Best Buy Reviews in Kansas City, MO Area

Pros

The employee discount is incredible for accessory items (not core items, sorry) and compared to other retailers it is actually a decent place to work.

Cons

It all depends on your direct supervisor, I got lucky and mine was an intelligent, flexible, and fair individual, however he was the exception, because upper management wasn't any of those things. Most supervisors expected 100% availability and made 0 promises about hours.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop promoting top sales people to be managers, or if you do, send them to a management school, because individual sales and leadership are not the same thing at all.

Pros

It is one of the best companies. It will let you move as you choose. If you want to make yourself very involved, they will give you that opportunity. Great way to meet customers and get to know where they come from and take care of all of their needs.

Cons

Can be stressfull during holiday seasons. Otherwise it is a very good work environment, and really is good as long as everyone can keep their moods in check.

Advice to Senior Management

I would say to keep it a little more structured around those who need it, and not around those who have proven that even without you watching, they will get the job done.

Pros

Great employee discount. Staff was moslty younger and fun to work with. Managers worked with your schedule while I was in college.

Cons

Holidays were tough but that is common in any retail environemnt. Working with the general public. Not any huge negatives about the work environemnt. Pay is low but dont forget the discounts.

Advice to Senior Management

Try and introduce employees to other departments. Make your employees more versatile. Give more growth opportunities to employees who want to learn more.

Pros

The employees you work with are for the most part, really nice and helpful. You usually make friends with many of the employees you work with.

Cons

You get little recognition of sales accomplishments you achieve. The saturday morning meetings are really boring, and when it becomes holiday time, you have a meeting every saturday morning.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more recognition to employee accomplishments. Improve the efficiency of the morning meets, a lot of time is wasted on unneeded things.

Pros

Great place to work part-time or full-time if your young. Management is pretty open to ideas and willing to work out most problems with you.

Cons

Policies can get in the way sometimes like requesting time off during the holiday times even if you have family matters you need to attend to. This is my biggest disappointment that at holiday time periods they care more about money than family.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more open to staff's request.

Pros

Easy to get promoted if you work hard and take on responsibility.
But really it is the people...plain and simple. What other job lets you make a living by helping customers, employees, and yourself? You get plenty of opportunities to create relationships with customers and employees. Every day I work, my only goal is to help people. The more employees I help(train, coach, etc) the more profit we make. The more customers I help, the more profit we make. Both in turn get me a bonus as a supervisor. The happier my customers and employees are the lower my turnover and the higher my profits.

Figure out how to do that and you will move up the best buy chain VERY fast.

Cons

Dealing with management in the store. Depends on the store but some managers are just incompetent and are promoted based on personal performance not team performance. If everyone hates you in your dept but you perform well you get promoted...no matter your turnover.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees. They know WAY more than you think. All you have to do is make them care about the company.

Pros

Good bonus incentives. Reduced prices on store merchandise

Cons

Required meetings earlier on Saturday mornings. Shrink targets are unrealistic at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Full staff meetings at 7AM on Saturdays does not add value to your organization.

Pros

Flexible hours, good work environment, great discount, everyone is about the same age so you have a chance to build friendships with your fellow employees. Easy communication between the managers and the employees. A lot of team building activities that allow you to interact with all the employees and no just your own section. Good place to work for summer jobs and part time to keep the discount. Advance is pretty quick and as long as you work hard you can move up pretty quick with the company.

Cons

Shifts can be odd times during the day, hours can be cut dramatically depending on budget of section.

Advice to Senior Management

Open up more full time positions with the company. More positions at the corporate level.

Pros

Recognition is great at Best Buy but it sometimes seems to be an excuse to pay employees lower but give recognition. If you want to change something normally there are people who will listen to you and try to change things within reason.

Cons

There is very little training and it takes a long time to learn what is expected of you other than making budget or learning by mistakes. Some of the supervisors and managers seem to try and find reasons to fire people that they don't get along with and let them know they are replaceable.

Advice to Senior Management

Some of the Senior Management are very good and actually seem to care about their employees but others seem like a broken record saying the same thing all day. Blue shirts talk to each other even for a very short time and over the walkies they are all over you trying to break it up. Sometimes it is a problem but you can't expect people to work together and not talk with each other at least for short amounts of time throughout the day.

Pros

5% Overcost Employee Discount, Great Accommodations from partners like Apple, Bose, Shure, and ATI to name a few, Management is very practical and flexible, time and labor management (like days off) are a lot easier to deal with, meetings are short, sweet, and to the point, and you get properly and effectively trained.

Cons

They keep a close watch on your sales, are hesitant when you ask for a non-lunch break, push branded payments a bit, supervisors can be real idiots, and closing duties can take up to two hours after the store has closed.

Advice to Senior Management

Continually maintain one-on-ones with your employees, continue to be flexible, and make sure to take the opinions or feedback of employee's over corporate BS