Company that treats staff like garbage
Pros
Co-workers are welcoming and hard working, and do the best they can under impossible circumstances. Management also do what they can, but are often stymied by their own targets.
Cons
The company itself and it's policies are truly terrible - I have worked there for nearly two years and have long since realised it is ALL about the bottom line with Argos, and they don't care about the staff at all. Working on the tills means constant nagging to achieve impossible targets in sales, and even if these are achieved there is rarely any positive recognition, just more pressure to achieve more. Working in the stockroom means constant nagging to work faster, even to the point that dangerous manual handling practices become commonplace. Every employee I have spoken to has had the same complaints as myself - low pay, poor training and support, and unreliable hours (you might have a long period of barely scraping by on a few hours a week followed by a week of consecutive ten hour shifts, and there is nothing you can do about it) The workload is constantly increasing, and new ideas are constantly being introduced with no warning, no oversight, and no thought to how they might affect the staff. Those who complain are routinely ignored or reprimanded. I would have left a long time ago if it weren't for the friends I've made there. Argos puts a great emphasis on working as a team, and to their credit, most employees I've known do try their hardest to support their colleagues. But you soon realise that the higher ups simply use this concept as a way to guilt their workers into accepting terrible conditions. In the relatively short time I've worked for this company, I've known several people who have been put on medical leave, or even quit completely, due to work related stress. Several more have sustained serious injuries from unsafe working conditions due to rushing to complete work that has not been assigned enough time or staff. I've seen my immediate boss put in hours of unpaid overtime, give his blood sweat and tears to the company, only to be demoted due to a 'bad attitude'...because he tried to help his colleagues by bringing up the difficulties we were having. I've seen an employee who has been with the company for over 20 years have her hours halved because she was unable to keep up with all the new technological changes. It's a stressful, fast-paced, demanding job. That in itself is not a problem. The problem is that you can give everything you have to the job and you will get nothing back. You are just a drone to Argos, nothing more, and they make it very clear that you can be easily replaced.