Unfortunately a struggling company with potential - Anonymous employee Smead Employee Review

The company is not very progressive. There is no strategy. There is often very little logic put into decision making other than "this is how we've always done it". There is also some form of bigotry at Smead, in an usual way. Because it's very much a "1970's" culture, beards are frowned upon, women that don't wear long sleeves are frowned upon, younger people are not often hired/respected, etc. You are promoted by your age and number of years at the company, not necessarily your work. I also had an unfortunate experience where I heard derogatory words like the "N" word and "J" word used to describe groups of people...when reported to human resource they basically said so and so grew up in a different area and that's why they talked like and the owner likes them so you probably shouldn't make a big deal out of it.