Fry's Electronics – “Good private retail company to work for.”

Pros

Great place to work.

Fry's promotes completely from within. The vast majority of the management has been in the lower positions so they know how to advise, counsel, and train employees.

Good compensation, good benefits. Good employee incentives for job performance. Commission based sales force lets you write your own paycheck as a result of hard work. Compensation not only for achievement in sales, but also minimization of loss/shrink, and continuing safe work practices.

Open door management policy leads to available contact with store management. Small number of stores so quicker responsiveness from upper management, also lower turnover of higher store and corporate management means better memory of past successes and opportunities for greater future growth.

Cons

401k system is a little weak. While the benefits are good, they could be a little better, a little light on the paid time off when compared to others in the same industry.

While the management at the store level has the ability to train associates (and the knowledge), there is not really a good corporate level plan for associate training, especially in a some of the less common areas of the products/technologies that Fry's carries. Infrastructure of the company seems a little outdated and the management styles in the higher up corporate management seem a little antiquated.

Fry's is a paranoid company and stays that way to maintain profitability and low prices, but sometimes this causes undue steps that result in less than optimal customer service.

Advice to Senior Management

Put money into your store level systems so you can continue to grow! Put a better inventory tracking/ordering/routing system into place so you can make larger profits!

Please don't ever remove the commission based structure of the sales force. It allows the good salesmen to become great and the poor salesmen to be weeded out to make room for others.

Trust your management to effectively run their stores.