Best Buy Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

Great opportunity to work with people!

Cons

Very strange working hours (nights and weekends)

Advice to Senior Management

Keep on track!

Pros

ROWE! Not sure if it is still being used but when I was there they were using a Results Oriented Work Environment. It didn't matter when you were at work as long as the yob tou were hired to perform was getting done. If it takes me 6 hours to do my job and you take 8, why should I have to sit in my chair 2 hours longer. You can also get your work done at home and not even have to come in every day which was great because the commute to Richfield can be a nightmare.

Cons

Too many meetings, not enough "desk time" to do the work that needed to get done. Many days I would have a total of 60-90 minutes at my desk all day. The rest of the time I was at a meeting for one committee or another. VERY young workforce in some areas made it difficult to be the one that had to go home for a sick child.

Advice to Senior Management

Too many meetings and not enough time to get the core work done.

Pros

Employee discount (cost +5% after 30 days of employment), growth opportunities (exceptional employees can be promoted to supervisor within 2 weeks but is a rare instance), get paid for excellent ideas on how to improve the company (ideas voted the best and implemented in the company get paid $100,000)

Cons

Retail environment, Retail schedule, Black Friday

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in quality employees versus mediocre employees

Pros

The environment fosters great ideas and wonderful collaboration. Many of the people working here are leaders in their professions and it shows. It's a place where talent and strenghts are recognized and encouraged and I would heartily recommend it as a place to come for long-term employement. The family friendly workload is offset by a really fast paced work environment that gets a lot done in a short period of time. You will have impact on a national, if not worldwide scale and your work will impact thousands of people, not only employees, but customers of all types. If you can put up with the pace and youthful atmosphere, it's a great place.

Cons

As with any large company, many of the health, wellness, and wealth benefits are at best, average. There is nothing special about the benefits, witht the exception of the Results Oriented Work Environment concept, which is exceptional. While the pace is one of the best reasons to work for Best Buy, it also has a downside in that it fosters sometimes sloppy or poorly documented SOP and lends projects a aura of the 'flavor of the month' with little credibilty. And working witht he outsourced IT and HR departments is always a challenge, that is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to overcome.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep on promoting based on the talents and strenghs of individuals.

Pros

The atmosphere at Best Buy HQ was awesome. My direct managers were very respectful, helpful, and willing to listen to suggestions for improvements. Best Buy likes to include its employees as to what is going on (at least in my department) in terms of strategies and changes in policies.

Cons

A downside of Best Buy was some of the management. While they were respectful, and great people, I'm not sure why some of their positions even existed. For example I had a manager that basically used a spreadsheet template and reported our SLA 1-2 times per day. That's pretty much all she did. Best Buy also promotes working remotely, which isn't necessarily bad, but seeing managers in the office for only 3-4 hours per day and online for maybe 1-2 hours at most makes me wonder why they're being paid salary for a 40 hour week.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure your subordinate managers know how the business works. I often had to answer very basic questions that a couple of my managers didn't know/remember.

Pros

Results Only Work Environment allows you to work where ever and when ever you want as long as you deliver results. Every employee gets a laptop. Good cafe on site. Campus has a bank, dry cleaner, video games, pool tables and a theater that you can use to watch movies. The company knows it needs to change to survive in this industry. 401K match is 4% is given right away - no vesting period. Medical benefits and options are very strong. Lots of opportunities to have an impact on the business and to get a seat at the table depending on your role.

Cons

Like most retailers, they underpay compared to other industries. Performance reviews put you into a box and becomes difficult to move once you are in a box - hence first impressions are super important. Cost cutting has resulted in downsizing and now nobody has much job security. We have watched our main competitors die but have not really come up with a killer value prop that would allow us to survive in the long term. So much focus on stock price and growth that sometimes we run just to be running. Ready, shoot, aim mentality prevails as well as old boy's clubs.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire some more people from outside the retail box. Get some new thinking in there.

Pros

The ROWE working environment is very cool in that it gives you freedom to work wherever as long as the work gets done. You make your job what it is...that is to say you have some latitude to do great things.

Cons

Like any company, some of the management styles of leadership is lacking. They seem to go with the "flavor of the day" and lose interest in company-wide initiatives after a while. There are some middle managers that should never be given the right to manage people.

Advice to Senior Management

I think Senior leadership should truly review their current middle managers and make sure they are capable of leading their teams.

Pros

Employee Discount, Great People to Work With

Cons

The hours, having to close.

Advice to Senior Management

Humility goes a long way

Pros

discount, knowledge other employees have

Cons

some hours are goofy and long

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

Best Buy is company willing to take chances and use innovation from the ground up to improve things.

Cons

Hours and the divide between corporate and retail.

Advice to Senior Management

Realize it's not brain surgery, we sell electronics.