Airgas Reviews

Pros

Good work environment. People I work with take pride in their work, and doing a good job for the customers. Good work will be noticed by upper management, but they won't always acknowledge your good work unless 'pushed to' by others. Able to try new ideas for getting the job done better, and, as long as you've run it through the chain of command first, will get backing and recognition for a job well done when it works.
The new SAP based computer system will bring customer service into the 21st Century.

Cons

Too many "layers" of management. Too many people allowed to perfom at a sub-standard level because they are "buddies" with an AVP or ABOC. Some are treated like royalty because they scored some big customer or big project long ago; when asked to do their job now, they try to pawn it off on others to do their bidding, and if you don't do it soon enough, they whine to middle management.

Advice to Senior Management

Get out of Radnor, and come see us in the trenches. We are the ones making/keeping this company strong. Do not limit pay raises to crumbs, give people what their worth if you want to keep the good people. Trim some of the inefficient dead weight from middle management. You have too many layers of too many people performing the same tasks. You have us generate reports, to have people read them to generate more reports that go no where but in a filing cabinet to be looked at months after they would have done any good.
LISTEN to the people,the drivers, that go see YOUR/OUR customers. You say they are the "face of Airgas" that the customers see, but management does not listen to them because they are just truck drivers (a dime a dozen group, who can do nothing but drive a truck).

Pros

Great Insurance, and you meet some of the greatest people (customers).

Cons

Middle Management gives no support or recognition to employee's that do a great job. Maybe if they would, it may result in more sales and margin for Airgas. I walk out of a sales meeting feeling depressed other then pump up to sell. Luckily I have been sales for over 20 years. I have seen good sales managers and bad ones, I've seen more bad ones with Airgas.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Train current managers to support employees not belittle them in front of other employees/customers.
2. Supply Account Managers with sales tools such as Laptops installed with vendors catalogs, wifi, contact information, sales documents such as credit apps, cylinder audit forms, quotes forms etc. . To do any work at all you need to leave the customer, drive to the office, hope the computers are up and running and god forgive if you need assistance from a Branch Manager on a vendor code, you and your customer may be waiting for a long time. It would be a benefit to the company and the customer if we had more access on site.
3. Need more training on SAP for Account Managers, three days just didn't cut it. All I learned was how to do a quote. The instructors we had were hard to follow.
4. Distribution, for being one of the largest Safety supplies in the United States why does it take so long to get product? for instance if you want five widgets you may or may not know you need to order 10 widgets, so the order sets in limbo, until customer/myself ask Branch Manager to look into this. Then you get a comment like this "I forgot to tell you last week the purchasing person said you needed to order 10 so since we didn't need 10 I told him to cancel the order". YEAH. Know who's the one that has to explain the problem to the customer? It's not management, it's the sales guy. There are many other examples I am just stopping at one.

Pros

Good pay great opportunities for advancement there is also learning opportunities with airgas university the bottom line is take pride and do a good job and you will be rewarded

Cons

The insurance could be better. I would like to see other training for employees that want to advance with the company. Also they like to run thin on employees making it had to give amazing customer service.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat everyone with the same respect no matter what there job title is. Make sure you let your employees know when they are doing a good job. I promise it will go a long way.

Pros

The size of the company plenty of areas to work and grow.

Cons

company is very large and sometimes advancement takes a while

Pros

Decent benefits, work schedule and flexibility.

Cons

Old boys network, inaccessible management, older average age in general, resistant to change. Corporate HQ buys out small mom-and-pop stores to add to their national conglomerate with little transition plan or additional incentive to stay. Poor earnings potential/opportunity for advancement. They don't invest in creating a uniform infrastructure or company culture, instead preferring to let the companies they buy out do business as usual under the Airgas name. Employees' opinions not heard.

Pros

Great opportunities to grow to new positions in your career, it's the best way to increase your earning power. Airgas does a great job at promoting from within.

Cons

Poor overall compensation plan. Annual salary increases are low enough that long term employees fall below market value and are lured away.

Advice to Senior Management

Put together a compensation plan that keeps long term employees in similar positions in line with what the market offers.

Pros

Health Benefits. Co-Workers. A job..

Cons

Mngt. self absorbed. Treat employees like puppets. Tell them if they so much as sneeze wrong they will get fired.

Advice to Senior Management

Top Management and management (3) of customer service needs replaced.
Human Resources does nothing for the Employees when there needed.

Pros

It was a good overall experience.

Cons

Top mgt. and CEO had a bit of a good-old-boys network that was hard to crack.

Advice to Senior Management

A good overall experience.

Pros

It has been going through lots of jobs consolidation and changes, it could be a pro and con. It all depends on the location and the manager you work for.
Pay: Comparable to industry

Cons

Your job may be going away due to consolidations of business operations.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't forget the employees who worked hard for the companies while taking care of shareholders and investors.

Pros

stock purchase plan, some good people that care. Does offer tutition coverage as benefit, also a "recession proof' type job in tanker division.

Cons

poor pay, high benefit costs to employee, limited advancement opportunitty unless you are a "yes man" to management. Hours change so often it is hard to have family life, more and more work is dumped on the ones doing work that those lazy have it easy. WIll not fire anyone.

Advice to Senior Management

Seriously evalute your mid management and send them to training school. Lot of low level employees are smart and understand more of what is good and wrong with the company, but cannot be heard because of the many layers of management. Start living up to the ethic training we go through each year.