Smead Reviews

Let's be real, this is a dying industry, and the company is constantly going through restructures. They are currently bringing in people from another company and pushing actual Smead employees aside. A lot of the employees have been with the company for 15-20+ years which sounds great, but a lot of them are incredibly resistant to change. There is a reason this change is needed, and the amount of push back is insane. Also, the seniority complex can cause an interesting work environment. The majority of everything at Smead is outdated, from software to the orange couch in the "bathroom lounge." Some of the culture is stuck in the 90's as well. Business attire, you can wear jeans on Friday ONLY if you buy a pass. You can only enter certain doors even though visitors are minimal. The worst part is the National Account Managers are treated like God/Goddesses that can do no wrong. Some of them are borderline abusive. When you bring it up to upper management they just shrug their shoulders and day "that's just who they are."

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.