sanitation worker

production

production lead

mixer

production worker

The Original Cakerie

To put it simply; do not waste your time. This is not a great place to work. The company does offer benefits, competitive pay, quarterly bonuses, and RRSP contribution. However, the environment of the plant outweighs these perks. There are a lot of unhappy employees here. Most people stay because they have families to support, not because they genuinely enjoy working for this company. Favoritism is evident; skilled positions are not awarded based on qualifications or experience, but rather on who the interviewer likes the most. There are more than a few employees who feel entitled to treat people as they like without reservation, the word bullying gets thrown around quite often. The managers, supervisors, and team leaders seem to be under a great amount of pressure and some have resorted to treating staff in the same manner. The employee experience team unfortunately, is not much better. They make excuses for every concern and are extremely disorganized. The scheduling system has many flaws. There are an abundance of rules and variables when it comes to weekly schedules and vacation. In addition, each employee is required to pick a preference per department; this is not to be relied on. Preferences at times can mean nothing, neither does seniority.  Most requested days off are denied, specifically if you are in a skilled position. If you do happen to have one approved, they will take it as an additional day off to the ones you already have. If you are part-time, this could leave you with one shift a week. There is no consistency with scheduling, same goes for the production floor. Count on being bounced around from department to department several times in one shift and being scheduled in a department where you have asked not to be. There is also an extreme lack of training, which is not only dangerous in this environment, but very unfair for everyone. This is a representation of how this company is run; no respect, communication, or understanding. There are often times where the lines will be run without enough people, causing the team to be overworked, exhausted, and in pain. Then there are other nights where the supervisor will make extra, unneeded, staff members do miscellaneous jobs for hours, instead of giving them a night off. Employees are frustrated. Many employees also do not like getting mandated on weekends; add all of the above to the long list of reasons why this place is a revolving door. Do not be fooled, this company DOES NOT CARE. The plant has a group called the ACE committee; it’s useless to say the least. The company does not actively listen to the employee’s ideas or concerns. The company makes decisions without regard and will advise the members of the committee to spread the word to the team. There is a large number of employee’s fighting for a union, which will eventually happen. This company needs CHANGE! They need to start taking the employees seriously! The production team, the people that mix, bake, decorate and package the product; these are the people that keep the plant running. The executives expect to get different results using the same incompetent methods. This company will destroy itself from the inside out.

The Original Cakerie can be a great place to work if you are not planning to stick around very long. Really good money and benefits for relatively easy work. It is a clean and climate controlled working environment. Most of the production workers are very kind and can make the day go by a lot faster. However, it is very poorly run and management and HR can make it a very toxic place to work. Some supervisors target, bully and harass employees and HR supports them regardless of how many people complain. No one is sure what the rules and policies are and they are seemingly randomly applied and enforced. HR seems to only stick to their own rules when its convenient for them.Upper management cares more about product out the door than quality, often overruling the QA department and sending out substandard product to customers. Line speeds are constantly increased which proper upgrades or maintenance machinery, resulting in more downtime, not to mention the stress put on production workers trying to keep up. Recruiting is abysmal. People with zero communication skills are hired (can't understand/speak basic English). Training is often rushed and very informal, from production to skill positions. Trainees often spend most of their 2 week training period in the Decorating department and then they are considered trained and thrown into other departments. Employees in other departments then have to take their focus away from their task at hand to try to train people on the fly, resulting in their work suffering, which they are then held accountable for by supervisors. There is no standard for training amongst any position. There is a sign off sheet at the end that gets signed regardless of said trainees ability. Training varies wildly from shift to shift as there is no solid guideline for it. The training is essentially "watch what i do and figure it out", which works for some jobs, but not any requiring and in depth knowledge" Trainees for skill positions are often taken away from their training and put on the line due to constant staffing shortages. HR can be very difficult to deal with and a lot of employees would rather leave an issue unresolved then talk to them. The company will preach about how they care about their employee's health and safety and how if you're sick they want you to call in. You get 8 no questions asked sick days (they count leaving work early sick as a sick day) but after that you start getting attendance letters from HR which warn of discipline if you miss more days. Their own policy incentivizes employees to work through illness in a food preparation environment, which is further reinforced by attendance being a metric in the bonus structure. Prior to the last unionization attempt, management essentially launched a fear mongering campaign in which they told employees the bonus would go away and other fallout if the union vote passed. TOC can be a good place to start a career, or make some quick and easy money, but it is a toxic company that is rotten from the top down

The original cakerie pays better then most companies for a reason, they need people bad. The revolving door of employees is a clear indication of a general bad work environment. And I can say from my time here, this is in fact the case. The management-worker communication is IMPOSSIBLE if you do not work a shift that is in the slot where the HR higher ups are in the office, with having to write a form and hope it gets seen and usually takes a week to be replied to. On the job itself, it will seem easy at first, but as you advance into different departments, you will see the clear favouritism of certain employees with seniority and those who are in certain “posses”. The more physically demanding jobs are often given to the younger employees who are newer, and it becomes insanely mentally and physically taxing after a while, leaving no wonder why they can’t keep people in production. The people you work with are some of the nicest people you can meet though, as most are very open to conversation and are generally happy and nice people. Same goes for team leads, they are very understanding of how difficult the jobs are and try their best to support the workers.


There is no work- life balance at ALL when working production. Part timers are scheduled all over the place, leaving just barely enough time to go home to eat and sleep. It is not worth the money, though the pay rate is above average for unskilled labour, it’s very unlikely 3/4 of those people who get the job will make it past those 70 shifts. They are looking to pinch time out of employees every chance they get by trimming your 30 min lunch to include the travel from the floor to the break area.

Now to talk about the place itself, the machinery would have been outdated in the 1960s, let alone today. They have their production employees doing the mind numbing physical tasks that could be done by a machine, and it is not only incredibly degrading but also gets exhausting. Also guaranteed this place would NOT pass a health and safety audit given it’s random, the cleanliness is questionable at best. You will feel horrible both mentally and physically coming home from a shift. 

Trust me, seek out a real career. This isn’t it.

The Original Cakerie used be a family friendly place to work. Now, they hire people quickly and expect them to work with hardly no training. While the office environment seems to enjoy dressing up for Halloween, pot lucks and free cakes on holidays( which ALL staff use to receive) the bulk of the stress is out of the production floor. We are led to believe HR is there to support us which has not been the case. Production staff are constantly pushed to points of exhaustion. Team leaders bully workers daily. Unpaid lunch brakes are cut short and workers are constantly in trouble for taking to long getting back to line. Fortunately, we have one great floor manager and a few team leads that are great. The others are not kind or respectful at all!!! It’s really hard to come into work 5-6 days a week and literally come home and sleep because your body can’t handle any more. It is a VERY loud and unorganized environment. Chaos!!!!! We do make amazing products. Although decoration quality is not the best, the company does use quality ingredients and the plants is very clean. We as workers are not appreciated for the work we do. Bonuses, RRSPs are great but at what cost? Mental health, physical health? Nobody is happy on the production floor. It is heart breaking to watch people have no choice but the work in this environment and have no other choices. Most people are scared to speak up. Lack of understanding, language barriers and just plan lack of knowledge set workers up for failure. They expect more and more everyday.This company is not a good place to work anymore. Very sad

Productive and fast paced lines. Senior staff with over 5- 13 years experience are favoured to younger staff . Poor management and very toxic environment. Hopefully the commencement of union will help address the inequalities and favouritism. Great place for learning and development skills in baking. Maintains a High GMP, HACCP , Health and safety standards .  A lot of enlightenment and reorientation work is needed for senior staff line workers who feel threatened and insecure on the jobs due to growing new recruits with higher qualifications!  New employees especially emigrants or students are discriminated upon and sanctioned heavy in comparison to the average whites who don’t take the work seriously. Some team lead and supervisors lack the mental acuity to resolve disputes on the line. 
Good benefits I.e free cakes, EOY bonuses, shift swaps, vacation allowance,   etc
The most enjoyable part of the job is when clocking out and heading home. While the hardest part of the day is gluten free cake days!  You have to wear additional coat and remove at when walking into non gluten free floor Area .Mondays are usually hard because it also the first day and set up for the week. 
 
Work Scheduling can better and more consistent than it is . You  can not schedule someone for 5am  - 2pm today  and schedule the same  person 1.30am- 9.45am the next day! The body needs sleep and adjustment!

Management should encourage senior to take up leadership roles as team leaders and supervisors not serve as intimidation to new staff who are mostly students trying to make a living to support their program. Students will always pivot to their career after school and therefore should not been seen as threats!

This place COULD be great!!! I have never worked in an environment where team leaders, various members of management, and HR want to work everyone to the state of injury and depression. Absolutely NO time for self care! It’s race for everything! 
Nobody is happy! Burn out is a massive issue! Turnover is high because of false information.  Company makes you work more because they can’t keep staff. This is one place where toxic employees and lead hands win and befriend management so they stay clean. Most production workers are friendly with the exception of a few small groups. Everyone is in the same boat, the boat is sinking. New rules weekly, whole plant gets punished for other employee mistakes. Micro managed and no communication. Everything is blamed on floor staff! Doesn’t matter how long you work here pay is the same so don’t know why the older staff continue to stay? You will be expected to come in if you have used 3-5 sick days. With the various viruses and overloaded health system you need medical proof from doctor. You are on a point system that adds up to warnings and dismissal. No employee appreciation. No employee cake for the birthday card they give you, no bonuses in the last year. Nothing. We are getting Christmas week off told next year won’t happen. It’s just always negative and you will sleep and work! On the positive… the plant is itself is bright and new. Coworkers mostly help each other when they can. Working with cake smells good! Just know you will be expected to work all over at different times and departments. There is a lot to learn.  

Do not waste your time with this company. 

I should have known how unorganized they were when my orientation date kept getting pushed back week after week. For part timers, you are given one to two shifts a week max and get pushed around in each department. Start times are never consistent, you can expect to work 9 pm one night and 6 pm the next. They single out hires by making them wear orange hairnets so that it’s easy to tell who to give repetitive and physically straining work to. The probation period is 70 shifts which is unreasonably long given the amount of hours available and new hires are joined weekly. Many people quit before then and as a result, have to pay the price of the production boots, so as long as the company benefits, they will keep doing this. 

The management team is unprofessional and unreliable. I’ve sent countless emails to HR who would CC someone else and never get back to me about my requests. It is impossible to get ahold of lines in the building because they never answer through their extension, and reception rarely picks up too. 

The only pro is discounted cakes, but even then the process is not worth the hassle. I found out the hard way that the site automatically chooses a date and pickup time after you order. You will know if it’s actually in stock/ready when you show up. This happened not once, but twice where I had to drive out 20 minutes when a simple phone call or email could have told me my order was not unavailable. 

I would rather be unemployed or work in have a job that pays minimum wage than to be here again. I stayed for 4 weeks and that was already too long. 

You will be promised hours and will not receive them. You must be available 3 days but they may not give you 3 days. Hours all over the map! No concern for family commitment or mental and physical health. Morning meetings we are currently being told by supervisor that we are lucky to have a job and if their is a complaint we can leave!!!! We are not valued. Production workers exhausted and don’t have time to stretch. Rushed back from break and many steps to follow to return to placement spot. Everything is about rushing. Team leader treating staff like children when not back in a hurry. Hard to do being we have many steps to do before returning. Very hard to manage job and family. Cake is good and pay is good but job is hard and you are pushed to your limit. Not easy job if you have another part time job. Some nice people but most are so tired and unhappy. They have a RRSP plan in place and a bonus that is good. We have a paid benefit plan but no disability. If you get sick for a long time you are relying on EI. Unfortunately company is not organized and isn’t concerned about the employees life of wellbeing outside the company doors. Would rather you work sick than stay home. Be prepared to be exhausted and work extremely hard for the pay. If you do try and bring up concerns be prepared that you will be made to feel like you are the problem or are told they will get back to you and don’t. All feeling undervalued!!!! Have to work yes... but also need to have energy and be happy. 
Very sad and tired

Management & HR are corrupt and extremely toxic.  Supervisors are ruthless and protect the favourites that are given the green light to torment the rest of the co-workers.  HR protects the Supervisors and their favourite minions  who cause all these issues on the production floor.  If you go to complain about being bullied or any unfair treatment HR will turn it around against you and tell you that it’s your fault for some reason or another and make a record of discussion in your file against you!!  They let the toxicity continue (they condone it) and you feel absolutely depressed and hopeless knowing you cannot quit your job as you have a family & mortgage to support.  They are constantly rewarding the people who treat others like dirt with a quarterly reward system.  “Capable awards” are regularly only handed out to those that demean & harass their peers at work & create false complaints against you.  Team Leads are able to verbally abuse people but can then act inappropriate at work on the job/floor with others of Managements favourite as they have special protection just because they will work 6-7 days a week.  Numerous people had come forth to HR regarding this issue and nothing was ever done.  Those that came forth were then blacklisted as problem employees to watch out for.  It’s best to not report anything to HR for your own good.  It won’t work out in your favour but will be turned against you as the instigator of trouble on the floor.  Trust me....this job is NOT worth your mental & physical well being to work here!!!!

As an employee at The Original Cakerie, I've experienced firsthand the frustrations and disappointments that come with working in such a disheartening environment.

From the lack of meaningful feedback to the arbitrary promotion process, it's clear that employee development and recognition are not priorities here. Feedback from management feels like an afterthought, delivered sporadically and without much consideration for employee growth. Promotions seem to be based more on favoritism rather than actual performance and dedication, leaving hardworking individuals feeling overlooked and undervalued.

Raises are virtually non-existent, except when mandated by government minimum wage increases, and even then, they're minimal at best. This lack of financial recognition only adds to the sense of stagnation and dissatisfaction among employees.

Overall, working at The Original Cakerie has been a disappointing experience. The lack of support, recognition, and opportunities for advancement make it difficult to stay motivated and engaged in my role. Unless significant changes are made to prioritize employee well-being and development, I cannot recommend this company as a fulfilling place to work.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Sanitation worker 8 salaries reported	$22.34 per hour
Production 9 salaries reported	$70.00 per hour
Production lead 2 salaries reported	$20.92 per hour
Mixer 3 salaries reported	$19.75 per hour
Production worker 2 salaries reported	$18.31 per hour

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