Argos reviews

I will preface this review by stating that I worked for Argos for just under a decade, I’ve seen ideas, initiatives and plans come to fruition, some successes, others complete failures. I’ve worked through times of high achievement both for the company and my store, I’ve worked during periods of complete chaos. Since the 2016 purchase of Argos by Sainsbury’s I can safely say that the company is in a period of deep turmoil which has only grown on a monthly basis. I first joined the company as a Christmas temp in 2010 where I was assigned the role of sales advisor, I was given training in how to navigate the stock room, picking items for collection, safety training in using ladders etc. 2010 came to an end and the temp contract ran out, I’d enjoyed my time at the shop, I felt like part of a team and was kinda sad it ended after putting in a lot of time and effort. Summer 2011 rolled round and I was offered a full time position, I jumped at the chance to return and learn more skills. This time I was trained on tills and started to help with the delivery side of the stock room. Around this time the work load really started to ramp up and deliveries would be 25+ cages, loading/offloading them and putting thousands of items away a week primarily by myself to a time schedule became a serious health risk. Stressed and suffering from a back injury I had no choice but to resign. I was contacted around 2015 and told that things has changed since I’d left, if I were to come back I would be supported more in my role. I thought about the offer a lot and decided that I’d return. Stock room processes were now run via a voice recognition headset which weren’t very effective, we would spend the majority of our delivery time screaming at these things to work, if anything they made everything twice as difficult. Around this time I also noticed that the priority had shifted from helping customers to sell as much insurance, extra warranties, add-ons as possible. I kept my head down and just got on with what I’d been tasked to do all the while noticing that key members of staff were leaving. Skip forward to 2018, our large store was shut down and we were shunted into a small concession type store inside the local Sainsbury’s, some of us were weary about such a huge change but we accepted it and got to work. After one year I can safely say that the changes have been a monumental faiulre. Within the first 3 months we lost the majority of our team to Sainsbury’s who actively poached from our staff and offered salaries that far out-competed ours. Whilst we haemorrhaged staff we were also expected to take on more and more tasks, our opening times were extended to unsocial hours and the pressure to ramp up the sales of warranties and store credit went into overload. Argos fundamentally makes all it’s profit from the sale of extra warranties which you are told to offer every customer, what the company fails to understand is the customer base doesn’t have the disposable income to spend on extended warranties, 95% of customers had no interest in them. A culture of shaming team members for low numbers started growing amongst other issues. The undeniable fact that Sainsbury’s staff earn a lot more for arguably doing a lot less fractured the work ethic of all of us, we didn’t earn commission for sales of warranties/store cards, we were constantly pressured into reviewing our sales tactics all the while taking on more and more tasks. Sainsbury’s were woefully unprepared for the physical logistics of having an Argos store inside their store. My main role (despite specific roles being binned) continued to be delivery assistant and whilst it could get difficult at the old store my time in the new store was a nightmare. Corridors completely blocked by Sainsbury’s stock, faulty lifts, Sainsbury’s staff often nowhere to be found despite the fact they carried the key to let lorries into the yard. We had members of staff suffer serious injuries due to the dangerous environment (which we were told originally we wouldn’t need to work in). Sainsbury’s inexplicably hold their team meetings in the most stupid places (in front of lift doors, in the middle of a loading bay) and we were made to wait for them to be over before we could carry on with our time sensitive deliveries. The entire environment could not have made the processes more complicated if they tried. Moving to such a small store also meant we carried much less stock which meant customers were never happy because we had to constantly order things for them that they wanted there and then. Quite a few times this situation blew up into full blown arguments and screaming matches, there was definitely an uptick in customers wanting to abuse us over things that were out of our control. There was a sense of you vs. the customer & Sainsbury’s staff. Every day you had no idea what chaos you were walking into. Because of the extended opening hours things may happen in the morning and by the evening you have zero idea what the plan was. More staff quit and eventually those of us who were left barely saw each other. There was a time when the team would socialise once a month and now we barely spoke or saw each other expect on shift change overs. More staff quit. At this point I was practically running the store by myself during my shifts, having to serve customers, deal with returns, constantly ferry delivery cages up and down whilst running the danger gauntlet below, making sure that daily tasks I’d been assigned were done. When it was announced that Argos would be slashing staff numbers I can’t say I was surprised as the sense of logical business had completely gone out the window by this point. In short valued members of staff who had been in the business for decades were essentially told their roles were no longer needed and they would have to compete against everyone else in the region to keep a variation of their role and if unsuccessful they’d be demoted to a regular sales advisor. Safe to safe people were not impressed. On top of this we were told directly that Argos would never be able to match the pay that Sainsbury’s offer their staff. I decided that this ship was well and truly sinking and handed in my notice. In one short year the Argos I’d known had been reduced to a shambolic, overly pressured environment, the team dynamic had been destroyed and there was nothing to work towards or be proud of. In past years I felt like I was the failure for walking away but Argos under Sainsbury’s direction offers no incentive or direction. I only held out for as long as I did for my team but once they’d all gone I saw no point in staying myself. Ultimately Argos’s decision to widen their profit margins by cutting back on all fronts has gutted the core of the business. Regular customers I used to see all the time have abandoned the company due to lack of stock and staff. This time I will not return because I don’t think they can be saved from themselves.

- You’re expected to meet targets that are often pretty unreasonable regarding sales of insurance and argos cards. - They’d rather have a large staff and give fewer hours per employee than have a smaller staff with decent hours. They’d also rather you do several short shifts (3ish hours) than fewer longer ones, so travelling in can feel a bit pointless. - The pay is alright but you’re expected to do a lot for what you earn. - Management often have differing advice on the same subject, can lead to less confident employees becoming confused.