Pros
Small and personal, unique / different type of manufacturing environment and methods. Located in a park like setting in a southern suburb of Buffalo, NY.
Cons
This small family business chemical etching company came under control of the second generation 2014 and re-branded to a dba from Precision Photo-Fab, Inc. to Switzer in 2015. Since then, the company has been aimlessly adrift. The turnover at this company is dangerously high, one that should make anyone weary of working for this company if they are looking to be employed longer than 3 - 5 years (In some cases in technical and management positions, employment lasted about 18 months due to the company terminating employment). Management doesn't know what they want or how to get it, which results in them being dissatisfied with people they hire after about 18 months and thus terminating them. Management takes an "out of sight, out of mind" approach rather than confronting personnel issues between employees and seems to like it that way. The doors might as well be revolving with how often people come and go, as well as how long they stay. Managers were fired, positions were "eliminated" after employees were told the company was growing, and countless operators were cycled in and out through temp agencies, a strategy used to keep employment insurances and liabilities low. This company gets around their own referral policy on the operator side by telling referred candidates to apply through a temp agency, thus voiding the referral bonus that would otherwise be due to the referring employee. For a company that created a set of core values, the top section of management does anything but lead by example and hold to them. In 2015 with the re-branding came re-benchmarking of all employees. On the operations side, all were benchmarked to the base level, and with this came a cut in pay. This would include long time operators of twenty plus years now being benchmarked as an "Operator 1". Meanwhile new hires with skills that did not apply to the company were being brought in as an "Operator 2" at a higher rate of pay. Employees were misled as they had talked up this "benchmarking" to lead employees (especially operators and inspectors) to believe they were actually getting a raise and perhaps back pay. Employee moral is as low as it can go, and for some reason management can't figure out that this is because they have very skilled and talented labor that have been with the company from the start being paid wages just above poverty. Young adults are being hired as engineers and worked to death while being promised "a big future" at this small company. Those who can see through the fake career paths know this is not the truth, and was the start of my looking for employment elsewhere. The only ones winning are the upper management. It might as well be a version of NY State's "men in a room" promising hope and change that never in my tenure ever materialized. I feel bad for those employees giving a solid effort, they would do much better elsewhere. This company is in a declining industry externally, and it is slowly crashing and burning into the ground internally. I am glad to have gotten out when I did, before it was too late.
