Overworked, underpaid, very stressful, not valued, diabolical health & safety, poor working conditions, no care for paid staff let alone volunteers who give time freely, trackers for everything, unrealistic targets to name a few!
As a manager I am very outgoing, love new challenges and have a lot of drive, this company how ever have sucked every last ounce of passion out of me to the point they have finally broken me and I am currently seeking new employment!
The biggest problem is lack of measure in change. Don't get me wrong they are the best at what they do as a charity retailer on the high street, but what is shown to the public on the shop floors is far cry from what happens behind the scenes.
Shops generally consist of a paid manager, assistant manager and paid assistant if you lucky, the rest of the team is made up of good hearted volunteers some of who work as though it is a full time job!
The back working areas are horrendous, no space for storage and mounds of stock (if you're doing the job correctly) the environments are more than often dangerous. There is a huge problem when it comes to getting any form of repairs done, you are often told "that will cost too much money" so jobs are always bodged.
Shops have to work with rats/fleas/un-safe equipment etc.
When you try to communicate problems the area managers who are equally under as much pressure seem to live in fear of the regional managers so things often get swept under the carpet.
When a visit is due from anyone higher up you are told to make sure everything is clear, totally unrealistic as for one it takes a good week to sort it out and two it does not allow the real daily working environment that we work in to be seen!
Currently I am working with 9 different trackers! These generally are the brain wave of an area manager that is then shared amongst all the others. These trackers are repetitive in their nature. Then you have the conference call scenario, there is around 15 shop managers on one call, these take up so much time as you are always waiting for people to dial in who are late, then you can't hear a thing due to all the background noise and the area manager is constantly telling people to be quiet, these calls can last up to 40 minutes a time and some days you end up having 3. This is all detracts from being able to run your store and achieve targets of 250 hanging items to the shop floor each day. Whilst sitting on a call you see the donated stock flowing up the stairs and know your workload has just doubled. If it's a day where volunteers don't turn up and you are short staffed you don't stand a chance! Then you are made to feel incompetent when your stock hasn't hit the shop floor because you have been tied up in conference calls throughout the day.
My store receives around 500 bags per week, which if you saw the size of the store you would understand, if you don't work that stock continually you have major problems.
More recently the company have become suddenly OCD about health and safety, sending managers on risk assessment courses, great yes but all it's doing is passing the buck back down to the store manager if anything goes wrong, we were told we would be the ones who would serve time in prison if we don't keep on top of it all and accident occur, yet they refuse to spend money on improvements that are desperately needed! They take on cheap rents to be able to maximise their profits.
Fundraising..... Where to start! The company has its own fundraising department who appear to have the easy job, as the small stores are expected to fundraise daily, targets often set at £50 per day, you are expected to turn it in to a "fun" challenge for your volunteers, believe me there is no fun in this at all, you have no choice but to send your best volunteer out to collect this money which then leaves you short handed in the store. Volunteers who are vulnerable and there are many in these stores are the preferred ones to go out collecting as they have the "pity factor" it's disgusting! However if you are like me and many other managers you more often then not end up putting your own money in the collection so you don't feel worthless when you have to report your figures on yet another conference call.
Gift Aid, the company expects a minimum of 5 new sign ups per day and a 40% conversion rate each week on gift aid sales, the pressure from this leads to many managers fiddling the gift aid system i.e using donor id's from a person who hasn't actually donated any stock recently. This is a grave concern as this is illegal and an imprisonable offence by the HMRC, but this is what the company's expectations are doing to store managers. When you are honest and speak up about the pressure you are told that there are worst company's and bigger pressures that you could be working for and that maybe you are just not cut out for the job.
There is no consistency with plans, organisation or communication. You are spoken to very rudely by certain departments when you have a problem.
This company spend an awful lot of time sending out emails and surveys but never actually do anything about the results that have been given from them except to send out yet another glossy, colourful piece of laminated art work to place on the staff notice board that nobody ever reads as they simply don't have time.
I really wish that more outside organisations would really start looking at these stores as I know they would serve notices and close them down, the danger is very worrying especially when you have vulnerable people volunteering for you.
I have met Peter Hollins once during my 12 years in the company, he was a lovely gentleman, he did mention he was a little shocked at the conditions but then disappeared back to London, of course everything was spick and spam for the visit!
There are no real incentives as such working here apart from a 25% discount on donated stock. Bonuses are now virtually impossible to make due to the recent restructuring of the bonus scheme. There are no health packages, child care vouchers or anything else, yet the regional support managers/ area managers/ regional managers all get health packages/ phones/ lap tops and cars. I dread to think how much all of this costs, there are so many wasted and needles roles in this company that could save hundreds of thousands of pounds that could go towards more research.
It is very rare you see much bad press about them as things are kept quiet and they have an excellent legal team. They are very clever at getting rid of problems if a disgruntled person comes forward.
This organisation needs investigating at a very deep level especially when it comes to wasting people's generous donations.
Am I an angry employee? Absolutely! After 12 years of giving everything I have, I have now finally woke up to the sad reality that I have been a victim of nothing more than what can only be deemed as a cult!
There is so much more than what I have written here, but I am so overwhelmed with it all I am aware I have vented too much.
When I have gained a new position and got away from this place I fully intend to expose the whole lot to the national media and anyone who will listen with the evidence I have built.
Good luck to any new potential employees, you have been warned.
