Fastenal Reviews

Pros

I would say that the best reason to work at Fastenal would be growth potential.
Training.
Leadership Qualities.
Business Opportunities and Contacts.

Cons

The salary is the most objective point of view. You pay for what you get.

Advice to Senior Management

You pay for what you get, if you want your sales team to perform. Pay them a decent base salary, the commission of sales on top of all of that, and then show them you care. Remember, employees make an organization, not the other way around.

Pros

Experience, training, and benefits are all great. The major medical insurance was pretty good overall. When I worked there I thought I had bad insurance but little did I know it's actually really good. You gain a huge amount of experience in your time here.

Cons

Really the biggest cons were the pay and the work/life balance. In order to be successful here you need to dedicate a significant amount of time (55-65 hours a week) and not really get pid for it unless your store is really big, which they want but ultimately will split stores when they get really big and busy. But in order to get big you need to put in huge hourseach and every week. If you're single, go for it, you can be rewarded if your store grows. But if you have any turnover, and you will, then you're back to square on.

Advice to Senior Management

A financial commitment to your employees is desperately needed. We're not all in Winona, cost of living is high and we work hard so we can support our families. Give them money and you will be rewarded with less turnover and your best employees will stay with the company. You already pay the DMs over double what you pay a manager, you have room to move. A manager making only 600 more a month than the OSP is not good business.

Pros

You learn to work under pressure. If you are capable of finding and building the relationships, the job can be simple. But it requires a lot of time.

Cons

- Poor Bottom Up communication. The higher ups do not like to listen to those below.
- Read the other reviews. They really cover it well.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees. Do not congratulate employees on their hard work and commitment with a Christmas box of candy or a towel. Especially after bragging about the record profits year over year for the last 3 years.

Pros

there is money to be made if you have the sales and competent people working in the branch. good product selection to sell

Cons

wont pay support people enough to keep them around. If you have a good idea, DM takes the credit, lack of ability to think outside the box

Pros

If you had worked there long enough, you had some decent time off built up.
Most of the customers are good people to deal with as well as just talk to .
Large variety of items to sell.

Cons

bad ethics: too many to count.
never a good comment given when goals were reached.
Pricing always high unless a large account was specially priced for.
Look good on paper for investors only because their acquired companies are growing (Holokrome)

Advice to Senior Management

Please start hiring competent managers and district managers.
Company needs to find a specific direction and sales plan for growth. Right now they are only growing off their aquired companies/ businesses to look good to investors.

Pros

- Knowledge given through training via intranet is great
- Start Salary is good is you have a small family or single
- Promotions are given upon you demonstrate your ability in you Scorecard

Cons

- Same salary as you start with
- Ask too much (50+ hours weekly, huge goals for a small area) of for given too little (salary, commisions)
- You are on your own. Must be VERY proactive and SELF-motivating.

Advice to Senior Management

- Local Warehouse/HUBS
- Less "stores" to have bigger service areas
- Able to work from home; less expenses

Pros

Excellent place to observe what great customer service is all about.
Nice co-workers and store manager.
Good first job for someone wanting to join a company early in their career and get on-the-job training.
Very straight-forward processes in areas like computer systems and store layout.
Appreciate management understanding of learning curve.

Cons

Near minimum wage.
Cheap.
If learning how to identify thousands of industrial parts and getting dirty is not your thing, this is not the job for you.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve your online training. It's not very intuitive and clumsy to move through. Pay better if you want to attract and retain better talent over the long haul.

Pros

You can move up very quickly if you know what your doing.

Cons

Goals were way out of control but expected(shoot for the stars if you miss you still reach the moon).
Once a branch manager your stuck their, no raises just smaller commission unless you lans huge accounts.

Advice to Senior Management

Better pay and better support. "Walk the Talk"

Pros

Good job, fun working atmosphere, overall Fastenal is a good company to work for if your just looking to get a paycheck

Cons

It is difficult to learn about the products if you have never been around construction before, the hours are long and boring, and advancement is tough

Advice to Senior Management

The stores need better organization, there needs to be more hands on training, they just throw you out to the wolves when you start.

Pros

Good place to start when out of school but unprofessional management ruins any interest or opportunity for advancement past the branch manager position.

Cons

It is a gong show, the turnover is incredibly high, no loyalty to employees, district managers have no relevant education, or no formal education at all.

Advice to Senior Management

Time to develop some HR practices such as hiring competent people, promoting people who deserve it instead of whoever is on the radar screen at the time.