- Work environment :
- Employees talking behind eachother's backs on a daily basis, to the point where I once had a customer being aware that my colleagues were talking [very] rudely and loudly about another colleague that wasn't working that day. The customer looked very concerned and verbally expressed his concern to me.
- I often ended up having either 1-2 or no colleagues at all on the floor at times when we were supposed to be 5-6 employees. I exclude the times people were on breaks from these incidents.
- Total lack of consistency from management : employees were sometimes reminded during briefs to be professional, to be attentive (to not ignore customers or their basic work duties) and to help eachother. I rarely witnessed managers or team leaders managing or leading the team outside of briefs (referencing the active enforcement or encouragement of previously mentioned demands regarding professionalism, attentiveness etc.).
- Employee bonuses, every 3 months / every quarter, are now team-based [as of Q4 2024]. The team leader that trained me freely showed me her/his previous payslips to give me an idea of said-bonuses. Hers/his were individual-based bonuses [prior to Q4 2024], mines were team-based, resulting in my bonuses being 1/3 of hers/his although my personnal sales statistics and numbers were often (highly) exceeding Nestlé's expectations.
- Training was centered on "by-heart" learning resulting, in many cases, in pre-written scripts and "robotic" interactions with customers.
We were often reminded of and encouraged to speak about Nestlé's / Nespresso's values and quality programs. "B Corps"'s highest obtainable score is 200 while the necessary score to "pass" is 80. In recent years, Nespresso had a score of 87. According to multiple interviews, articles and studies; most Mexican coffee producers working with Nestlé are not being paid enough to afford basic necessities. All this being said: they want employees to use the "good will" and the "ethical values" of this company to sell their products and to get good scores from [monthly] mystery clients.
