WHSmith job reviews

Being expected to do management-level tasks yet being paid minimum wage. Being overloaded with pressure from head office who have no idea what it’s actually like working in the stores. Management hiring too many college-age people who can’t often cover shifts because they have college commitments, so you end up working when you’re ill.

The people, they are lovely to work with.

Sometimes not enough tasks to do.

Collegues and the discounts

Supervisors on minimum wage no key holders allowance short staffed the damage to the buildings is just a Horrid waiting going on a year to get a leak fixed which is damaging stock on shop floor the bounce backs with stupidly long dates that get thrown back at staff as there was the same thing that came out the week before head office has no idea how the shops run and give unrealistic targets to get in a day customers are disgustingly behaved in store and that’s just scratching the surface

Some of the colleagues and the fact my manager is flexable

Head Office are so far removed from the store fronts its unbelievable. They have unrealistic expectations, the communication is poor, they cut staff budgets yet find the money to pay massive bonuses for the top, the cluster managers and regional managers contradict and are often rude and expect more (not to mention the general bigoted and racist comments they make)

You'll more than likely be running and entire store short staffed despite the work load and expected results.

Any additional responsibilities and training you are given comes with no additional pay

The vast majoritity of store leaders are merely coasting by with 0 consequences

Dealing with irate customers due to the greedy and uncompetetitive pricing of the products is daily

Any issues with the building or equipment are slow to be rectified, if at all. The company simply isn't interested in investing in the stores or making sure basics such as heating/hot water are working, not to mention the general state of disrepair of the stores

Noone seems to have any idea whats going on at any given time

Poor pay compaired to a lot of other retail jobs

The people I work with
The weird interactions I have or witness

Rude customers

Airport is good to work in

Management, boarding cards, angry customers, impatient business men, made to feel worthless, conglomerate bullying

Working with Books, my colleagues

managers

The old people are nice sometimes

Get screamed at for the pieces

The relationship with the team

The heating doesn’t work, minimum wage sucks lol and some customers need serious help 😭

Underpay, try to not pay you properly at times

Discount on drinks

Low pay, bad managers, bad communication, i haven't actually signed a contract.

Colleagues

The company and the fact that everyone above doesn't understand how the store works.

The customers

The upper management is toxic

staff members

most times there’s not much to do and too many staff are there to do such little tasks

The people you work with

The customers

Customers. Having a chat with them some can be really nice, depends on the day and time

Management and fake, two faced staff

Basically get on with things myself since I now know what needs to be done on a daily basis

Rude customers, unhygienic colleagues.

The people

The constant stress
Little pay for the responsibility
Lone working
High expectations from management with few staff

Being able to help people, making friends

Rude customers, expected to do everything, higher management boss people around and make you feel like you don't do things right, shouted at for forgetting to scan bounce backs

In the Post Office there are a variety of services and jobs to do. It keeps the day varied and interesting. Also get to help people everyday.

The company itself.

The people I work with.

Not enough staff. Stressful working. Too much work load when we have limited staff. Not paid for experience and the roles we do. Nasty, rude customers.

The job as a whole!!

The discount but it doesn't cover most things

I don't know where to start, overall horrible, it's corrupt and only hire family and friends as management

you get paid, and sometimes it’s actually right!

managers are incredibly lazy and get away with murder
no staff which means customers are constantly angry because of long wait times at the post office
pay is below living wage
holidays are booked at manager’s discretion, which means they’re rarely distributed fairly

people I work with

customers with no respect or manners

Underpaid no support from upper management

The customers and some of the colleagues

The unprofessional conduct of managers

My work colleagues.

Being called on your days off, stress, a lot of customers are rude, we are expected to do managerial tasks without managers pay, barely any training, you have to figure things out yourself. Managers aren’t trained. Cluster managers are unwilling to help even though it’s their job to. And I’ll say stress again just to make it clear.

The staff and some of the customers

Rude and obnoxious customers

Co-workers are really nice

The pay

you can learn new skills

stressful, shift changes, low pay

The team I work with

Staff discount,meeting new people

Management

Easy, friendly, located in a clean nice friendly area.

My colleagues are great, especially fellow students

Head office prioritises certain issues that take a lot of time to amend, and don’t seem to take into consideration how understaffed we are. Students like myself are heavily relied upon to take on extra shifts due to understaffing during the week, and I feel guilty as I have to put my studies first and can’t always take on extra hours during term time.

We get to know people

Long hours and because of covid less customers after 6

Self managed

Pay and workload

Love the goods I sell, I'm geeky so working in a bookshop is nice.

Low pay
No value
Bad customers
Lack of management

The team

Work load
Little support
No mental health wellbeing being given

I get to run my store as I think best. I'm trusted

Covid

Challenges and working with the public

Systems, ho communications

Staff team

Boring repetitive work and sometimes pressure to get things done

The people I work with

I work on my own

working out side in all weather

I love the people I work with and how well I get on with all of them

The pay is a bit low but that’s only because I’m currently a full-time student under the age of 18

Easy and convenient for me because shifts are short and are after school hours

Strict management, co-workers/management can be hard to work with

Making people smile, and colleagues are some of the kindest, funniest people I know

Pay, unrealistic expectations from head office and management, it’s truly thankless work

The staff I work with

The pay

Colleagues and manager are good, variety of work tasks.

Some head office priorities seem unreasonable or illogical from a store worker perspective.

I get some weekends off

Head office changing things every five minutes