Job Satisfaction in Food Manufacturing – Is Anyone Enjoying Their Role?

And if so, what makes it enjoyable?

When I think back on my career, what made my job enjoyable was people.  Getting to know people, getting to understand their points of view, meet and build friendships with all kinds of folk.  People I wouldn't have met living where I do from all different countries.  Initially Eastern European, but factories with 40+ nationalities are now not uncommon.  Which brings challenge too of course but also the opportunity to share cultures which is lovely.

It has always been stressful in the food manufacturing sector but I've always found something, every day which made me smile. 

Things were starting to change in the late 2010s but Covid kind of brought that all back.  We took out all of the BS meetings and ended up pitching in, making things work and helping.

Then post covid, the cost of living crisis...

And it all went 100 miles in the other direction.

I now see a lot of Technical and other managers in food.

And I don't see a single one who likes their job.  Or at least it doesn't look like it.  The pressure seems to be increasing and increasing.  Yet where people would have jumped ship and changed roles to organisations with better cultures in the past I now hear things like "it's just as crap everywhere."

Is this just a UK thing?

So my question is, do you like your job?  How has it changed over your career?  Do you see it improving?  Or getting worse?

I enjoy aspects of my job.

Pros:

• I've always enjoyed having a problem, investigating the cause, and devising and putting in solutions to that problem. Get plenty of that in this job.
• I like working in a smaller place where there isn't a bunch of corporate BS red tape.
• I genuinely like the idea of being in charge of programs that keep food safe. Meaningful and fulfilling? Kinda.

Cons:

• I do NOT enjoy having the solutions work for a few months (or weeks) and then old habits creep back in; that happens too often.
• I do not like the lack of resources that comes with working in a smaller place.
• The pay has stayed the same, which means with inflation it has gone from 'not too bad' to 'kinda ok' to 'why am I stressing out for this paycheck again?' as inflation has steadily risen.

Audits are a pretty big part of this job too, and I find I'm kind of moving from 'accepting' to 'not a fan' of audits. I'd love to be able to approach them as learning experiences where I can improve my system or facility, but I find in most cases that's not really what an audit is doing.

Yeah, my job is awesome!   

Regs getting tighter of course, government and 3rd party inspectors getting more heavy handed every year, but is what it is.   That's been the case since I've been in the business, and I expect it will continue that way.  But whateva.   Doesn't bother me.

"And I don't see a single one who likes their job"...... that sux.   I don't know anyone like that.   Maybe it's a UK thing?   Giant corporate place thing?   I definitely wouldn't work anywhere corporate.   

Actually I did know one lady years back who worked at the 'big cereal producer' in MI and hated it, so.....   Long time ago tho.

But all in all I'm quite happy.   Am I the unicorn?   Yall miserable?

After <redacted> years of collecting a paycheck, I think I am getting tired of working in general....

However, the people I work with are pleasant, we all seem to try hard, and we've made progess.

This was effectively my field of study - so I feel pretty at home at what I'm doing. 

I like the feeling of doing something that keeps food safe, it makes some of the stress feel worth it. 

I also like being a subject matter expert so this job allows me to really deep dive into some stuff and be the person with answers. 

Corporate push back or "we've always done it this way" or just...dollars over everything can be challenging.  I also have mixed feelings about GFSI requirements and the entire 3rd party audit system, but that's it's own conversation we've had plenty of threads about. 

 I've also been fortunate to recently get some solid support  from upper management (another small location though). I have also been in this career less than 10 years - so who's to say if it's all rose colored glasses right now, but I'm fortunate to have good staff, and people I get along with across the company so in the grand scheme I don't have much to complain about. I'm passionate about food in all it's avenues and happy to have a job in the industry I care about. 

I don't enjoy my current role of supplier approval.  Perks of my job are that I work remotely, I'm part time hourly and get freedom to set my schedule.  My primary focus is a stay-at-home father to my two daughters, my wife has a killer tech job, so the money I make is just side gravy for our family.  So I have a couple of perks that make things worth it for me, but I'm not enjoying this specific role I took on last year.  I was way happier when I was just a FSQA data analyst, creating monthly management meeting reports for our plants, doing trending and tracking of their KPI's, helping with investigations, etc.

It also makes me miss my old part time consulting gig with my partner.  We both work for this company now, he holds a VP level position in the corporate home office, but we both miss working with new clients and facing new challenges.  It was just more interesting than the day-to-day monotony and politics we run into being at the same company for 4+ years.  I miss being more hands on inside a facility, more of the 'operational QA' activities that keep things running versus sitting at a desk reading audits and forms all day.