1) Paid time off
It's non-existent at this company, and management believes that if you need more time off than they willingly give you that you do not possess the necessary character and work ethic to be a part of their company.
As mentioned in a previous review, new hires are given 0 vacation days in their first year and 5 holidays. To new hires with family out of town--good luck seeing them on Thanksgiving since you don't get Friday off and have no vacation to supplement it, or Christmas if it falls mid-week.
In your second year, a meager 5 days of vacation is immediately used up to supplement holidays. In your third year, you finally receive 10 days of vacation, which still puts your cumulative time off at 15 days for the year and does not change until your tenth year of service.
When Labatt management was approached about changing these policies to help improve attraction and retention of quality employees, their response was that "you see your family enough on the weekends".
2) Managerial incompetence and disinterest
Most of management came into their roles as the result of tenure. Their job title and function within the company has literally nothing to do with their interest or ability to manage people, and it is devastatingly obvious.
Managers (in general, although this does not apply to everyone) are disengaged from their employees and do not believe in taking an active role in their professional development. My manager chose to only meet with employees once a year, on review day, at which point the employee was expected to provide the manager with a document outlining the work they had done in the previous 12 months--and this manager would make a decision on the employee’s raise and value to the company based only on that interaction.
When talking to my manager about how the hands-off strategy might affect different types of personalities, I had the following conversation:
"If you have a problem, you need to bring it to me." "But what if you're working with a more passive or quiet personality and the person is uncomfortable bringing it up?" "Then that person shouldn't work here."
3) Rules don’t apply to management
The handbook that you will receive on your first day of work does not apply to management because they have more "business acumen" (a better last name, or the ability to attach themselves to someone with a better last name) than you do.
This includes policies like vacation, maternity leave, and nepotism (your cousin cannot work at the company if you do, but there are two last names and their relatives that you will encounter in all parts of the company).
It is even more frustrating to note these discrepancies because management fully expects you to abide by their extremely restrictive policies even though they don't.
4) No respect for employees from the top down
Management has been repeatedly called out for belittling employees for their "incompetence", all the while providing no direction. I cannot count the number of times I (or my coworkers) have been asked to complete an assignment, acted exactly as directed and provided the assignment back to the requesting party only to be told it is complete trash and incorrect.
When asked why they no longer want what they requested, the answer is inevitably either that they didn't ask for that and you are wrong, or that you should have known what they were REALLY asking for and completed that instead.
Additionally, management truly believes that employees should not be given a voice in the company at all. When employees were asked what the company could do to improve the deplorable retention rates, the overwhelming majority asked for more time off. Management responded by telling them that they "don't know what they want" and that "democracy is governance by the poor". The poor, of course, being everyone who doesn’t have "business acumen".
5) Cult atmosphere
Employees are encouraged to report other employees who have been heard saying anything negative about the work environment so that their manager can "address" it. Most notably, three people were fired at the end of 2011 for their perceived negativity towards the company.
Employees are furthermore told that their allegiance should not be to their co-workers (and are discouraged from being friends with them), but to Labatt because it pays the bills. If this loyalty waivers and management hears about it, you are liable be monitored until they can find sufficient "evidence" to ask you to leave the company without appearing suspicious or having to pay unemployment. This sounds unbelievable but is frighteningly true.
For a company that boasts job security in all markets, your job is only truly secure if you buy into a culture of not questioning management, abiding by antiquated and overly conservative rules that management ignores, and repeatedly being told that you and your work are not good enough.