Primark x Greggs, who is better to work for?

Did you know that Greggs sells 1.5 million sausage rolls a week?

Primark x Greggs is the hottest collab of 2022. Selling out in minutes and driving sausage roll and fashion fans crazy. 👗❌🥖

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(Image: Greggs X Primark)

What are they really like to work for?

At Breakroom, we’ve surveyed over 1,200 employees who work at either Primark or Greggs. So we can tell you what it is really like to work there.

Let’s start with the excellent news first, both Greggs and Primark are rated good for students.

89% of students said that both Greggs and Primark are good places to work if you’re studying 👩‍💻 They told us that they can balance their studying around working, which is important.

Workers also reported that at Greggs they get paid breaks. 75% of those surveyed said that they get paid during their breaks.

At Primark, 85% of staff told us that they don’t have to do unpaid extra work. 88% told us that they don’t have their shifts changed at short notice.

Moving on to the not so good news.

Some of our findings from staff highlighted that Primark doesn’t pay enough to live on. 93% of respondents told us that they earn less than the Real Living Wage for where they live.

Greggs has some room for improvement with their shift notice. 78% get less than 2 weeks notice for shifts and 38% say they get less than 1 weeks notice.

60% of Greggs workers told us that they also earn less than the Real Living Wage. The Real Living Wage is currently £9.90 per hour and £11.05 per hour in London.

The reviews of Primark make it clear. Excellent colleagues are one of the best things about working there.

Reviews such as:

Best thing: Supervisors are lovely. Range of jobs, such as putting the stock out, maintenance and tills. Good for a weekend job especially for students. There are lots of university students who work there, so they are easy to get on with.” – Primark Employee, February 2022 (sic)

Best thing: Staff members are generally all really nice” – Primark Employee, February 2022 (sic)

Best thing: “Best thing working with friends” – Primark Employee, January 2022 (sic)

Whilst the reviews of Greggs include the team and the food 🥖

Best thing: Good pay Friendly staff Welcoming place Clean— Greggs Employee, February 2022 (sic)

Best thing: The staff team, I’ve met a great bunch of people who support you greatly” — Greggs Employee, February 2022 (sic)

Best thing: Discount on food. — Greggs Employee, February 2022 (sic)

Best thing: “Good pay, excellent team, enjoyable work and challenging.” — Greggs Employee, February 2022 (sic)

We also asked what the worst things about working in Primark are?

Worst thing: Disrespectful customers.” — Primark Employee, January 2022 (sic)

Worst thing: Not much variety of what your doing — Primark Employee, January (sic)

Worst thing: Poor shift choice. Management not agreeing with the shifts you can take, giving you others than what you can do. Poor breaks/ not payed. No free parking near store. — Primark Employee, January (sic)

Greggs workers told us:

Worst thing: “Under staffed, stressful, 4:30am starts — Greggs Employee, January 2022 (sic)

Worst thing: “Long hours, weekend work, barely ever enough staff to do what we need, expections of what we should be able to do verus what we can do are so different. — Greggs Employee, January 2022 (sic)

Worst thing: Having bad customers. And sometimes it’s just so fast placed that it can be stressful or even just exhausting. So even when you finish work like half way through the day all you want to do is sleep" — Greggs Employee, January 2022 (sic)

Both Greggs and Primark have some solid positives.

Including other team members, breaks, and being “good for students”.

When looking at places to work it is important to know if it is right for you. Learning that you’ll start early when working at Greggs, or that you get good notice of shifts at Primark helps you know if it is the right job for you.

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We are a community of people helping each other discover stuff about work that we should have known before starting. 

* Results based on Breakroom ratings for Primark and Greggs as of February 2022

Published on 23 February 2022