Armstrong Garden Centers Reviews

Pros

Being outdoors, working with great customers, nice mix of personalities.

Cons

Low pay, not much incentive to give your all. Unmotivated and stagnant store managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure your regionals are like real people and not brainwashed fools.

Pros

Bountiful sunshine and interesting plants.

Cons

Wages: They do not pay a living wage, and consider 32 hours full time. Scheduling changes at the whim of regional managers. If it rains you get sent home without pay. Employees have not received raises in 6+ years. Rarely if ever are performance evaluations conducted.
Horticulture experience is not valued: HR not focused on hiring experienced horticulturalists.
Company does not favor or reward innovation: Slow to adopt technology, makes insular decisions without field testing prior to deploying new equipment.
Poor leadership: Regional managers not professional and provide lackluster motivation.
No upward job mobility: Nothing beyond a store manager is an option.
Work Schedule: Managers making less than $40k work 6 days a week, 60+ hours. Working weekends is a requirement. Few holidays off.

No recycling program for plants or plastics.

Advice to Senior Management

Time to hire a professional leadership team that can manage operations including marketing.
Pay a living wage and hire horticulture professionals.

Pros

Working outdoors among beautiful plants. Meeting and helping customers with their landscaping challenges. Health care benefits. Nice fellow employees

Cons

Low salary. Required to work weekends. Constant schedule changes. Few raises despite promises. Poor ESOP plan. Zero job security.

Advice to Senior Management

Your sales force is your front line. Stop reducing it. Treat them fairly, ethically and with loyalty! Keep your promises.

Pros

fresh air, working in a pretty environment, nice co-workers

Cons

awful management; corporate greed; mostly part-timers working with 0 benefits with no opportunity to grow in the company

Advice to Senior Management

take some advice from Howard Schultz owner of Starbucks

Pros

They pay you a little bit over minimum wage, they care about customer service, and treat their employees pretty well.

Cons

Feels limited - not a whole a lot of room to move up.

Advice to Senior Management

They are doing well.

Pros

Working outside in a beautiful environment is the best reason. It really feels good to work in the fresh air and amongst the plant life. You also get some exercise in the nursery. Also, not stuck behind a desk all day. Dealing with people on an everyday business in a social environment is also very enjoyable. There are many return customers so there are some nice relationships that can develop there. Overall, the other employees are nice people who do have good intentions, although there are spats between employees once in a while, but I believe that occurs within companies everywhere.

Cons

Dealing with retail customers can be a painful experience. Also, does not pay great, and the need to work weekends.

Advice to Senior Management

I noticed many of the employees who had worked at the nursery had animosity towards the management. Overall, the longer the employee had been there the more it seemed they complained. That is one reason I didn't want to stick around.