Duckwall-ALCO Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Duckwall-ALCO full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Good group of peers to work with

Cons – Very stressful and lack of communication

Advice to Senior Management – Communicate more with employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Duckwall-ALCO full-time for more than a year

Pros – It is a job with no bonus, poor benefits and executive team that does not care about you as a person.

Cons – Too many hours, too much work with not enough payroll to staff the stores and keep shrink low as they expect.

Advice to Senior Management – Take care of your people as they take care of you.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Duckwall-ALCO

Pros – work well with small teams

Cons – lack of hours at the store

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Duckwall-ALCO full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Unless you get in with a great group of people to work with, its has no pros

Cons – Majority of people that have been there too many years are rude, burnt out and have NO NEW IDEAS. Esp. advertisng dept. The stress is a killer, workload is unreasonable and its workforce is a bunch of clicky immature oldsters. Much discrimination and social bullying if NEW ideas are presented - plus as for the store merch... don't carry a good selection of items or price points , very limited and poor execution of displaying store merch. Just no communication between all levels.
Don't forsee this company staying business alot longer.

Advice to Senior Management – Need to change everything..... its all old news.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Duckwall-ALCO full-time

Pros – The job itself is fun and challenging. You are allowed a great deal of creativity. I have several great people to work with.

Cons – The workload is unbelievable. To make things worse upper level management does not have a clue as to what it takes to get the job done. There are several nice people to work with however the majority are back stabbing witches.

Advice to Senior Management – Sit at your buyers desk for a day and it would open your eyes. You are so out of touch with reality. You would not last a day! It would also be helpful to treat people with respect and value their opinions.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Duckwall-ALCO full-time for more than a year

Pros – you get paid, immediate coworkers are good people.

Cons – pay is little, hours are inconsistent and few, store managers are underpaid and usually unable to complete their job duties. Policies and procedures seem to change as the wind blows.

Advice to Senior Management – establish set policies and procedures, hold all employees accountable for their presonal actions.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Duckwall-ALCO

Pros – Easy to retain the job. You dont need experience to get this job for thoses who have never worked in retail.

Cons – ay is very low, along with slow advancement. Most people that work in these stores stay around for several years.

Advice to Senior Management – Most stores are located in small population areas where good personell are hard to find. Alco should offer more in the way of compensation to employees, and offer employment advancement opportunities

Current Employee – been working at Duckwall-ALCO

Pros – Good for job experiance , depends on what dept you work in has a family feel to it.

Cons – pay is not very good, what was good we now pay for , at one time they paid the medical insurance but your base pay was lower that the industry , now you pay most of the medical yourself.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Duckwall-ALCO

Pros – Very challenging work environment. Stores are very nicely laid out. Have a good selection and good prices. Teamwork is necessary and accomplishments are enjoyed at store level. Became very familiar with most of customer base; due to small town setting stores are located in.

Cons – Upper management not supportive. Basically you are left out there with minimal communication from DM's and RM's visits by executives from corporate headquarters are unconnected and mostly critical. Executive corporate officers tend to make judgements without regard of "TOWN" culture and Employee culture in mind. Since stores are located in such remote locations usually in towns with a little more than 5-9 thousand population. Very difficult to find qualified management or supervisory personnel in such towns. Most stores have up to 5 Group managers. Most of them tend to become glorified cashiers due to the lack of employee base and payroll available for scheduling.

Advice to Senior Management – Executive Management: Do your homework before visiting stores. Not only looking at numbers try to connect with your workforce. Look at how hard your employees at store level are working to make your stores run smoothly they are inexperienced, most of them have never left their town to work in a big box store setting. Provide more training and support to your individual stores.

Former Employee – worked at Duckwall-ALCO

Pros – Decent pay considering you will most likely be in a small remote town where cost of living is low. Bonus program has recently changed where you can get up to 25% of your salary in a yearly bonus based on hitting target inventory shrink% otherwise you get nothing. People in a small town are nicer to deal with than a big city for they are really laid back for the most part.

Cons – Your training period is stated as being 30-60 days. The training outline is actually not bad and there is no reason why one would not be ready in 30 days but the problem is the store will use you as extra help with your training coming secondary or when there is time. There is a lot of pressure on the store managers just like anywhere else with minimal staffing and high expectations so there is no incentive for the training store manager to get the trainee ready right away as they would lose the extra "free" help they have. I say free help as the salary for the trainee is not part of the store's payroll so it is very tempting and hard for the store managers not to abuse the trainee. So the original plan of putting your life on hold for 30 to 60 days of training can easily stretch out to more. Be aware that any money given to you to cover expenses during training as well as when you get assigned to your store has to be paid back if you do not finish one year of employment. If you are training for 2 or 3 months and decide it is not for you before a year is up you have to pay back your expenses for training and relocation which could easily be a few thousand dollars. Not to mention you will be stuck in a small town where most likely will not have any other decent paying jobs and you will have to foot the bill for moving elsewhere or back home. It is very challenging to run an ALCO to expectations as all your employees are part timers making minimum wage. You have maybe three assistant managers that are hourly making $9 an hour so being the only salaried manager in the store you will get stuck working long hours as the company does not allow any overtime no matter what no exceptions.

Advice to Senior Management – Be more involved in the training of your new managers which you have a lot of money invested in. Hold the store manager hosting the training accountable to sticking to the program. Ensuring they know that the trainee is a company asset placed in their hands to develop and get out to the field as soon as possible. That is only one of the reasons among many you are losing managers left and right.