production

millwright

electrician

engineer

production technician

Tolko Industries Ltd

PROS
Great people to work with, at least in the maintenance department. Some of the most skilled and knowledgeable trades people I've ever worked with in my overall 27 year working life. It's unfortunate that team work is not encouraged at all by management. There was lots of knowledge to be gained, if you're willing to learn. I  definitely learned a lot from the old timers that worked there and was glad to have done my apprenticeship there. The money wasn't terrible and shifting was good, especially weekend maintenance. Only thing that kept me there so long was the people I worked with. Although apprenticeship job bids are almost entirely seniority based, it doesn't take long to get into a trade, if that's what you're looking for. They pay for all your apprentice schooling and pay your full wage while you attend school plus loa. High Level isn't as bad a place to live as some make it out to be, although it is quite far north. Housing is very affordable, but that's about it; everything else is going to cost you more.

CONS
Extremely toxic management style. Management fails to recognize the talent and skills of the maintenance and production crews they have on hand. Discipline for the most ridiculous things is handed out on a constant and regular basis. Workplace is ruled by fear, instead of positive encouragement and constructive criticism, and morale suffers greatly due to this. Most would definitely rather work at the OSB mill up the road, and people do leave for it when given the opportunity. Whenever a foreman or supervisor gets hired on that treats people well and is easy to get along with, upper management runs them off quickly. When they get managers that are disliked and discipline daily, they are around for years. It almost seems like they have a quota for handing out discipline. Management has labeled employees as the 'bottom of the gene pool' on more than one occasion. The washroom facilities have been an absolute disgrace for years. We used to have raw sewage running into the lunchroom daily and it would be completely ignored by management. Toilets would only flush properly every fifth or sixth time and were almost never cleaned. Forget about the notion of a stocked tool crib. If you work in maintenance, you better start buying all your own tools as almost nothing is supplied. One good thing is the tool replacement program though. If your tools go missing, or are broken on the job, they generally get replaced by equal or better, most of the time pretty quickly. Don't ever get injured on the job or file a workers compensation claim. You will get bullied and harassed by management until you quit, or they will terminate you for extremely minor policy violations. This is exactly the type of work site that shows why unions exist, if you catch my drift. If you plan on sticking around for any amount of time, you will really stop caring about the quality of your workmanship. Try to get your trade and get the h@#l back out as quick as you can.

I was a bit overqualified for an entry position after working days my entire life.
Tolko will use fear manipulation to get you to do what they want and to behave the way they want. It is a form of narcissistic abuse which has lasting effects if you buy into it.
If you dont buy into it you will have people make your job tasks more difficult.
They also are big on using Neuro Linguistic programming to have you believe you are working for the best company which they clearly are not.
Safety was made out to be a primary concern but several times I was put at risk in non safe situations working at heights. As was the safety of anyone below.
Several times I witnessed actual or near miss events which were not reported by the supervisor.
I personally told the forman to make sure a safe work procedure was created. Nothing ever was done and several hazards still exist.
If you are first nations expect to experience racism from others. I was the only status employee of over 200. That should say enough in itself.
It is a paycheque. A little over 1500. Good pay for someone just graduated.
Theres heaps more i could write but feel I have made my point.
The place has the psychological structure of what most would call a cult.
Feel free to see for yourself.

I finished here as a press operator and what my day consisted of was working with 1 or 2 others to wrap and crunch down loads to fit nicely in company bags which was eventually sold and shipped to customers worldwide.

What I learned most was how to work with others, keep them safe and understand them as there was a lot of pressure from this being a high paced job where I would do about 2 hundred packages with my machine on a daily basis.

Management was not that good on the companies behalf as they wanted production numbers which was always increasing.

My co-workers were awesome as you have to be friendly and understanding to get the best result out of them, this ultimately proved my worth as I broke many records with them.

The hardest part of the job was this place wasn't a healthy work environment as the building we worked in was almost a hundred years and not very well maintained.

The most enjoyable part was meeting new people all the time and making the best of our time here, there were more 200 people working here at 1 time everyday and most of them were new so having patience and developing a good rapport with them was necessary.

I have been an employee for many years and seen many changes.  Overall, I have truly enjoyed being employed with Tolko.  The culture has definitely changed over the years as we have grown and changed upper management.  There has been less "hands on" by upper management, which creates less awareness of what types of managers they truly have at the divisions.  Some divisions have amazing managers, some don't.  The ones that don't truly seem to have overly toxic environments and nothing seems to change even when it is reported.  I am fortunate to currently have an amazing manager who allows work life balance and who encourages learning.  In the past, unfortunately, I have had managers who were truly bullies and nothing was done about them. 

To note for future employees:  the workload is heavy.  So, although you can have a work life balance, there has to be give and take on your end.  If you aren't willing to do that and you come with an entitled attitude, then this is not the place for you.  If you are willing to have give and take, Tolko will also.  This will lead to a great balance with a great place to work!

All in all, I highly recommend Tolko.  90% great people, good pay, great benefits and a truly amazing place to work and learn!  You will never be bored!!

Company is a joke. No advancement what so ever unless you reallly suck up, are a relative, or into sports.
  Extremely unsafe. Unsafe conditions only ever get resolved once WorkSafe BC gives a heads up about a tour then all of the sudden  they scramble around and all unsafe areas are magically clean for a day or so then right after the tour they are back to being a complete unsafe mess. If they actually did a surprise tour no question about it, it would be shut down. Production over safety. Apparently all of the latest fatality's don't phase them. 
  Apparently we are just "A bunch of expendable monkeys" to management. They are completely incompetent. if this company wants to survive the foreseeable next few years it might have left they better start thinking about restructuring management based on experience and performance not handing it out like f'ing candy to privileged family members or friends. AVOID at all costs if you aspire to move up in a company with dedication and hard work, you'll just get sht on. This company is good if you want to be lazy drunk and high in a unionized environment with little to no chance of dismissal.

Worked in the main office in timber planning..
It was like working with a bunch of cowboys. Safety was on the back burner (they made some summer students do some wildly unsafe tasks, including strapping water packs for firefighting...but full of gasoline, to their backs to burn excess timber debris. One new hire had gasoline spill down their back during the day and was working next to open flames. Seriously.).
Summer students worked tough field days, and often worked an average of 1-2 hours of overtime a day without pay or being able to bank the time cause "that's what working forestry is about". Apparently, you're supposed to work a few free hours everyday cause its part of the job...
New hires were bullied to their face and behind their backs, and established staff often took bets on when new hires would quit from the pressure. A few did after experiencing mental breakdowns.

Change is always possible, but the culture there was horrendous when I worked there. There were a few gems, but unfortunately they were outnumbered. You'll have to stand up for yourself or decide if its worth your time there.

I worked one Coop 4 Month term with TOLKO industries in Meadow lake Saskatchewan. As a coop student I was working on a project of blender optimization for the improved resin distribution. I worked with my technical coordinator to change the process control variables such as Blender speed, angle of Blender to study the effect on Resin distribution on strands. I gave the suggestion for flight Enhancers inside Blender to increase the residence time. This had a great effect on Blender efficiency. 


One of my duties was there to get the data and statistically analyze the data on Infinityqs software which is quality control software for statistical process control for the study of resin distribution on strands and to check the strand size grading. I maintained healthy relations with technical manager and gave idea about heat integration to save energy in OSB mill which was highly appreciated by managerial staff. They started to work on it for heat integration within plant as before they were throwing flue gases in atmosphere at the temperature of 135 degree Celsius

Worked for Tolko for 10 plus years. good pay and benefits. Toxic workplace and management treats their workers poorly. Eg sometimes we had to work a whole overtime on our scheduled Friday off. Then trade our overtime day for a standard straight time day. After signing an averaging agreement. Which is illegal by labor laws in B.C. If you said anything about it, the company would make an example of you and hand you a broom or a spray bottle. I never said anything personally but I had seen it happen to others. It is also shift work so work and home life is not balanced. Good pay, good benefits and sustainability. When I resigned , I was running most of their veteran positions even holding records numbers for some of them as well. They refused to give a reference of any kind after 10 plus years of service. They handed me a letter of employment which stated that I was terminated. I had to speak with their HR department to get it rectified to I resigned. Good pay, good benefits......has a worse work environment than oilfield rigs. Most politically rampant toxic place I have ever worked. 

I worked for Tolko for approximately 11 years. I began my employment as an “on call” general labourer and very quickly (one week’s time) moved to having full time hours on a regular shift. This, I noticed, was a somewhat common occurrence. My position advancement occurred at almost the same pace. By the end of my time with Tolko, I had advanced to the position of technical writer and Safety Coordinator. Over the 11 years I was there I observed a monumentally positive change in the safety culture through the updating of the company’s policies and procedures. Form this, the management team and shift crews also improved in general moral and production.  
  
I learned a great deal of lessons in my time with Tolko. The hardest part of the job for me was leaving when the plant closed in December of 2016. I had made many friends there that I honestly wasn’t ready to part ways with. 

Overall, I would recommend Tolko as an employer not just for a job but for the opportunity of advancement as well.

The maintenance dept is challenged with keeping a very out of date operation running with very little investment in capital to improve efficiency. Most of the equipment is one off, hacked designs from the 70’s and 80’s which actually makes it fun to troubleshoot as it’s often a challenge just to understand.

There is a large emphasis on safety, which is a good thing at face value. However, the safety officer is used more as a disciplinarian than an educator. So the culture surrounding safety has become one of fear of discipline than one of constant improvement and education. 

Additionally management has strange focus and has a tendency to micromanage inconsequential issues while ignoring the bigger picture. Additionally, the company had grand plans to modernize but decided to pull the pin and have basically left most of the equipment in a “band aid” state. Leaving the employees to wonder if this operation is next on the chopping block. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Production 39 salaries reported	$33.19 per hour
Millwright 12 salaries reported	$50.23 per hour
Electrician 7 salaries reported	$49.78 per hour
Engineer 7 salaries reported	$48.64 per hour
Production technician 12 salaries reported	$36.39 per hour

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