What is the hiring process like at Sherwin-Williams?

Ability to get promoted quickly at first

Upper management is out of touch with expectations at the plant level, promotions plateau quickly, hiring process and anything HR related takes forever

We sell a great product.

Outdated and tired sales techniques that lack innovative foresight. Management at the store level has little too no control over the hiring process. What would be handled by the store manager within most companies of this size is all facilitated at the district level.

Thorough hiring process, so you know that your coworkers were well-vetted and will be good to work with.

Making paint is not exactly a riveting process, and the company is so large that there is lots and lots of beaurocracy.

High starting pay for the area. In my first year, I made about 74k (including overtime), and there's enough overtime that you can easily clear 100k a year just working the floor. Incredible pay for a non-degree-holding individual. The benefits are also pretty good. The people you work with on a day-to-day basis are great!

There's a standard pay increase at your 1st and 2nd anniversary, but the pay is capped at the 2-year pay increase. After that, you never get another raise, apart from an annual cola increase. People who've been working there for 15+ years make the same as someone who's only been there 2 years. They expect their employees to do an insane amount of work during their shifts, often assigning additional tasks that are unrealistic in their achievement. The site is purposely run "lean". This increases the workload for the current employees. You can expect zero work-life balance, mandatory overtime is an absolute guarantee and you will work OT every week. The extra work exhausts people and there are several people who go out on short-term/long-term disability each year for work-related accidents mostly caused by exhaustion and the inability to allow your body to recover and rest during a weekend. Very rarely does management hire/promote from within. People who are career-minded and would like to move up within Sherwin are held back. During my time there I watched countless well-qualified people get passed over in favor of an outside hire who was generally less qualified and knowledgeable than those from within the company who applied for those positions. This is somewhat of a recent shift given that most of the senior leadership once worked on the manufacturing floor. There's a lack of loyalty from management to the employees. They come at any issue as if you're guilty before they even look into what actually occurred. There are members of management who actively look for reasons (and will create them if they can't find any) to discipline employees. However, they can and will turn a blind eye to any misdoings of one of their own. There have been multiple reports made of an inappropriate relationship between someone on the leadership team with a team member on the floor. A relationship that is in direct violation of the company's ethical code of conduct, yet after an "investigation" it was found there was no wrongdoing, and the two individuals still openly engage inappropriately with one another on the manufacturing floor. Full disclosure, I am a former employee who was proud to work at Sherwin, and proud of the products we made, and would have loved to make a full career with Sherwin. All of these concerns are ones I brought up time and again with management. My 2023 year-end review was stellar, but an excuse was made to fire me, ultimately because I had an opinion and wasn't afraid to share it and actively encouraged my peers to share their opinions and concerns with management.

Swift Interview Process, Very Transparent

Initial process is remote which some people may not find easy

Great benefits Bonus Potential was great with extra perks that come in tiers. Great training programs that are job specific. Advancement opportunity's within the company are always available based on peformance

Massive overturn in upper management, every 1-2 years a new boss would come in. Demands on annual sales goals and overall improvements can be overwhelming for some. You must be open to relocations to move up in the company, many times across the country.

Physically active work, short onboarding process

Strange delegation of labor amongst drivers, little to no feedback from management regarding performance, pay is hardly competitive given the labor expectation. Delivery drivers are also held responsible for warehouse/truck duties when not enroute. No mileage compensation.

No much to say here, the people (who are all in the same boat)

-No 401k match; went from 6% to 0 -Limited help; hiring freeze to save $$$ stretching management thin and burning them out -48 hour work weeks; most times even more (only paid for 40)

Flexible hours, fast-paced work, personal connections with customers and coworkers

Constantly understaffed and district refuses to allow more hiring, zero appreciation to the store-level workers

It was close to home and the laboratory staff were very kind and friendly.

Working at SW was a disappointing experience, especially in upper management. I took this job knowing I’d be taking a big pay cut. I was okay with that because I wanted more experience, not just better pay. But SW claims they pay top dollar, which just isn’t true. I also noticed that upper management, in particular, is underpaid, but I didn’t have the heart to bring it up. The work environment itself was terrible. My office, along with others, had a serious rodent problem. There were mouse traps everywhere, and I constantly saw rodent droppings. Despite that, I never once saw pest control come in to fix the problem. Housekeeping was just as bad—we even found bacteria growing in the water and ice machine. The worst part? Nothing was done about it, and employees weren’t told until days later. Another major issue was how they abused employees’ time and schedules. One day, you could be scheduled for a 10-hour shift, and then, with little to no notice, you’d be expected to come back just four hours later to cover another shift. It was impossible to plan anything, even a simple weekend, because I never knew if I would be working or not. The lack of consideration for employees' time was exhausting and unfair. But what really pushed me to leave was the constant unprofessionalism. From my first day, I could tell that the QA Manager had no real control over her team. Whenever she left the lab, her employees would come into my office to complain about her. They accused her of abusing her power and even harassment. That was my first red flag. The second red flag was during my conversations with the QA Manager about company performance. She bragged about her plant being the top producer with the fewest QA issues. But then she admitted that they hide certain problems from corporate to stay on top. When I started asking questions about these issues, she basically told me to mind my own business. She had been there for eight years without making a single process change, which spoke volumes. On top of that, she seemed to take everything personally. She assigned me the task of revising and rolling out new SOPs. However, when I pointed out grammar errors and poorly structured sentences, she would get angry and deny the issues—even when I highlighted and showed them to her directly. It became clear that she was more concerned with maintaining control than ensuring accuracy and improvement. Looking back, I realized this was a common issue within CEP. They are so understaffed that they promote people just because they need to, not because they’re actually qualified. The Plant Manager even told me this directly. This creates a cycle of bad leadership, poor decision-making, and a toxic work culture. In the end, between the dishonesty, unhealthy work environment, lack of professionalism, and complete disregard for employees' time, I knew I couldn’t stay. I wouldn’t recommend working here to anyone looking for a fair, ethical, and well-managed company.