Costco Wholesale Reviews in Issaquah, WA

Pros

Great people, good pay, awesome benefits!

Cons

The Costco team is great, but the members aren't. If you can't handle people, it's not for you.

Advice to Senior Management

Costco has an open door policy. You can go to any manager at any time. They're understanding and helpful.

Pros

Great benefits and predictable pay structure. Enthusiasm is contagious within Costco Wholesale, although can be its hubris. Overall a very supportive and encouraging environment worldwide.

Cons

Predictable pay structure, pay is based on time spent with the company rather than ability and performance. Rather common for employees to remain in a position with regardless of productivity.

Advice to Senior Management

Costco Wholesale was a great company to work for, and I would recommend working for the company to anyone looking to build a resume or fill executive level positions. Otherwise, I would remain at the warehouse level. As a full-time student and hard working employee I found it incredibly frustrating to work very hard and efficiently only to be looked over for an employee who performed to a lesser extent but was with the company for a longer period of time. I learned a great deal from Costco Wholesale, but lost a lot of faith in the company in seeing how promotions were handled, this coming from an employee who started as a stocker and worked my up to forklift operator, supervisor, and later to the corporate headquarters. I thoroughly enjoyed my time within the company.

Pros

Great pay if you're just starting in the company.
Great team atmosphere.
Not too stressful of a work environment.
The immediate management is very competent and willing to help build you up.
Excellent adherence to company Mission Statement.

Cons

No connection with upper management.
Not very many promotable positions for the size of the company.
Asked to perform with much responsibility and not always adequate compensation.

Advice to Senior Management

While the company as a whole continues to grow in a very positive fashion, if management took more time to get to know the people that make them look good will only have a better impact on moral. Even just saying hello and saying our names that are on our cubicles or name tags is so very important to most of us.

Pros

- Great benefits
- Extensive training available
- Get to meet great people, many opportunities to network and out-of-office activities

Cons

- Work was repetitive and somewhat boring
- It takes a while to "move up" because it seems like positions are based on seniority and time spent with the company

Advice to Senior Management

Management is great although from my personal experience, they don't interact much with new hires. Much of the training is usually done by the newest associates which is good because I'm sure management has more important things to worry about, but more performance feedback directly from management would be greatly appreciated.

Pros

Easy Job
Not difficult to look good, you'll be smarter than most people
Once you've worked here for a year or two, it's impossible to get fired

Cons

Once you've worked here a year or two, it's impossible to get fired. Lots of worthless people.
Hard to move up in this job. You have to play the corporate game and be buddies with everyone.
Lots of really dumb people in important positions. Costco is very inbred.

Advice to Senior Management

There are so many children of upper management working here in positions way above their head, and with leadership so unwilling to accept criticism, there is no hope. I'd be wasting my time.

Pros

You literally would have to kill someone to get let go. The organization is very stable, product is high quality. HQ is a fairly nice campus with decent cafeterias.

Cons

So many folks are simply retired in place, completely incompetent at doing even what is in their job descriptions. And yes, promotions go to these people. Annual raises are fixed at under %5. No bonuses. There are excessive "silos" and odd political factions.

Advice to Senior Management

You should really value skill more than seniority, especially in IT. I know it sounds wonderful for an organization to promote someone who was pushing carts one day to running critical systems the next. But unless this person must overcome all of the hurdles and advance their knowledge just as much as any candidate off the street has, then you are going to continue to experience these abnormally high levels of downtime as your IS division will remain incompetent.

Pros

Costco offers job security, good benefits, and a casual work environment. Once you are an employee for over a year, you either have to steal or harass someone to be fired.

Cons

If you want to work at corporate, you must spend at least 90 days at a warehouse. Additionally education is not an emphasis in the company. Many times, someone less qualified technically will be promoted because he/she has been an employee longer.

Advice to Senior Management

Costco needs to start exploring more options in flex time and telecommuting. Currently the workplace is run very traditionally. It sometimes feels as if the company is not up with "the times".

Pros

Family oriented company, Clean and Safe place to work, decent 401K compensation, Free Executive Costco Membership, Flexible schedule (for salaried IT staff), 80+ percent promotions from within company, tons of opportunities to volunteer in the community and misc company wide initiatives, charitable company, very easy for go-getters to excel, vanpooling, open door communication and reporting policy, mentoring opportunities, management cares about me personally, high employee retention (avg is 8+ years)

Cons

A lot of nepatism, low cost operation = slow to react to new ideas and projects, long term knowledgable employees may suffer from meeting overload

Advice to Senior Management

Just because a process works, it doesnt mean that we should continue doing things the way we always have.

Pros

Good pay for the industry, job opportunities and benefits. Members of the board of directors seem to know the business inside out and actually shop in the store. Jim seems to really care about the company and the people who work for him.
Hopefully, whoever takes over when he leaves will have a similar point of view and work ethic or the company will likely go the way of Walmart and the rest,...The way the company works now I'm genuinely proud of what our stores do for the communities in which they operate, in that they create good jobs for the people who work in the stores and also support the smaller businesses who purchase their stores supplies and merchandise from us. Whereas a company like Walmart tends do neither and generally sucks the life out of its community.

Job opportunities are generally way above average at least in the Seattle area because the corporate headquarters are nearby in Issaquah. For example my sister's husband started working for Costco in 1998 and went from a job paying $8 bucks an hour to a much higher paying job working in the companies IT department after only working there for less than a year.

Also I feel it is a great place to work while going to college: the company is very flexible place to work those who need unusual schedules for school and they actually pay enough that you can afford to go school and not have to work so many hours that your grades suffer.

Cons

Hard to leave the "Costco culture" and work stress behind. The company is very competitive internally both between employees and other warehouses, and at times this works against the companies goals because it encourages to much emphasis on raw numbers which does not tell the real story since the numbers can and are manipulated by employees and management to suit "their goals". Furthermore, If you decide to advance into a supervisor or management position--the company expects you to sign your life away.

Warehouse level managers and supervisors have a tremendous amount of power in making your work life a pleasure or a living hell. But the companies open door policy works well if you have an issue that you are not confronting your management with. In general I love our members, but there are of course the exceptions who think they own you and the company because they paid $50 bucks for a membership card.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to listen to the people you work with.

Pros

Costco values employees more than any other company I've worked for. Integrity is given highest priority in all dealings throughout Costco, which gives one a peace not possible elsewhere. The company is also dedicated to promoting from within, which shows strong loyalty to its employees.

Cons

Technology wise the company is slow moving, although I imagine this is true of any company of this size.

Advice to Senior Management

They are doing a great job.