W.W. Grainger Employee Review

Former Employee – worked at W.W. Grainger

Pros – Grainger is an old company with a lot of money. They can pay people well and they do. Great benefits. That's about it. Good place for a new college graduate because you need years to work your way anywhere in the company.

Cons – The sales dept. is one big lottery. Even though a commission system is in place, you can't really effect your accounts much and are at the mercy of what you are given. This goes for the managers as well. Some are good people, most are pretty incompetent. Opportunity for advancement is pretty poor unless you know someone higher up or really enjoy kissing butt for years on end. There are a lot of people spending the majority of their time justifying their jobs rather than doing anything productive as there are a ton of jobs at Grainger that simply don't need to exist. They really over-complicate their business and that leads to a lot of catch-22's, micromanaging, and corporate red tape. They don't value quality people, they value people that play the corporate game. This is why if you don't get lucky with your accounts or your manager, you can end up being really miserable at Grainger when overall it's a good company in terms of the financials.

Advice to Senior Management – Make the sales positions salaried and cut out a lot of the red tape ie. admin work that sales people need to do. Judge your people on how smart they are and how they can best benefit the company, not because they killed their numbers based on pure luck. You lose so many talented people because of this.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend