Pros
• Best thing by far is the people. There really are excellent teams, folks are extremely welcoming, patient, kind, and just quality folks. This appears to be true both up and down the chain of command. Folks eat together, there is a large park at the top of the hill where people go walking at lunch, some play sports on break or after work.
• I have one of the better bosses I’ve ever had. He’s interested, helpful, direct in what he’s looking for, has a great open door policy, and yet is not at all a micro-manager. He offers guidance and then empowers his team to work out the details.
• Deliberate training: I was hooked up with a mentor immediately (good guy, solid background, excellent teacher). Bal Seal also has an entire battery of miniature training courses called RMS’s covering a wide spectrum on materials and industries which employees are encouraged to work through.
• Solid business model. They know their strength lies in custom applications for hard to solve sealing and electrical problems and they have good means and metrics to keep eyes on the prize, starting with the Sales department and working their way down.
• Nice facility with a solid team keeping it up. Little upgrades happen effortlessly. In the time I’ve been here I’ve seen: chicken wire to help fresh grass sprouts grow, new LED parking lot lights, new shower curtains in the locker room (they have locker rooms), new basketball backboards. The AC is always tuned well and the toilets are never shy of TP.
• They care about morale, from fun things like a Halloween pumpkin carving contest, to a health fair, to a soccer field on campus, to full company picnics. Suggestions are taken seriously.
• Compensation is reasonable: My salary offer was very closely aligned to my own research on comps. I can’t yet speak to whether promotions and/or merit increases will move ahead or behind on this trend, but they do have annual merit increases, so there’s that.
• Bonus pool: At certain levels (and not just management) Bal Seal pays a bonus based upon personal and company metrics. I haven’t experienced this yet, but I’m told the metrics tend to be achievable and the bonuses have historically been paid reliably.
• Benefits: Covers all the usual range of health, vision, dental, optional life insurance etc. There’s a solid 401k matching program.
• Things tend to run fairly smoothly. I have not needed to work huge amounts of overtime to keep up with work requirements. To the contrary, I’m typically asking for more. Note, manufacturing divisions may be a different story regarding overtime…
Overall:
• You’ll have friends here. Folks are positive and helpful. It’s a well-run company. Policies for the most part are deliberate and intentional. It’s a stable business (low volatility) that is growing steadily. Folks in management are clearly looking to position for the future. There are opportunities to grow a career. You’ll deal with some wonkiness regarding how tightly held IP is (see cons), but it’s manageable. Seals and connectors are not necessarily sexy products, but it is a solid business model. To quote the always quotable Mike Rowe (he of Dirty Jobs fame), “Don’t follow your passion, bring it with you!” Do that at Bal Seal and you can expect a great career in a stable company with good pay and people to laugh with while you work (just don’t expect much time off). Overall, it gets a strong thumbs up.
Cons
• Intellectual property is extremely closely held at Bal Seal. It’s like being in a secure government facility. Cell phones are not allowed in hallways. If someone takes a selfie somewhere they shouldn’t, they probably won’t be here long. Unfortunately, I tend to find the company’s definition of “need to know” doesn’t align with what I think I need to know and gets in the way of my ability to do a job. In my opinion, the level to which intellectual property security is enforced hurts more than it helps.
• The vacation policy badly lags industry. Asking a senior level employee with a family to start at 2 weeks of vacation isn’t normal. Capping vacation at 3 weeks max instead of 5 weeks (or at least 4)? Weird. This is likely related to the founder’s age and work style. He’s pushing 90 and still comes to work every day (and many Saturdays). Work seems to be his life and this company is clearly his baby. However, that doesn’t make his definition of work-life balance healthy (or productive) for his employees.
• No music, no media, no headphones. I don’t really know why, but that’s the official policy. If you use Pandora to help you concentrate this might not be the place for you.
