Aaron's Reviews

Pros

Base pay isn't great, but if you reach your goal every month you have the opportunity for great bonuses. All General Managers and Regional are super nice and easy to talk to. You do work until 9pm some during the week but they close at 5pm on Saturdays, and are closed on Sundays and on holidays which is rare in retail. Aaron's is also the best in it's field, because it has lower prices than competitors and helps their customers to acquire ownership of their merchandise.

Cons

If you don't like calling customers about past due bills or going to visit them at their houses when they don't call you back, then you won't make it in management. Also have to return customer's merchandise when they get behind on their bill and won't pay.

Advice to Senior Management

GMs should get to work a first shift schedule.

Pros

They have a good concept of what they want to do. Sky is limit on earning potential. Customers are like family at times. Never a dull day and never the same

Cons

Hours. Demand on u to meet goals every month. Different regional managers tell you to do it different ways then his boss may want a different thing. Won't back u up on much. Seem to stay short staffed cause hire food people on paper but they see job description is misleading. Hourly associates work their butts of and aren't really paid well.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at ways to improve hourly associates pay without asking them to work 50+ hours. Don't let greed control you on regards to good employees

Pros

If you are a GM or support staff pay is pretty good.
Don't need an education to be store staff
respect out of fear is a big thing here

Cons

Hard work.
store staff doesn't care
people are lazy and incompetent
I have no idea how most GMs got promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more and give better work/life balance then MAYBE you will attract some talented hard working people.

Pros

The majority of people were very nice to work with. There was a sense of job security but, that may not have always been a good thing. It felt like some people took advantage.

Cons

There was a lack of consistancy by management. This includes personnel, decision making and upholding rules and regulations. While standards were in place, how they were observed and enforced varied through out the company.

Advice to Senior Management

I enjoyed working at Aaron's but, felt the lack of consistancy was a major flaw. Sometimes it made it difficult to complete assignments as well how provide constructive feedbakc.

Pros

it was a good living if you didnt mind the hours, long days, most weeks with no day off. it is a financially stable company.

Cons

long hours again 6 days a week mostly for 9-9. when brought up about taking vacation time off it was stated that short staff or numbers not in line for you to take time off. we went through 3 rm's in under 3 years due to incompetence, and the rm's fired 9 gm's in same time, no stability in upper management.

Advice to Senior Management

look at who your prom,oting, drop the good ol boy network and promote from within. a person from a different region is not necessarily the best option to run a struggling one. if a region is suffering maybe its the area not the gm's.

Pros

Aaron's was and continues to be a financially growing company that is growing despite the economy. Decent pay, good benefits and the POTENTIAL to make a lot of money. GM's are afforded some freedom as to the operation of their store and the company tries to provide marketing support and decent products.

Cons

Simply put, never judge a book by its' cover. While the POTENTIAL to make lots of money and enjoy lavish trips etc... exist, the reality is that most GM's just work 60 to 70 hours a week to make their base salary. Leadership seems to be lacking and communiacation is non-existant. If it does happen it is a 2 hour conference call tounge lashing that results in more confusion as to what is supposed to be done. There is no support of the employees in the field by middle management and the end result is dissatisfied employees and poor results. My relationship with Aaron's ended badly because of the "people in the middle" not the company. My advice, "interview" the Regional and Divisional Vice President as they interview you!

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees! If everyone is complaining about the same thing then perhaps, just maybe, there is a problem. If an entire region is suffering, perhaps someone should look at who is leading the region and not at the people running the stores? Professionalism and teamwork go a long way to making a business successful and somehow the "Good Ol' Boy" nature of Aaron's is unable to process this fact.

Pros

Flexible, management is easy to work with, and job is easier than some.

Cons

Plays favorites, they will back stab you if furthers them, and pay isn't that great.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of favoritism, before getting mad that we come in later realize that we leave after 12 or 2 on most days.

Pros

Aaron's has great owners that care a great deal about the business and taking care of customers. You have the ability to take ownership and work your daily activities with minor supervision. So as a GM it was great to not have to bother with too much micro management,

Cons

The only down side about working in this industry is the schedule. I am fine with working long hours, however, I am also a family man and appreciate my time off.

Advice to Senior Management

Great company, and loved working there, wish there was a little more support from my boss. Countless times over an 8 week period I asked for some help with staffing. I ran a 1200 customer store with a weak staff that did the minimum. I had to pick up the slack and in doing so we neglected the little things. Unfortunately in this industry the little things are huge. I think that I would still be with Aaron's if I would have gotten the support I needed.

Pros

Good pay, nice people to work with

Cons

Bad hours especially for accounts department, no good structure for advancement

Advice to Senior Management

Regional and above managment need to visit locations after hours.

Pros

Aaron Rents has a great environment and encourage a team mentality. Groups of 5 or more would go out to lunch together and talk mostly about stuff outside of work. They give you great guidance and definitely recognize you when you do a good job.

Cons

They have way too many "steps" to get things done. By steps, I mean there's probably at least 5 approvals needed to get anything big deployed. They claim it's because they're such a big company that they need the checks and balances. That can be quite annoying.

Advice to Senior Management

They really need to catch up to this decade. A lot of their applications and processes are the way they've been since the 80s.