Horrible and Toxic work place - Anonymous employee Essentra Employee Review

1.0
23 Dec 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Many employees care, nice health insurance and it's a paycheck

Cons

The new CEO has been there 1 year and has done absolutely nothing besides talk a nice game. He has closed plants, divested a segment and lay off people. He does deserve credit for helping Puerto Rico and Houston employees after the tropical storms. There is no leadership at all, especially in the Americas. The Americas staff like a revolving door! I'm not even sure how the words Americas and leadership can be used in the same sentence with the company. Expect to be lied to and taken advantage of. They operate on more of let's make ourselves look better and not fix the problem at hand. They do not develop their employees at all, provide training nor do they prepare them for success. If you want to succeed here you must be willing to be a doormat and a "yes man" (I would say yes man and woman but very few women in leadership positions). This circus of a leadership team does not like to be challenged at all. Stay away from operations and finance especially if you are NOT a yes man and have a backbone. The Finance department is all yes men. If you move into these departments expect to be used, abused and work long hours. Horrible management, bad systems, communications. Did I mention working weekends? They have people in these management roles that have ZERO clue whats going on in the business and refuse to listen to the people who are in the day to day operations. Turnover at this place is ridiculous!! It’s like a revolving door, good people are leaving and garbage is coming in. Senior disfunctional leadership claim they have no idea why people are leaving! Terrible Terrible people with horrible leadership skills!

Explore other reviews about Essentra

5.0
14 May 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

supportive environment, lots of room for growth

Cons

potential disagreement between different teams

2.0
2 Jan 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There are a lot of good leaders and employees at the sites and functions who are knowledgeable, helpful and committed to getting the job done. Benefits are good. PTO is good for hourly.

Cons

Executive leadership seems to lack direction for the company and commitment to the employees. The US leadership seems to be a revolving door between leaders that are fired and ones that voluntarily leave the work environment. In 5 years, the top person running US changed 3-4 times, US Operations and Distribution leadership changed 3-4 times and HR leadership 5-6 times. This creates a situation where progress is stunted. Frequent changes in direction and management style causes the site teams so much re-work. Company doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind. Large projects are started without one person managing the change causing communication issues and balls are dropped all the time. Leadership at the US locations, the US HR Team and US Finance team are a revolving door (almost 100% turnover in 5 years) which creates a lack of continuity and support. The Commercial team is "re-organized" about every 6 months. Current VP of US leads by going around his direct reports and assigns work to their teams. Sometimes the exact same work to different people and doesn't let their boss know. This caused so much redundancy and miscommunication. Overall, I would not work here in a leadership role, HR, Finance or on the Commercial Team. There is also poor communication across the functions and sites.

1
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All