Have you ever wondered why you keep losing employees like water down a drain? Why your press operator took a sick day and never came back? It’s hard enough to hire and keep employees without them just disappearing on you. Exit interviews can be helpful, but it’s hard to do an interview with that CSR you didn’t know quit until she wasn’t there for a week.

Fortunately, there is a reconnaissance weapon at your disposal: employee reviews on hiring sites like Indeed. Not every company has such reviews, but many do. If you can’t find reviews for your own company, you can take a look at what other companies’ employees are saying and ensure that the same patterns do not exist at your shop or locations. If they do, this gives you the opportunity to develop a plan to address them.

Common Patterns Across Print Shops

While most normal human beings won’t have the time or capacity to sort and analyze all of the employee reviews on Indeed, AI does. This is a perfect job for ChatGPT. So we asked ChatGPT to analyze the employee reviews at commercial print shops and organize the negative reviews into categories. After thinking for two-and-a-half minutes, ChatGPT uncovered six themes and provided support for those themes by quoting employees in their own words.

What did ChatGPT uncover?

Complaint #1: Long hours and mandatory overtime.

If you require your employees to regularly work 12-hour shifts, this can be a significant factor in employee turnover. One employee in Albany, N.Y., complains: “mandatory twelve-hour shifts…seven [days]” and calls the environment “toxic” and “not safe for workers.”

Toxic—this is a word that we see term repeatedly.

Complaint #2: Management problems and poor communication.

As bemoaned by one employee in Lancaster, Pa., the company’s management is “disorganized” and unsupportive. Another complains: “Too much politics with senior management…toxic work environment.”

Complaint #3: Pay, raises, recognition

A common theme from frustrated employees is being asked to do more for the same pay. Notes one employee in Lititz, Pa.: “They want you to work harder and faster without any raises.” Want to know why your employees are slumming it? Maybe it’s the salary. “No need to work hard if there is no compensation,” notes another in Clinton, N.J.

Complaint #4: Workload, staffing, and break pressure

Even if employees understand that raises aren’t in the offing, they find it hard to understand why they can’t at least get a break. One QC review, posted on Indeed, notes that one print shop only allots 10 minutes for breakfast and 20 minutes for lunch, alongside other concerns.

One employee in Albany, N.Y., supports this concern with repeated references to excessive hours and a “hostile environment.”

Complaint #5: Advancement and career path

Another commonly expressed frustration is that commercial print shop employees often feel stuck in dead-end jobs. One employee in Clifton, N.J., wrote: “There is zero room for advancement unless someone is let go or quits.”

Complaint #6: Culture and morale

A final commonality identified is culture and morale. One employee in Clifton, N.J., describes it this way: “Good coworkers; bad management…upper management is oblivious to the unhappiness of their employees.” Another in Lancaster, Pa., wrote repeatedly about the “stressful pace” and “weak supervisor support.”

Coast to Coast, Certain Concerns Resonate

Across the country, from East Coast to the West Coast, ChatGPT repeatedly identified the same complaints: overtime/peaks, managerial style/communication, stagnant pay or raises, and limited advancement. “The language employees use—‘mandatory 12-hour shifts,’ ‘one-sided management,’ ‘no raises,’ ‘toxic’/‘hostile’ culture—shows these are not one-off gripes but recurring themes.”

What can you do with this information? Be proactive in your own company to ensure that these broader industry concerns aren’t realities at your shop. Let other print shops’ employee frustrations take them down. You don’t have to let that happen to you.

Here are just a few ideas to get you started.

• Be transparent in job postings about overtime around peak seasons. Also consider offering shift swaps or flexible PTO to offset those additional hours.
• By all means, train your management. Often, people work their way up the ladder and get offered supervisor jobs based on seniority, not management skill. Whether your managers are hired based on seniority or merit, make sure that all of them are trained in two-way feedback and conflict resolution. Bonus points for hosting quarterly Q&A sessions with management and creating anonymous feedback channels to surface issues early.
• Build in small, predictable raises or, at the very least, cost-of-living adjustments. Don’t overlook the value of non-monetary recognition, such as call-outs in the company newsletter, bulletin board, and internal social media.
• Set appropriate breaks, then enforce them. Your employees will be more productive when they are rested, and management looks like it cares.
• Publish a clear career ladder: operator —> lead —> supervisor. Offer cross-training to expand skill sets and help employees get there. Promote from within wherever possible, and advertise that fact.
• Celebrate wins (team lunches after big jobs, holiday events) and promote a positive company culture. Hold employees accountable, including senior managers. A healthy, respectful culture starts at the top.

It is important to note that every company has complaints, and even the sum of a companies’ complaints doesn’t always reflect its culture. Even the best companies have disgruntled employees willing to hang their grievances out for the world to see. But employees don’t leave a company because they are happy. Listening to (and learning from) those grievances, whether they reflect the larger company culture or not, is an important step towards understanding turnover and reducing it.