Alcoa
Happiness rating is 64 out of 100
3.9 out of 5 stars.
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Alcoa Pay & Benefits reviews

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3.6Work-Life Balance
4.0Pay & Benefits
3.4Job Security & Advancement
3.4Management
3.7Culture

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aluminumplantsmelterunionsafetyarconichowmetproduction

An old school company with a good culture... and a lot of problems

Indeed Featured review

The most useful review selected by Indeed
I worked at Alcoa for about three years. During that time, I had three different managers, four different job titles, and two different teams, all while doing essentially the same job. That gives you an idea of how much change this organization goes through, even before Covid.Alcoa is jam-packed full of great people. That said, they struggle with retention, resulting in two types of employees: those who have been there for three weeks, and those that have been there for three decades, nothing in between.During my time there, I witnessed several rounds of layoffs. VPs are not immune. There were many moments when a normally stable job felt risky. Their budget peaks and valleys along with the volatile market, and there's nothing you can do but go with it.Certainly not all of it was bad of course. I really enjoyed the flexibility of the work, the office environment, and the overall culture. Alcoa is not a competitive place, so the corporate politics are a little more mild than most places I've worked before.One of the most controversial things about working for Alcoa is the total lack of performance management. There are no ratings or reviews. At a glance this is a great thing, but it also serves to reward mediocrity. You can work as little or as hard as you like -- you will never be recognized for good work and very rarely penalized for bad work.Your manager (and their manager) will have all the control over how the organization promotes you, or not. If you end up with one of the many good managers at this company, great! But you could also end up like me with a manager - 
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Straight eights, short breaks.

The schedule was nice working straight eight hour shifts. The down fall is that breaks are really short. The work demand was very reasonable. Some felt ok to stop working after they got their quota for the day.

Pros

free Gatorade

Cons

short breaks
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Alcoa insights

Based on 290 survey responses
What people like
  • Ability to learn new things
  • Ability to meet personal goals
  • Fair pay for job
Areas for improvement
  • Support from manager
  • Trust in colleagues
  • Sense of belonging

Don't bother.

This place isn't worth the time. I got sick either covid because they don't require vaccinations then got fired because of how sick I was getting. The pay is good, but it's not worth HR breathing down your neck when all you did was follow their own policies.
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Lack of diversity and upward mobility but decent benefits

Alcoa struggles with employee recognition within upper corporate management. Alcoa relies too much on natural talent vis OJT versus manager development; therefore many managers lack coaching skills needed to build strong organizations. It can therefore be a very stifling environment for talent seeking upward mobility. Whether at operating locations or corporate offices, Alcoa has a 130-year old management style that makes it difficult to hold competitive talent. The corporate office lacks minority diversity leading to a groupthink work environment which hires/promotes managers that lack business knowledge to actually manage change. Corporate HR is seems to be ineffective in handling employee negotiations and benefits programs.

Pros

Decent pension and 401k

Cons

Lack of diversity, unequal pay, mangers that lack of corporate knowledge
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Great pay and benefits but workplace needs improvement.

Pay and benefits are beyond what most employers offer for education and experience. The workplace culture is poor. Very short staffed. Expected to do extra work not completed by other crews. Some toxic supervisors that are more concerned about making themselves look good while sacrificing their operators. Some breaks are extremely short. As little a 18 minutes for an entire 12 hour shift. Work is not for the weary or faint of heart. Extremely hot while working on pots. Workplace could be improved with better supervisors, longer guaranteed breaks, and staffing increased.

Pros

Pay and benefits

Cons

Short breaks, toxic supervisors, short staffed, and extreme working conditions.
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Hard work

They keep you going all day on pot lines. Good pay and benefits, the union is good.Very very hard work. You will always be dirty and you will never get it off
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Long hours, home life suffers but good pay.

Plant shutdown after company ran it into the ground, never investing money for much needed repairs to old equipment. For the most part easy work but long hours, 12 to 16, 4 to 5 days a week.

Pros

Good pay and benefits

Cons

Home life suffers from long hours
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Poor management in a dying industry

Worked in maintenance at a smelter. They didn't offer high enough wages to attract or keep anyone that was good. Had all the usual pros and cons of a union shop. They'd promote the absolute worst people to supervisory positions if they couldn't fire them. On the other hand, the company was always trying to gut our pay and benefits and the contract seemed to be the only thing keeping us paid. Wouldn't recommend it for trades workers. Plenty of greener pastures out there

Pros

Overtime available

Cons

Incompetent middle management
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Waste of my time...

Was really excited about hiring on with Alcos. Unfortunately, it seems like I was never included as a member of the team. Instead of working with experienced line techs to learn the machines & their nuances, all I did basically was man a mop bucket all day & pick up aluminum cans. Pay & benefits were great but it was a "clickish" work environment.

Pros

Clean well lit environment to work in.

Cons

The people that were supposed to be the ones training you.
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Challenging role

It's been a while since I worked there. My experience was very good. I had a very demanding leader who set very high expectations but he supported our team and gave us the necessary tools to be successful. I left the company when my manager left - went to work for him again.

Pros

Challenging and good compensation

Cons

Substantial amount of travel
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Great pay and the inside of the place is amazing

Its amazing how the different parts of the place work together my favorite plant is the ingot plant where they melt all the scraps down from the airplane wings and fire truck aluminum to reuse it.

Pros

Great pay, short breaks, awesome benefits
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You can work 40 hours and make 70,000+ or you can work all the overtime you want and make 150,000

Money is really good if you want to work overtime. You’re not forced a lot by seniority. By far the slowest work pace I’ve ever experienced. It’s like they put a big pile of money in front of you and ask how much do you want. Management communication is terrible. Planning of work is also terrible.

Pros

Good money, overtime always available if wanted

Cons

Poorly managed
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Lots of overtime. Low hourly wage

Have to work lots of hours of overtime to make a decent wage. No background checks done during hiring process so they will hire just about anybody. High turnover rate. Bad Union and dues would always get increased.

Pros

Good work force

Cons

Old dirty break rooms
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Was fun and sometimes demanding place yo work

Good pay and benefits ,job security based on seniority. Newly hired are generally basic laborers or vacation/medical fill ins until bidding for or assigned a job not filled by bidder.

Pros

Company Apprenticeship Program
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Good pay

Traffic control positions are hired out through a union so the pay is good. If your in good with management treatment is good, if not expect bottom of the barrel jobs. Not the good hours or overtime shifts
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Decent pay

Overall the pay was pretty good and competitive with other companies. Environment was not the best and a lot if inner office turmoil happened while I worked there.
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Hot and outdated

Pay and time off are great, but saying you’ll earn it is an understatement. Imagine standing in front of lava and trying to pick out rocks that weigh anywhere from 50-300 pounds. (Yes the company says not to pick up anything bigger than your hard hat, but you will). The job was designed to be done in less than 6 hours to give you a long break to look forward to. However with new management and workers you’ll likely be on the floor for at least 9 hours if not all day. Not to mention the potroom is powered by coal, and all the good jobs are now gone so there’s no opportunity to move out of the potroom.

Pros

Pay and time off

Cons

Physically demanding, Hot, Longevity of work
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Big programs get big attention

The forge division was largely driven by aerospace and defense. Unless you were a sales person to Airbus or Boeing, or were part of JSF, little to no attention was made on other industrial products. Many demands were placed on aerospace that often pushed back lead times to other customers. Constantly readjusting delivery schedules.

Pros

Great pay and benefits

Cons

Lack of focus by marketing organization
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Great pay and benefits, work/ home life balance is off

Great place to make a lot of money, hard on the family life though. Cant beat the pay and benefits in the area but you're gonna live there to make it

Pros

Compensation/ oppurtunities for advancement

Cons

Rotating shift work, overtime gets heavy sometimes
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Blah

At Alcoa you're working 12-hour shifts you're forced to work if they don't get enough people. The pay was okay there's a lot of good old boys mentality

Pros

Pay

Cons

Supervisors
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Keep you head down and don't upset their pet employees and you'll be good.

Go in as hourly ... Because they do not treat their salary all that well. Good benefits and pay rate .. Also get 10 paid holidays abd two of them are floating holidays

Pros

Good pay & benefits.

Cons

Favortism.
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Overall rating

Based on 1,991 reviews

Ratings by category

3.6 out of 5 stars for Work/Life Balance
4.0 out of 5 stars for Compensation/Benefits
3.4 out of 5 stars for Job Security/Advancement
3.4 out of 5 stars for Management
3.7 out of 5 stars for Culture

Ratings from women

2.6
InHerSight Score
2.6Personal Development
2.8Career Opportunities
2.5Family Support
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