Okay where do I begin... I guess the major con is the business itself. All the way from the CEO who has publicly stated he doesn't care if staff aren't happy with the hourly rate, because they can easily be replaced. Always lovely to know you're a privileged employee...right? To be honest that's one of the biggest cons, you aren't cared or valued to the business. You a literally a number on their system that brings them money in.
- The employee turnover is terrible, staff leave on a weekly basis NO JOKE!
- "Team Coaches" are made to do the same work as that of supervisors and even manager with NO extra money.
- The managers are some of the laziest people I've ever met, they can easily delegate targets and goals that MUST be met in an unrealistic time-frame, yet they will sit and have a chat while staff run around like headless chickens.
- Crap hours, your expected to do extra hours when THEY need you. So the management will change your rota without notice then complain if you couldn't do the shift. Even when it wasn't in your availability (that's a whole other thing, there may as well be no point in filling out an availability form, because they NEVER pay attention to it). So one week you could have a good few hours l, then the next they're cutting your hours to minimum and asking you to take unpaid absence!
- Their so called "easy to understand" and "brilliant" bonus. Is actually non-attainable. At least for stock-room staff, shop-floor staff have a better chance at achieving. However in stock-room bonus everything is based on timings, and getting all your work done in a specific time frame. But I can tell you now, even if you run around YOU WONT HIT IT! The only time we ever hit our full targets was when we cheated, or got help from shop-floor staff.
- Working Christmas - okay it's retail. You should know to be expected to work more during Christmas. Yes that's fine. However, for the past 6 years I worked upwards of "60+" hours A WEEK! During each week in September, which apparently isn't legal, so they'd have to push the hours over into the next month so it didn't look bad.
- Boxing Day, like I said it's expected to work Boxing Day. I'm totally fine with that. When I originally started everyone would work their 3 hours with double pay, then it got changed to 4 hours with time and a half. To the point of last year I worked 8 hours on Boxing Day with no enhancements. Linking back to the fact all they care about is profits.
- There is so much more I could write about for the cons of working at next. But at the end of the day, I guess for some people it's a good job to have while studying or still at school, or if you have little kids etc. And to be honest when I started 6 years ago it was a very different company, with a very different feel that I actually enjoyed. But by the end, it was a case of everyday at work feeling down, and de-motivated. With every topic between staff members being either about how crap the company was, the management was or the bonus was. It was so emotionally draining. Which is why in the end I thought "why am I doing this to myself". Funny enough the week I handed my notice it, 7 others from my store had also done the same. With 6 more leaving just two weeks after. Like I said terrible employee turnover.
If you DO get a job at next. Please don't fall into the trap that so many of us have and get stuck there!
