won’t be meeting weekly/monthly/quarterly targets. Salaried employees such as the Operations Manager and Operations Supervisor are treated like puppets. Service professionals have to be paid hourly and the company wants to mitigate overtime, so they use these salaried employees to complete work that they don’t want to pay hourly employees OT for. As an OM, I was told that Service Professionals are expendable, and if they aren’t meeting production or I’m not happy with them, then I can replace them. Service Professionals are the backbone of the company, so that’s a discouraging sentiment to have. Work/life balance rating: 1/10 *This is an objective statement Frat-boy corporate and sales environment: 10/10 I do not recommend this company to anyone. If this doesn’t discourage you and you choose to apply/interview for the company, ask very targeted questions such as: 1) What tier service center will I be working at? - this will drive your workload 2) Why is the position open (did the previous OM resign, and why?) 3) How many direct reports will I have? - I have over 40 which if you attend any LSS/Lean Manufacturing course, Ted Talk, etc. you know is extremely excessive (shouldn’t be >15 per person) 4) How is the training and continuity? 5) Are there any other salaried employees at the service center such as a training manager or operations supervisor? 6) What are the licensing requirements?