Costco Wholesale Reviews

I have been working at Costco Wholesale

Pros – The pay is high for the industry and benefits are available to part-time workers.

Cons – Schedules vary greatly from week to week. There is little work/life balance. The most significant downside of working at Costco is the poor management. Managers always assume negative intent on the part of hourly employees, even seasoned employees who have demonstrated ability and effectiveness. Managers talk down to employees daily and there is little to no respect. Feedback is largely negative.

Advice to Senior Management – A confidential companywide employee satisfaction survey is very much needed. I am confident that if Jim Sinegal really knew what was happening in his buildings, he would be appalled. I also recommend sending H.R. reps to various buildings across the country and conducting confidential interviews with hourly employees from various departments. I know this is costly....but I also strongly believe that it's necessary. Finally, be picky when hiring management! Some education, training and people skills should be essential. Demand mutual respect and consider a 360 appraisal system. Cultivate real leaders.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Costco Wholesale

Pros – I am a long time employee of Costco,and at one time I was very proud to think that I had helped build this company into what it has become today.Overall it still is a good company,where the problem lies is at store level,the company has gotten so big so fast that the level of management has gone way downhill,people are put into positions that they are never ready for.

Cons – The store level management has gone way down,

Advice to Senior Management – Learn to lead again, treat employees like we used to be( WITH RESPECT). It seems that the majority of managers and also supervisors are in it for the money only,I see a much higher turnover than we ever had.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Costco Wholesale

Pros – Chance to learn how one of the biggest retailers works from the inside.

Cons – Groupthink, ideas come one place and one place only. So if you are looking for a healthy dissagreement or brainstorming to solve problems this isnt the place for you.

Advice to Senior Management – Look to your younger talent fro ideas and refinement before they are forced out the door. Before i left i watched very talented people work hard, pitch in, and get nothing in return and have to leave for smaller companies that appreciate the skills these people bring. Basically, why would you train people, let them get their mistakes in and learn the operation just to watch them take that skill set elsewhere?

I have been working at Costco Wholesale

Pros – The pay and benefits. That's it. Otherwise it's no different from any other crappy retail job.

Cons – No: training, communication, encouragement. Training is not just minimal, it barely exists. Somebody here needs to read a couple management books. Good training and reviewing that training periodically is the only route to quality employees. It also seems like they don't want to tell you your full job description so they can make you do whatever they want, whenever they want. Management just automatically assumes you're doing something wrong and never says a thing when you do something right. Various "decisions" are made by the top brass on a whim with no real thought behind it and are often changed behind their back anyway. Nobody ever knows what is going on and why. All their activities seem focused around putting out the various fires instead of planning ahead. They also constantly make new rules which fail to be enforced within a few days.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your employees and treat them like human beings. Stop acting like they're just workers and always doing something wrong. Respect is earned on your part as well. Not just because you're in a high position.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Costco Wholesale full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Before this review gets all negative, i must stress the good aspects. Firstly, with a variety of different departments, there is scope for progression in the company from the bottom up if you are willing to put in the work. Traditionally, this company has always been supportive of it's staff at difficult times and family values were always considered important, even if this attitude is dwindling. The pay and bonus scheme is better than most retail jobs also.

Cons – The core of the problem is simple - the US sent over a dream and its UK counterparts have tarnished it. The Employee Handbook, the supposed Bible of Costco which is supposed to set out its ethics and rules is flawed. Constant re-writes and re-issues fail to address the basic problems which centre around the poor treatment of its staff. Different departments need flexible staff to ensure standards are met and shelves, pallets and cabinets are stocked. Staff are asked to be available between 0500 and 2200. However many have often worked outside these hours to help out and get no extra pay for nights or anti-social hours. And recently, where before there was more structure and planning behind shift patterns, managers are making staff change from earlys one day to lates the next with little thought to how this effects families, with next to no notice for employees to sort out possible complications. Where there was once a flexibility and mutual respect between management and staff to ensure 'Showtime Readiness' and the quality of goods to our members, there is now constant friction and upset under the current stewardship. Staff are stressed constantly by bullying tactics and rule changes, excuses used by the management to balance wages and profits. If a member of staff has managed to accrue full time status and top out on his/her wages, a £4000 bonus every year seems like a superb thing to most people and should be commended. But now the current management looks to punish staff on top rate, constantly telling them they are not doing enough work, all the while forcing staff members to change departments with no notice at all. There is absolutely no training plans involved at any level, with a generation of supervisary and managerial staff clueless to basic employment law and man-management skills. Promoting from within is admirable in any company, but training is key and Costco UK does not want to spend any of its vast profits on this. Instead it leaves these senior staff unprotected. A culture of favouritism for staff that are willing to crawl and back-stab to succeed is spawned as a result with complaints having to often go out of the warehouse to be resolved fairly, and 9 times out of 10 managers are not punished, trained or told to how to change their approach to amend these issues. The recent changes at the top of this warehouse have backfired terribly creating massive division between staff and management.

Advice to Senior Management – It's simple - Bring some of the US managers over here to teach the UK lot how to instill its original ethics back into our flawed system. The warehouse at Thurrock was the original and should be the best of the rest, but it has been abandoned since head office relocated to Watford. The company has some great aspects too it and could actually be the nearest some would get to a 'Job-For-Life' for those with next to no qualifications. Stop looking at staff as disposable and get back to respecting them as previous managers have. Communication and transparency need to improve and stop going backwards. The staff are most flexible when treated right. Whilst the company's needs must be met, management and salaried staff need to step up/in more, all the while remembering that everybody have families not just them. Respect is earned, not just given.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Costco Wholesale part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – great student program
work around your hours

Cons – no chance of promotion if you started out as a student
HR department is non-responsive
everything is based on seniority

Advice to Senior Management – utilize your graduating students skills!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Costco Wholesale part-time for less than a year

Pros – -Great benefits
-Incredibly competitive wages
-free business membership

Cons – -ridiculous prescription load - avg 400/day
-the business is put ahead of the integrity of the profession
-no room for professional services, it's all about pumping out scripts
-OTC is treated like the rest of the products in the warehouse - sell in bulk with complete disregard to EBM

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Costco Wholesale for more than 7 years

Pros – Good benefits
Generally great people and vendors to work with
On-site gym
Commuting benefits

Cons – No upward mobility
Stagnant work environment
Surrounded by lots of long-term employees that have entitlement issues
Poor work/life balance

I worked at Costco Wholesale

Pros – they pay decent. theres a lot of okay people. time and a half on sundays. union pay is very good and its a pretty easy job

Cons – boring. management sucks. nobody knows what theyre doing. you see a lot of people with good college degrees get stuck there for years.

I have been working at Costco Wholesale part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great Pay.
Great Benefits.
Some awesome people to work with.
Lump Sum Payments once you hit a certain number of hours.

Cons – Some shoppers (members) feel they can walk all over you because they pay to shop there. Store Management will always take customers side, which sets a precedent for them to misbehave again and again because they know they can. I'm not talking providing customer service to make a dissatisfied customer happy, I'm talking about constant verbal, emotional and in some cases near physical abuse (customer hitting objects, throwing bottles/boxes at co-workers) by certain members who should have been refunded their membership (if they had one, Pharmacy doesn't require one for RXs) and asked to leave. Keeping these customers has (along with other things) killed moral and actually makes it harder for us to help other patients.

Department Manager doesn't care for same reasons listed above. Gets NO backup from upper management and had stopped caring because of constant abuse.
Some people I work with have a horrible attitude.

Advice to Senior Management – FIX THIS PHARMACY! I hear and have read great things about other Costco's and other Pharmacies. Make no mistake, Costco can be a great place to work. Just not the St. James one :(

– I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company