equipment technician

service advisor

shipper/receiver

apprentice mechanic

parts technician

Great West Kenworth

If you enjoy getting treated like garbage, this is the job for you! As a heavy duty technician for Greatwest Kenworth, you will constantly be threatened with job security/loss. Have no CVIP ticket? Well, enjoy being threatened to be fired. Enjoy a nice wage? Well, enjoy your hiring wage as it will never increase after you are hired on. Benefits are okay, but can be expensive so check before you get locked in. Not a positive atmosphere, and  not a team player environment. Enjoy playing the "blame game" when something goes wrong. Your great mechanic skills will not save you here. Foreman is fine, the service manager will make you wonder why you ended up here and how to escape. HR in head office is unprofessional, other employees have had zero success with complaints. Complaining leads to public shaming as there is no confidentiality in HR, they will let your boss know you complained so that you get treated even worse.
They do provide excellent training opportunities and travel to the states for training, there is a positive!

During our employee surveys the #1 reason why our employees like it at GWKW are the people they work everyday. We have a very solid group of employees that I am proud to work with each day. Our owners are very trusting of our management team and employees and allow us to try out new ideas if we think they will benefit the bottom line.

It's common to work with people around you who have been with the company for 10, 20, 30 years. Our records is 50 years with the company and that is not the owner or founder but one of the first employee hired in 1958.

We pride ourselves of being a very stable and financial responsible company, and when the economy gets tough we ride it out instead of automatically doing mass layoffs like those other guys.

The company has been very good to me over the last 8 years and I truly enjoy coming to work each day and working with our awesome team.

Worked within the company for many years so it does have it's upsides. Hours are usually 8 or 10/day but can be requested to work more when it's busy and it does include shift work which are different btw all branches. Training was at a premium, paid for and encouraged. Benefits were really good. Management was mostly good but started to go downhill imo for the last few years. Ideas discussed were sometimes dismissed only to have them implemented later on as someone else's. Immediate supervisor seemed to stand up for you but discussions felt like they were unheeded by higher ups. People worked alongside with were mostly really good, some departmental issues/blaming with knives being inserted into your back without real causes being addressed. Owners were nice but many employees have no idea of who they are.
Overall can be a good company, just be sure on who to trust.

I knew nothing of trucks when I started, and I was so hard on myself when I didn’t grasp everything right away. Everyone I worked with was very helpful and always made sure I knew that I was doing just fine. So much to learn and a lot of independence which I really liked once I got the hang of things. The only negative thing was the boss would leave A LOT during the week, and as the weather got nicer, many times the service advisor is left with no management from any department. Sometimes it was 30 minutes, other times it was half a day. When dealing with huge companies trucks and harsh timelines, it was very difficult when management was not there to give direction or take on the very heated customers. However, the amount of support you receive and the opportunity to move up in the company is really good. 

I started at Greatwest in 2006 as a technician and immediatly felt at home here. The staff were friendly and approachable while I was settling in. Over the years I managed to advance myself to supervisor, shop foreman and more recently to Service Manager. The company rewards positive individuals that strive to make a difference and is also one of the top paying OEM Service shops in Calgary. Greatwest provides its staff with a finincially stable work environment with opportunity for advancement and the benifits are great also. I know my family has benifited from me working here with the use of company benifits and top pay.

GreatWest offered me a great opportunity to come to Canada. As everybody who has obtained a work visa and knows how hard this process can be, GreatWest Kenworth was awesome in facilitating anything required involved in this process. They offered a very competitive wage and great benefits. in an easy going and friendly environment, where everybody was willing to help each other out. I learned the distinct differences in technology of the trucking industry between Europe and North America. I really appreciated the opportunities that working for this company has afforded me.

Working with everyone was awesome, very fun. Couple people get away with way more than they should, but management won’t do anything about it. Could use improvement on training procedures. 

Benefits are great, rrsp package, lots of OT. 
Employee lunches provided once a month, supper provided during meetings. 

No real room for advancement unless you want to put in 5+ years to get a whiff of a stepping stone to move up. Hourly wage is slightly lower than advertised.

Overall a good experience. Lots of training. Good schedule. The benefits are decent on paper but the current insurance provider is hard to work with - you end up paying 50% for teeth and eyes no matter what. The shop foreman is solid. Service manager is hot and cold but overall a decent guy. He will love you at the beginning but will eventually turn on you and keep a grudge.  Cuts hours till you quit. Tool box insurance is a bonus. RRSP match is below average and paid once per year not monthly. 

Typical day required to sell parts over the counter with occasional customer visitations. I have learned to be attentive to customer needs, hard working and driven. 
i am not a fan of management as i worked for them for years and always felt like a number rather than an employee. 
hardest part of the job was acquiring new customers to the location as it was new and didn't have a service department as most customers were looking for this.

Started early in the day, most of the day consisted of diagnosing problems with trucks then completing a repair. During my time at Greatwest Kenworth I learned a lot of new skills that i can use in everyday life, and in the work place. My co-workers were very helpful, and easy to get a long with. To me there was no "hardest part" of there job as it was all along the same level. The most enjoyable part of the job was seeing the hard work we put into the trucks pay off as they leave the shop.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Equipment technician 4 salaries reported	$41.63 per hour
Service advisor 1 salary reported	$33.00 per hour
Shipper/receiver 1 salary reported	$23.00 per hour
Apprentice mechanic 3 salaries reported	$31.17 per hour
Parts technician 4 salaries reported	$30.50 per hour

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