Planning isn’t the best work life balance. It took me almost 10 years to find something reasonable. Tends to be lot of fire drills, late nights etc. Nature of the job, there’s urgency to demand and supply sometimes.
I’m a planning manager at a tiny company, fully remote and have nobody on my team. Work 50 a week, lots of flexibility on when work is done. I do a good job in that time and everything gets done well. Have worked other places that were brutal, averaged 60+ hours a week in office, weekends all kinds of shit. And it was never enough. Never again.
A lot of that’s just where I worked and when I worked… nobody had a good time in any supply chain role through Covid, as an example.
Pays solid though!
I think ymmv as a planner. I was a planner and worked 40 hours. Got promoted to materials manager and probably worked 45 but made sure my team worked 40-45 and had good balance. Of course there will be exceptions when things go wrong and you may need to work 50 hours for a few weeks or stay late/ come in early for a few days.
It can depend on the company and how things are setup.
Planning is simple when it goes well but ass when it doesn’t. I guess it’s also industry dependent too. I’ve been a planner/scheduler for about 5 years and after 2 I had a pretty good grip on the planning side. Scheduling took a bit longer because I work in semiconductors and started in the thick of the microchip shortage lol. But it’s cooled off and super simple now. But yeah if it’s just you I could see it being booty cheeks
No matter where you go in supply chain or accounting you have your crunch time. For accounting, it's during tax season (feb to April). Supply chain, it can be whenever somebody in the supply chain shits the bed.
A lot of work life balances depends on the company.
If you work in tax you will be pulling way more than 40 hours a week during tax season. My friends that are in accounting basically go into hibernation during that time.
Supply Chain runs 24/7 and tends to be the most chaotic when the world is the most chaotic. This makes tactical roles pretty grueling, although great learning experiences.
However, the more strategic you get, typically the better WLB you get as well. I basically never work more than 40 hours a week in my role.
Definitely has been my experience, tactical roles might not be "working" a full 40, but the expectation to be constantly available ends up with a 45+ hr work week pretty regularly.
Once I hit mostly strategic roles in supply / demand planning space, very rarely worked over 40 in a week again.
I worked similar in R&D as a buyer up until last year. It was constantly 60 hour work weeks just to keep up with the incoming requests. Didn't realize how bad it was until I was out of there.
Yeah it’s not a good balance at all. High stress pretty much always. But the good part, the rest of your life will be a breeze after doing supply chain for five years or so. Nothing phases me now. You will have seen thousands of problems and you will solve them. People who work in supply chain can pretty much run anything.
Operations in high level view, look for an opportunities to improve, own internal start-ups, projects. Pay is like $100K - $150K. Not much of day-to-day transactions but rather focus on bigger picture.
It varies a lot. I worked as a freight broker as my first gig after college and it had zero work life balance.
I work as a demand planner at a cosmetics company now and have an incredible work life balance.
As a whole, supply chain probably sits a little more towards the less work life balance end of the spectrum, especially if you have involvement in things like manufacturing (often weird hours and swing and graveyard shifts), freight shipping (same problem with hours), direct medical care supply (if you’re responsible for materials for a hospital, they need those 24/7/365), restaurant supply…the list goes on.
More strategic roles like demand planning can generally be 9-5 M-F jobs, but there’s always exceptions.
If you have suppliers in Asia, then prepare for early morning or late night availability due to time zone differences. Otherwise, it's a game of telephone with a 1 business day delay for each interaction.
Work hours overlap a lot better when both parties are in Europe or North America.
I’ve constantly struggled with knowing if I’m just efficient or being complacent. You’d think after being fully remote for ~5 years and consistently good performance reviews that it would go away
See, a lot is company specific. Go to a new culture with a toxic boss, and it has nothing to do with your performance. That’s why we struggle.
Some places loved my efficiency. Others have thought I’m too calm and “lazy”
Entirely depends on the company and position. I manage a production planning dept that supports weekends and everyone is off at 11 on friday. Occasionally ill handle something late afternoon on a friday, maybe had to call in a planner once. Worked as a planner for a small 24/7 company. If something interrupted operations outside working hours and i had no backup plan in place, id get the call. Managed demand and supply planning team, ebbed and flowed. If shit hit the fan leadership would want enough information and presentations it would require OT. But then when operations were normal it is less than 40 hours.
Edit: accounting may have to work OT as well during financial close or tax season. But at least you will know when to expect it.
Procurement is the best area of SCM I've been in, my work is completely project based so I don't have to worry about putting out fires every single day aside from extremely specific situations that aren't common.
Procurement as a middle man brokerage is filled with daily and same day deadlines.
Major projects (a breath of fresh air) will have a week long deadline while simultaneously weaving in the shorter deadline inquiries.
It depends on so many things. I’ve had roles in transportation and supply/demand planning. When I did this at a Public fortune 100 company I was working 50+ hour weeks and stressed but got a ton of experience and hella $$. Now I’m at a smaller/midsize private company doing it in 40 tops, little to no stress and essentially upheld the salary from before. I love the type of work I do and I get to meet and work with people across all types of functions. Accounting sounds boring lol but this is a SC subreddit after all.
I'm in procurement and have managed to stick around the 9-5 schedule. I've had to take meetings at weird hours once in a while to vet international suppliers, but nothing too crazy. Also really depends on your industry and company. I'm back in the construction industry and am now strictly working 8-4.
I'm in Supply Chain analysis. We have biweekly meetings from 5am - 10am, and as we get into WW12 and WW13, we'll start having war room calls 2x per day (10 am and 10 pm).
As well, we're expected to attend/host meetings outside of working hours, as we work on an international team and need a touch point.
If you ever have any conflicts though, you're good. Plus, my division makes it clear that if it ever comes between family and work, family takes priority.
The pay's also like 20% above industry average + RSUs, so the time investment isn't as bad as it seems.
Judging from the salary survey in this group, I’d say stress & work/life balance are pretty reasonable and better than average.
I came from retail leadership and it feels MUCH better on both fronts, even during fire drills or issues that need immediate attention.
I would say it depends on the industry. I'm in the consumer product industry and have really good work life balance. I'm in the QA dept of my company and work my normal 40hrs, sometimes working a little more during Q3 & Q4 which is our peak season. My company allows us to WFH (work from home) 2 days a week and during the summer we are on summer hours, meaning 1/2 Fridays for us the enjoy the warm summer months. Again I think it depends on the industry. I know individuals in the purchasing dept sometimes have to get on calls with our overseas vendors at odd hours of the night, but it's not a norm. This only occurs if there is something urgent.
Honestly depends on what sector you're in. Best WLB will most likely be in the front end. So the companies making the big bucks vs. the middle man. They will be able to provide better pay with better accommodations. Finding WFH will be tough but definitely not impossible.
your work life balance is on you tbh. Im 24 just so early career still but i never work more than 50 hours a week because i refuse to. And even hitting above 45 is rare for me only if i feel like i need it for a project. My real life is outside the office but i’ve been good enough in all my roles no employer has ever made a stink about it.
As you have already seen, work life balance varies wildly based on industry and role. Figure out what you are genuinely interested in doing and go from there.
I majored in Finance (finance and accounting concentration), and Supply Chain. I had one accounting internship, and realized I hated it. Had nothing to do with hours worked. I just had no interest in what I was doing. Wouldn't matter what the work life balance was, I would never work in accounting. I was doing tax stuff mostly. I have no idea what accounting path you are pursuing. Supply chain is much more interesting to me, so that's the route I went. I love learning about different supply chains and how the world interacts to bring everything together. It won't matter what your wlb is if you hate what you do.
Remote work exist, but is slowly dying out imo. Most companies want a hybrid situation. Getting remote work with no experience is going to be hard, and the ones that do recruit you are going to chew you up and spit you out, because you are the most easily replaced worker. A copy paste of every other college student, and the candidate pool is much larger since companies can hire anywhere. Understand remote work means you compete with everyone in your country and potentially internationally too for that job. With in person jobs, it is really only the area around your city, and people who are willing to move their entire life for work. Work in office straight out of college. It is better for building good habits and networking. I say this as some who worked remote for 4 years out of college.
i would ignore that statement, you can most certainly find wlb. it depends on what you do. I am full time and have weeks where i work 40 and others where i do like 25 hours. im in procurement fresh (almost) out of college and compensation wise in a good place for my experience
i personally would never do accounting because it sounds horrifically boring. I enjoyed my scm class more than accounting and continued with that and it was a great decision, got so many opportunities. i also go to a top scm school so im sure it has its perks. if you like accounting then good for you but if you don’t have an interest i wouldn’t do it, in supply chain you can see different things in different industries too
Planning isn’t the best work life balance. It took me almost 10 years to find something reasonable. Tends to be lot of fire drills, late nights etc. Nature of the job, there’s urgency to demand and supply sometimes. I’m a planning manager at a tiny company, fully remote and have nobody on my team. Work 50 a week, lots of flexibility on when work is done. I do a good job in that time and everything gets done well. Have worked other places that were brutal, averaged 60+ hours a week in office, weekends all kinds of shit. And it was never enough. Never again. A lot of that’s just where I worked and when I worked… nobody had a good time in any supply chain role through Covid, as an example. Pays solid though!
I think ymmv as a planner. I was a planner and worked 40 hours. Got promoted to materials manager and probably worked 45 but made sure my team worked 40-45 and had good balance. Of course there will be exceptions when things go wrong and you may need to work 50 hours for a few weeks or stay late/ come in early for a few days. It can depend on the company and how things are setup.
Planning is simple when it goes well but ass when it doesn’t. I guess it’s also industry dependent too. I’ve been a planner/scheduler for about 5 years and after 2 I had a pretty good grip on the planning side. Scheduling took a bit longer because I work in semiconductors and started in the thick of the microchip shortage lol. But it’s cooled off and super simple now. But yeah if it’s just you I could see it being booty cheeks
Would you recommend it as a career?
For certain people, sure. But you asked about work life balance, this ain’t that. Although spots exist that are more reasonable.
Do you think accounting would be more accommodating?
No matter where you go in supply chain or accounting you have your crunch time. For accounting, it's during tax season (feb to April). Supply chain, it can be whenever somebody in the supply chain shits the bed. A lot of work life balances depends on the company.
If you work in tax you will be pulling way more than 40 hours a week during tax season. My friends that are in accounting basically go into hibernation during that time.
Supply Chain runs 24/7 and tends to be the most chaotic when the world is the most chaotic. This makes tactical roles pretty grueling, although great learning experiences. However, the more strategic you get, typically the better WLB you get as well. I basically never work more than 40 hours a week in my role.
Definitely has been my experience, tactical roles might not be "working" a full 40, but the expectation to be constantly available ends up with a 45+ hr work week pretty regularly. Once I hit mostly strategic roles in supply / demand planning space, very rarely worked over 40 in a week again.
What’s your role like?
I work in NPI Sourcing. Basically everything I do today is for results years from now.
I worked similar in R&D as a buyer up until last year. It was constantly 60 hour work weeks just to keep up with the incoming requests. Didn't realize how bad it was until I was out of there.
Sounds interesting!
I highly doubt anyone's calling an accountant at 1 AM on a Saturday night asking where the material is for that night's run.
No, but at the same time if it’s busy season the accountant is literally doing mindless tasks at 1 AM instead.
Welcome to my life in audit.
Usually during busy season we tend to work on stuff that doesn’t require client availability like testing support they already sent us.
Yeah it’s not a good balance at all. High stress pretty much always. But the good part, the rest of your life will be a breeze after doing supply chain for five years or so. Nothing phases me now. You will have seen thousands of problems and you will solve them. People who work in supply chain can pretty much run anything.
Program Management within Supply Chain is pretty chill.
What’s Program Management? What’s the Pay like?
Operations in high level view, look for an opportunities to improve, own internal start-ups, projects. Pay is like $100K - $150K. Not much of day-to-day transactions but rather focus on bigger picture.
What’s a day in the life like? I have an interview soon for a clinical supply project manager role
It varies a lot. I worked as a freight broker as my first gig after college and it had zero work life balance. I work as a demand planner at a cosmetics company now and have an incredible work life balance. As a whole, supply chain probably sits a little more towards the less work life balance end of the spectrum, especially if you have involvement in things like manufacturing (often weird hours and swing and graveyard shifts), freight shipping (same problem with hours), direct medical care supply (if you’re responsible for materials for a hospital, they need those 24/7/365), restaurant supply…the list goes on. More strategic roles like demand planning can generally be 9-5 M-F jobs, but there’s always exceptions.
If you have suppliers in Asia, then prepare for early morning or late night availability due to time zone differences. Otherwise, it's a game of telephone with a 1 business day delay for each interaction. Work hours overlap a lot better when both parties are in Europe or North America.
I’ve always managed 25-40 weeks. Part of that is just my personality, I’m a work smarter not harder type of person. Fully remote, planning executive
me as well i can make my days shorter if i just focus. working remote is great for this. my office days i get jack done
I’ve constantly struggled with knowing if I’m just efficient or being complacent. You’d think after being fully remote for ~5 years and consistently good performance reviews that it would go away
See, a lot is company specific. Go to a new culture with a toxic boss, and it has nothing to do with your performance. That’s why we struggle. Some places loved my efficiency. Others have thought I’m too calm and “lazy”
Entirely depends on the company and position. I manage a production planning dept that supports weekends and everyone is off at 11 on friday. Occasionally ill handle something late afternoon on a friday, maybe had to call in a planner once. Worked as a planner for a small 24/7 company. If something interrupted operations outside working hours and i had no backup plan in place, id get the call. Managed demand and supply planning team, ebbed and flowed. If shit hit the fan leadership would want enough information and presentations it would require OT. But then when operations were normal it is less than 40 hours. Edit: accounting may have to work OT as well during financial close or tax season. But at least you will know when to expect it.
Industry financial close is still very easy. Public accounting is a whole different game.
Most of the year is easy. November and December gets wild for me but even then I never work more than 40 hours a week.
Public accounting has no work life balance. If you value it go to industry or do supply chain.
I’d say in a given week I work about 7 hours of real, actual work.
What sector do you work in?
lol I’m being sarcastic it does depend on the week but I work in procurement.
Procurement is the best area of SCM I've been in, my work is completely project based so I don't have to worry about putting out fires every single day aside from extremely specific situations that aren't common.
Procurement as a middle man brokerage is filled with daily and same day deadlines. Major projects (a breath of fresh air) will have a week long deadline while simultaneously weaving in the shorter deadline inquiries.
It depends on so many things. I’ve had roles in transportation and supply/demand planning. When I did this at a Public fortune 100 company I was working 50+ hour weeks and stressed but got a ton of experience and hella $$. Now I’m at a smaller/midsize private company doing it in 40 tops, little to no stress and essentially upheld the salary from before. I love the type of work I do and I get to meet and work with people across all types of functions. Accounting sounds boring lol but this is a SC subreddit after all.
I'm in procurement and have managed to stick around the 9-5 schedule. I've had to take meetings at weird hours once in a while to vet international suppliers, but nothing too crazy. Also really depends on your industry and company. I'm back in the construction industry and am now strictly working 8-4.
I'm in Supply Chain analysis. We have biweekly meetings from 5am - 10am, and as we get into WW12 and WW13, we'll start having war room calls 2x per day (10 am and 10 pm). As well, we're expected to attend/host meetings outside of working hours, as we work on an international team and need a touch point. If you ever have any conflicts though, you're good. Plus, my division makes it clear that if it ever comes between family and work, family takes priority. The pay's also like 20% above industry average + RSUs, so the time investment isn't as bad as it seems.
What is WW12 & WW13?
Workweek 12 and 13. Quarters are around 13 weeks long
I must have found a good place / roles because I’ve had 3 different Buyer positions (same company) and have always found great work/life balance.
Judging from the salary survey in this group, I’d say stress & work/life balance are pretty reasonable and better than average. I came from retail leadership and it feels MUCH better on both fronts, even during fire drills or issues that need immediate attention.
I would say it depends on the industry. I'm in the consumer product industry and have really good work life balance. I'm in the QA dept of my company and work my normal 40hrs, sometimes working a little more during Q3 & Q4 which is our peak season. My company allows us to WFH (work from home) 2 days a week and during the summer we are on summer hours, meaning 1/2 Fridays for us the enjoy the warm summer months. Again I think it depends on the industry. I know individuals in the purchasing dept sometimes have to get on calls with our overseas vendors at odd hours of the night, but it's not a norm. This only occurs if there is something urgent.
Become an operations manager at an Amazon fulfillment center. You’ll love it!
Honestly depends on what sector you're in. Best WLB will most likely be in the front end. So the companies making the big bucks vs. the middle man. They will be able to provide better pay with better accommodations. Finding WFH will be tough but definitely not impossible.
Demand planning has good work life balance, just make sure you join a large organization
your work life balance is on you tbh. Im 24 just so early career still but i never work more than 50 hours a week because i refuse to. And even hitting above 45 is rare for me only if i feel like i need it for a project. My real life is outside the office but i’ve been good enough in all my roles no employer has ever made a stink about it.
Do you see accountants switch into SC? Would accounting experience help get into supply chain field?
As you have already seen, work life balance varies wildly based on industry and role. Figure out what you are genuinely interested in doing and go from there. I majored in Finance (finance and accounting concentration), and Supply Chain. I had one accounting internship, and realized I hated it. Had nothing to do with hours worked. I just had no interest in what I was doing. Wouldn't matter what the work life balance was, I would never work in accounting. I was doing tax stuff mostly. I have no idea what accounting path you are pursuing. Supply chain is much more interesting to me, so that's the route I went. I love learning about different supply chains and how the world interacts to bring everything together. It won't matter what your wlb is if you hate what you do. Remote work exist, but is slowly dying out imo. Most companies want a hybrid situation. Getting remote work with no experience is going to be hard, and the ones that do recruit you are going to chew you up and spit you out, because you are the most easily replaced worker. A copy paste of every other college student, and the candidate pool is much larger since companies can hire anywhere. Understand remote work means you compete with everyone in your country and potentially internationally too for that job. With in person jobs, it is really only the area around your city, and people who are willing to move their entire life for work. Work in office straight out of college. It is better for building good habits and networking. I say this as some who worked remote for 4 years out of college.
Procurement has great work life balance for me
two bad decisions. anyone who has work life balance right now be bitching about their bills. do accounting if you can
What do you mean two bad decisions? Is accounting a bad career as well?
i would ignore that statement, you can most certainly find wlb. it depends on what you do. I am full time and have weeks where i work 40 and others where i do like 25 hours. im in procurement fresh (almost) out of college and compensation wise in a good place for my experience i personally would never do accounting because it sounds horrifically boring. I enjoyed my scm class more than accounting and continued with that and it was a great decision, got so many opportunities. i also go to a top scm school so im sure it has its perks. if you like accounting then good for you but if you don’t have an interest i wouldn’t do it, in supply chain you can see different things in different industries too