One of the first line managers that I had was great. I had autonomy, which as a manager is what you need when you are being held accountable for the end outcome. I had a great working relationship with the guy and delivered really good results which put me on the path to promotion.
Regretfully something changed culturally within the company in and around late 2012/early 2013. A new leadership team and in turn changes to the middle management structure for my area, followed by a new Store Manager (of which I worked with 5 so I expectvthat this is ambiguous enough to adhere to Glassdoors policy of not discussing individuals) in my case turned what I thought was a long term career into a nightmare that I wanted to get out of.
I can't say where the cultural change stemmed from (Senior Management, Area level or Store level) but my experience from that point onward was almost entirely negative.
Unrealistic workloads, a culture of blame, a manager who gave no autonomy yet held me accountable for his strategic vision (which was often flawed), a culture of passing the buck to cover himself and a level of arrogance that blocked him from seeing the reality of the mistakes he was making... I could go on forever.
If I had written this review a year ago it would have sounded very bitter and emotive, but with the benefit of a year's hindsight all that I can say is that I came out the other side an awful lot stronger.
I'm a damn good Store Manager and my performance in my current role supports that, but in Argos the unsupportive, rigid, blame focused culture almost had me doubting myself - I questioned whether I should be looking for a job on a production line, whether I was management material.
I was stretched to breaking point so many times with Argos that any problem in my current work feels like a doddle to overcome and I am excelling.
All I would say to anyone who was thinking about taking up any management position at store level is to do your homework... Argos are very good at presenting a very professional, supporting image but the truth is that when things don't go perfectly (which happens sometimes in business) then the buck stops somewhere and if you are in the wrong team that means that everyone will look to throw each other under the bus.
This review has been challenged (presumably by Argos) on the basis that it talks about specific individuals. It does not. Each key position that I talk about was held by multiple people, there was not one single position refered to in this review that was only held by a single person, therefor I am not discussing an "individual".