Army and Air Force Exchange Reviews

Pros

Easy job with free food and drinks on nights you work. Chance to meet and work with many different kinds of people.

Cons

No real room for advancement.

Pros

Great bosses, senior management is responsive. But it is the government, and there are some inefficiencies and annoyances in regards to formal procedures.

Cons

people tend to work narrowly within the confines of their job description and rarely look for more efficient/common-sense solutions to issues.

Advice to Senior Management

Perhaps institute a culture of improvement rather than rigidity. That said, this is a military organization, so there must be a balance.

Pros

-Good pay for someone in school, about average pay for an intern (it payed ~13.60/hour)
-Appear to have good benefits, pension, etc. for those who wanted to get hired on as a full-time permanent employee.

Cons

-Management at HQ was looking to snag college grads fairly cheaply.
-Intern program lacked of communication between HQ and local managemnt.
-It seemed as though HQ was trying to attract college students with this intern program but did not follow up. Lac of incentive to stay and get hired on as most regular full-time positions are not suitable (in terms of compensation) for a college graduate.
-Store as a whole is very slow to act on necessary new changes.

Advice to Senior Management

-Improve communication between HQ and local office (especially HR)
-Need restructuring of top-down communication between area supervisor and store manager to ensure that local store issues are being managed properly.

Pros

you can get assigned to work with the troops overseas and be surrounded by heros. Working with third county nationals and learning different cultures is very enlighting.

Cons

In the same light as how cool it is to work for heros the management overseas are the exact opposite, complete morons. They seem to have a "hate the American" that if armed one might wonder if they would shoot them as terriorists try too.

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership is not just a word it should be what managment should live by. How can a company filled with so many former soldiers do business in such a poor fashion?

Pros

Pension and a paycheck with in work transition

Cons

Very LOW pay
Nepotism
Lack of people skills
Performance review needs an overhaul
People need managers not drill Sgts.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of the good 'ole boy political way of thinking. Be fair with people and treat them like people.

Pros

Stable job and the benefits are good.

Cons

Politics suck and if you get on the bad side of it watch out!

Advice to Senior Management

learn more about techncology please.

Pros

Hours are flexible, but weekends and holidays are almost always required. It's easy to get hired.

Cons

Paycheck never reflects the amount of work you did. It doesn't matter if you are an excellent/above average worker or a lazy one..pay is the same and you always start at the bare minimum starting pay. Chances to advance are slim to none. It's a small paycheck that covers a few things until you find something else, which is probably why customer satisfaction is very low.. People usually don't stay long enough to learn about the job or products and management couldn't care less if you stay a week or 5 years.

Advice to Senior Management

Zero..unless you have been there 20 years..

Pros

Great place to work. Great benefits! Team oriented sales.

Cons

part time employment limited to 30 hours for permanent part time positions.

Advice to Senior Management

The advancement is limited for this category of position without relocation to larger facility. It is hard to attract career oriented personnel with the hours per week limit. Also creates alot of job turnover because personnel need 40 hours per week to maintain their lifestyles unless their spouse has a good job. Their is opportunity to try alot of positons within the facility to find the job you enjoy the most through the job posting system of AAFEs.

Pros

Virtually impossible to get fired. Most employees are friendly. There are good benefits available, however with the wages so low they are not worth it. This is an institutional environment and if you thrive in an environment like that then you will do fine here. The long time employees are ones that need structure and someone to tell them what to do. Many managers are they same way, and don't appreciate employees who do have initiative or imagination.

Cons

Some managers are in positions way beyond their abilities. Policies are enforced hit and miss depending on the violator. Wages are, on average, 30%-40% below local wages. Employees are expected to work multiple jobs despite job descriptions that are spelled out clearly (one caveat: listed in every job description is this: "Other related retail duties as assigned". Managers believe this gives them the authority do have anyone do any job, even outside the employees job description.) By their logic a cashier could be assigned to fix the air conditioning or to paint the outside of the building.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop coddling underachieving employees and management. It's an insitutional employer and most of management would have a difficult time anywhere else. The dishonest from management is not appreciated among employees. That, along with the less than stellar wages is why there is such enormous turnover at AAFES.

Pros

Decent benefits, given the job.
Assisting military customers can be very rewarding.
Management is willing to work with your scheduling.

Cons

Pay is sub-par compared to local competition.
No 401K matching
Executive management does not seem to have a firm grasp on the necessities of running a successful business and keeping employee morale positive.

Advice to Senior Management

Take more time to focus on the stores that are struggling instead of highlighting the ones that are excelling. Planned visits from upper management serve no purpose when the store has notice that they are coming. The only thing this accomplishes is forcing the employees to work extra hard to cover up and hide the store's shortcomings to make the store's general manager look good.