B&Q Employee Reviews about "b q"

Pros

50% of your colleagues are friendly and nice and easy to work with and get along. 20% Staff discount.

Cons

The whole company is poorly managed and we are told we are hear for the greater good of the company and should worship B&Q as if it is a religion. Staff are overworked and exploited with poor pay and working conditions. The company cuts costs at every level that you are burden with so much workload. The stores are understaffed and poorly run that it has a negative consequence on the employees in terms of customers complaining and taking out their frustration and shouting at the poor service you give them. Everyone has a can't do attitude to work and the moral is really low due to the poor pay, workload, bad management, bad culture and working conditions which ruin your health. Everyone wants to leave and find a better job. But B&Q exploits the weak and vulnerable in society who can't get jobs elsewhere and are stuck and trapped there. The management and the company don't care about the workers and treat you like rubbish. I have never worked in a company like this. The management and the company don't care about the workers and treat you like rubbish. I have never worked in a company like this. 1) 50% of your colleagues are scally and chaves. 2) Poor pay 50p to £1 above the minimum wage. 3) Overworked doing 3/4 peoples jobs, as the company does not employ people. 4) No training given so you have not got a clue how do the job properly. 5) Short staff on every area of the store. 6) Management are rubbish and don’t have a clue how to manage people and get the best out of people. 7) Moral is really low 8) Poor health and safety and working conditions that you end up hurting your back, cutting your fingers, engaging with chemicals with no safety measures 9) Staff toilets are not clean that you can’t even breath when you go in there, smells of pooh. 10) Staff canteen is dirty 11) No career development, but who wants to work there anywhere. 11) Exploitation of the weak and vulnerable in society who can’t get jobs elsewhere. 12) Customers who shout and abuse customers because of the poor service they get from the company. 13) 3 people on the tills when we have 30 checkout machines. 14) Rude and racist colleagues who don’t like the BAME people. 15) Cutting corners at all level that you are impacted in a negative way e.g. trying advise customers on building material when you don’t have a clue. 16) Breaks and lunch break can’t be took on time and at times not be able to take them. 17) Getting paid overtime is a nightmare, you have to chase them all the time to get them to process it. 18) Hard to take annual leave because they have limits and if you don’t take them you lose them. 19) Rotas are poorly done and changed so you get turned away when you are schedule to work. 20) Supervisor/Team Leader don’t have clue how to manage and do their jobs properly 21) everyone hates working there and want to leave and are workshy. 22) Employees and managers are sleeping around at work with each other on nights and getting dunked and creates the work gossips (Christmas is popular time). 23) Stressed out employees because of the pressure of work and customer demands. 24) A lot of workplace politics and gossip leading to conflict and problems at work. 25) Management and supervisors don’t care about employees or making a good place to work. 26) I was working so hard and fast and running around like a dog that I lost weight and ruin my health. 27) No work life balance, slaved to the company. 28) Management and other colleges are bullies and tend to group up on you. 29) Working there is a prison sentence and the only goal you will make there is to leave as soon as possible, unless you have a screw lose and wish to remain 30) Hundreds of products without correct prices and you have to run like a dog to get the correct price and apologies to the customers while they shout and become frustrated with you because of the time it take to get the correct price.

Pros

Great team, fantastic unit manager

Cons

Lack of progression within B&Q

Pros

Flexible working hours Knowledgable employees Being able to transfer to another store

Cons

Kingfisher micromanages B&Q Bureaucratic internal processes Limited career progression

Pros

Great discount Fun work atmosphere Good benefits

Cons

The customers! I worked at b&q for a number of years until I couldn’t take it anymore. We had one particular customer, who used to come in 3 or 4 times a week. This certain customer was from a well known design television show from the late 90s, with a passion for DIY. This certain customer had a real ‘BARK’ shall we say. She’d come storming into the store, demanding all sorts of paints/MDF/Perspex etc etc to make up some of the most unimaginable tat. She would order us around like we were handy Andy and showed very little gratitude. We’d have to go out of our way to help her under managements order. After spending 3 hours desperately searching for one particular type of sand for this customer, so she could make a textured wall, I couldn’t take it anymore and had to leave the store never to return. I’d go back and work there if I thought she’d moved or had given up on the DIY, but I’ve heard from old friends she is still there, every week.

Pros

I honestly struggle to come up with several examples

Cons

B&Q are a terrible company and noone can see where the company is heading in its future, I'll keep this as brief as possible but there are several key issues that fails them. 1: I've been here at B&Q for 27 yrs this yr, and never have I been appalled at how the company treats us, every one of us CA's are treated like a number and none of our complaints or issues i.e. stock gaps, holidays, and internal fall outs are addressed. Were told to do our job but we CAN'T when the company decides to have "delivery issues" with vast proportion of stock, which feels like we never paid the suppliers. The amount of work we have to do and our responsibilities increase month on month to the point our basic customer service and facing becomes forgotten about for which we are then told off, and that is because we're so busy with click and collect, orders at literally last minute o'clock. Our ex ceo Veronica failed in her attempts to run this company, spending millions to create cheaper alternatives for which within a year was scrapped for branded products as that's what the consumer wants, a fact any CA could of told you AND she walked away with several million as a 'stepdown' 2: our wages are not enough to cope with the increasing responsibilities, and in one case we were told we can be on £10ph if we have a certificate for plumbing/electrician/horticultural degree, and one of our staff intentionally spent best part of two yrs getting a electrician course done with, passed with high quality and degree....only for B&Q to say sorry we don't pay £10ph no more with no heads up despite management knowing of the course being taken. We take complaints and delivery issues and next day click and collects which management should be doing, we dont get paid to do those roles. Another thing is I've lost hundreds literally hundreds a year with cut backs, no summer or winter bonus worth £300 a yr and no Sunday premium, and no STB, for which we had a 5% increase last year but STB is worth 10% so we've lost out I used to be a lvl 5 CA and damn good at my job too, suddenly with cut backs I was a lvl 1, in fact we all were. Now any new colleague is paid the same as me, no matter the age or experience. So it goes to show that experience and talent mean nothing if an 17yr old with no qualifications and experience is paid same as me, I've more responsibilities and much more store knowledge about anything we do and have and we're all paid the same, which is minimum wage and not any higher any more it seems. 3: club cards- this has got to be addressed, B&Q is ramming this down our throats, my line manager has personally threatened to sack me if I fail to hit target of 20pw. So you telling me if I get 19 I'll be fired? Guess what no everyone wants or needs a club card, please stop forcing us to ask every customer and we don't need to worry about it all, ever since the company pushed this to be a occurring event all staff members all of them are now terrified of failing and are always in a sodden mood, I'm on verge of seeking therapy and medication because of the internal pressure. Once again the company treats us shockingly and get away with it, never ever have I had been forced to do something im not capable off, even of we try. This isn't an issue of I'm not paid to do it, noone is saying that buy the constant reminder of punishment via the sack or formal warning is worrying. I'd love to know what it's like at a super market. Between technology that crashes and endless embarrassing gaps and the constant threat of being fired it's not a good place to work. 4: career, there isn't one, you either enter a role as management or your never to be one, I refuse to resit my o lvls or GCSEs to prove I can count, only the young and fresh colleagues stand a chance never the loyal and trustworthy older serving CA