Dollar General Reviews

Pros

Financially solid company
Continuing to improve
CEO is leading in right direction for share holders
Over 9000 locations nation wide

Cons

6 day weeks for all managers
Poor salary under 35,000 yearly
Opportunities for advancement limited
Some processes are outdated

Advice to Senior Management

I can't figure out why a company who says they are all about emp advancement has no tuition reimbursement program or training programs in place to further their employees development.

Pros

The sense of community, opportunity for advancement, respectable work place, cleanliness, great coworkers, willingness to work with you, its great

Cons

the occasional rude customer that comes in, sometimes company policy gets in the way of getting what needs to be done done

Advice to Senior Management

Give more praise to your employees praise is always a good thing, don't hire people who you know it never works out

Pros

as a cashier/ stock thrower the work isn't really difficult
If you get the right people working with you, as I mostly have, it can be fun and fulfilling

Cons

Not much monetary incentive to rise to higher position.
Esp at keyholder/ assistant manager level, a lot of work required for the amount of money you're getting paid.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't expect so much from minimum wage employees. Be realistic about the amount of hours you give a store to get done the amount of work you want done, or don't complain that its not done.

Pros

Dollar General is a very structured company for which to work. Pretty much everything they expect is spelled out in laymans terms and is very black and white with no gray areas.

Cons

They are pretty demanding in their schedules and the lack of payroll that you are presented with at the store level. They will ask that you cut hours from your schedule if another store or district blows their budget so that the company itself can make its budget. This places a heavy burden on the management because we are left with all the tasks to complete.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice would be to cut out the regional directors and halve the number of district managers. This would free up the funds to allow the stores to hire additional staff to meet customer demands. By doing this you will not have the need to continuosly cleanup stores with district or regional teams because it will be easier and more timely to complete the tasks.

Pros

The business is creating lots of growth, which means work stability and job opportunities. Great team! I have found that the managers try to do the right things and truly live the mission of "Serving Others".

Cons

Like everywhere, you wish there were more resources but everyone has that issue. Every organizatio has its own challenges but what is great about this company is that you see people constnatly working on overcomoing those issues.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep making the decisions that continue to help our growth, which means more opportunities for everyone. Continue to recognize performance and communicate what's going on in the company. Everyone seems to benefit when information makes its way throughout the company.

Pros

Growth, opportunities, stability of the operations side of the company.

Cons

DG has been slow to embrace technology.

Advice to Senior Management

Seek the Store Managers feedback.

Pros

Friendy customers, great employees, at least at my store.

Cons

This is a company with the motto of "serving others". They only serve themselves and their shareholders. Loyalty to their employees is sorely lacking. But they expect unconditional loyalty to them. I understand that a company has to have rules an regulations to follow, however they need to put a little more faith and trust in us.

Now let's talk about the payroll hours they give you and expect everything to get done. Next to impossible. Hours alone in the mornings because you don't have enough payroll to have someonelse there with you. So not only is that unsafe, you can't get anythingelse done, unless it's right at the front of the store, cause you can't leave the front of the store unattended. I don't care, low volume- high volume, the general tasks in the store are the same for all and a store with 116 hours is supposed to look just as good as a store with 200 hours. Unless you have a team ( like I did) that gives a darn if things get done, they won't get done. Expectations alot of the time are just unrealistic. Again, I seemed to pull off the impossible all the time because I ran a store in a way that appreciated its employees and we were an awesome team. Too bad corporate doesn't take any of that in to account when you actually act human and make a mistake.

A month ago I was proud to work for this company. Now I am glad that I don't. It opened my eyes to how little they value the efforts of their employees. You have to be superhuman to survive this company because corporate has no tolerance for those of us who are human and make a mistake, even just 1. All I can say is...Watch your back.

Advice to Senior Management

While I had a great DM and RM, I take issue with others who judge us at store level. When something goes wrong, and a mistake is made, instead of taking it on a case by case basis, they lump us all into one category. That is not only unfair to the employees, DG is also losing some very valuable employees. We are not all the same ( and we are human, we make mistakes ) and should be judged on our own merits. My DM and RM were awesome and stood up for me when the chips were down, but even their opinions don't seem to matter too much to the corporate machine. Corporate needs to open its ears and eyes and really understand the realities of running a store on a day to day basis because most of the time, I don't believe they have a clue.

Pros

Some of the customers are the reason why I like my job. My team members, we have a good relationship. As for anything else, I have nothing else, that I like.

Cons

Unrealistic goals. Treated like slaves, DMS stressed out by corporate, profits going up, yet, the employees never see any of it. Bonuses,that is a joke, they make the goals unachievable. Store managers working 65 to 80 hours a week. No work and life balance, going home and feeling like a zombie. Never seeing our families because of the workload that is brought upon us by the Dollar General. Cannot keep help because the only pay minimum wage, being in our stores 4 to 5 hours by ourselves because of no payroll. Stores having mad dashes to get them cleaned up for corporate visits, pulling people out of other stores and having that store shorthanded beacuase they are giving people to clean up somebody elves. Meanwhile, they see a perfect store, not a real one. I could go on and on.

Advice to Senior Management

Work in our stores for a month and realize what the working people go through everyday beacuase of your greed!

Pros

You get paid every week, great co-workers, mostly friendly customers.

Cons

You have to kiss ass to get anything accomplished the right way, managers will lie on their employees to get them fired if they think that their job is in jeapordy, and upper management will not listen to anything that you have to say if the manger gets to them first on any situation.

Advice to Senior Management

Value your good employees and let them know that they are appreciated and dont treat them like they are garbage, if you want your turnover rate to stop being so high listen to the low man on the totem pole you might learn something.

Pros

- Few hours given out, which might be a good thing for a college or high school student.
- Simple, simple job. Not really asked to do a whole lot.
- Managers, including the head manager, at my store were mostly humane.
- As flexible as possible with scheduling (which turns to be not all that flexible, unfortunately)
- LOTS of loyal customers, so you'll get to know them. This is sometimes nice.

Cons

- The company is suspicious of everyone, all the time. Now, aside from the fact that it's a bit demeaning to you as an employee to have the manager examine the contents of your lunchbox every time you leave the store (company policy), this suspicion causes a huge amount of frustration. As an associate, you cannot do voids, aborts, returns, you name it, which means you're always waiting around on a manager to come do something before you can continue checking customers out.
     We at our store did not even have such luxuries as a quantity key because the cashiers had been "abusing it." So suppose an old lady comes in with 50 pixie sticks to give to the local children on Halloween, each individually wrapped with those impossible-to-scan UPCs. Guess who's scanning fifty pixie sticks?

- There are only 2, three absolute maximum, employees ever in the store. This is frustrating for one thing because you start to feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway: you never see anybody else in the store, and you'll find yourself talking to the jar of olives, and naming various items in the store. But again, there are more practical considerations. With only 2 people in the store, you the cashier are left completely in charge when the manager goes on break. Now suppose the manager leaves the store on break, and is held up for a while. Then suppose you've just finished scanning a cart-load of groceries when the lady decides she doesn't want an item. What do you do? Void the item? Can't do it: requires a manager key. Suspend the order, apologize, and scan the other customers? Can't do it: no suspend function. Switch over to the second register? Can't do it: you're only allowed to work one register - working both, you're probably engaged in some kind of fraud scheme, you thief. Wave your hands furiously, apologizing profusely, and wait for the manager to come stick a key in the register, all to a chorus of tapping feet and throats stridently being cleared? CAN DO! Have a good time.

- There are only 6-8 employees in the entire store, head manager included. This means that scheduling is not as flexible as it could be. If one of your coworkers calls out, guess who's getting a phone call? That's right. I once received 5 desperate phone calls one morning I'd been off because another guy called out. I went in.

- You're supposed to ask every customer to donate to the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Not really a big deal, I guess, but some managers get pretty aggressive about it: counting out the donations after every shift so they know exactly how much you personally hauled in, etc.

- The company gives out almost no hours. Full time employees can count on 20-some hours a week.

- Stingy company, will take weeks to fix problems such as broken air conditioners. If the air conditioner at Publix malfunctioned, it would be fixed the same day. Not so at Dollar General, where apparently air conditioning is a minor issue. Also, don't expect any nice equipment: everything in the store has been there since the day it opened. Count on your register being less apt to handle a steady flow of customers than a Gameboy.

- Dollar General seems to attract a certain, kooky stripe of people... You have been warned...

Advice to Senior Management

Lay of all the shrink nonsense and actually let employees do their job. Consider spending just a teeny weeny bit of money on the stores every now and then also.