Great company to work for - Sales Lesman Instrument Company Employee Review

It has been longer than 2020. But certain intrinsic things hold true in organizations like Lesman: *Extremely low turnover *Same dynamic management team for longer than a decade. *Each staffer acting as a stakeholder in the business, the teammenship is almost an artform in how the process flows. The core belief of the organization is, "Focusing on Improving their Clients Business Result!" Each role within the company maintains that same mantra.

Continuous education - New Process Engineering concepts evolve daily. To be a subject matter expert in the process industry, requires one to stay on top of the technology changes. Lesman provides those resources. For those who just want a labor position may view this as a con.

Very generous health care supplement. Small enough that that every employee will know other workers and management team. Company has a long and positive history with both customers and manufacturers. ESOP bonus checks are generous and add materially to ones salary once eligible to receive (6-7 months). Company is vigilant about maintaining a good relationship with the manufacturers and adheres strictly to the distributor / representative contracts. Lesman values very highly the relationships it has with both its manufacturers and its customers and shall remain profitably in business so long as it can execute.

ESOP means that an employees retirement funds are managed by the company. The only way to take ownership of your retirement funds is to leave the company. The company may not make decisions with your retirement funds that are consistent with your interests. No time off permitted for a full six months after beginning employment. (ESOP participation is permitted also after six months of employment). No metrics for performance measurement / improvement. Instead, performance evaluated based on reaction to observation and feedback. Exaggeration and drama routine in public feedback by managers. General lack of trust among workers and between workers and managers given the type and nature of feedback. (I don't want to be next for public outburst) Some department have 15-20% annual employee turnover. High turnover is attributed to poor employee selection and generational working differences. No correlation is attributed to management. Management encourages sharing computer passwords as a work around for email arriving on an employees scheduled or unscheduled day off and considers refusal to share passwords as uncooperative behavior. Management has open door policy and is selective as to which employees are welcome through the open door. Management has a suggestion box for new and innovative ideas. The ideas must pass through the management team for evaluation. If the suggestion is not in alignment with a the management teams vision, the suggestion is interpreted as a training need. Need for training and statement of minsunderstanding of the company vision are public statements in front of peers. There is no HR department or Legal counsel so individual managers use their best judgement and intentions. Too often there are legal requirements that are ignored / unknown / dismissed. As the company grows, someone will be hired who will retain legal counsel and put ESOP money at risk. Company has grown from within or hired from competitors and is dismisses ideas or methods from other sources. Management either wants high employee turnover or does not hold mid managers accountable for high turnover. Mid managers openly discuss their disappointment / outrage with subordinates / other departments with people they are assigned to supervise. Company practice is to not give cost of living raises. Instead, any additional profits received from passing along factory increases to customers is interpreted as improvements in efficiency and included in the monthly bonus check. The bonus check is discretionary and can be discontinued due to business downturn, company capital expense, etc. Benefits such as Short Term Disability are based on the base salary at hiring date and do not increase regardless of the number of years of service.