Pros

Schedule is flexible and company gives you freedom to call on accounts that you decide need service. General managers are pretty easy going as long as they see you are doing something.

Cons

Pay is not nearly worth the long work days and stress that comes with the job. Upper management is not connected at all with the people on the ground level out making the company money.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your sales reps and pay them better.

Pros

They will hire and train anybody. Decent work environment. You are given as much responsibility as you want. Friendly and supporting coworkers.

Cons

The compensation is terrible compared to other companies in the industry. Corporate structure is inefficient and wasteful. Senior managers will make negative remarks about you behind your back.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to have a better understanding of who their employees are and respect them as people. Management must care about who works for them.

Pros

I an only reccomend a job at Fastenal if you are interested in the industry and need a decent benfits package. There are NO other pros to working for this company.

Cons

I took this job 3 years ago because they were hiring and I was sold the typical line of BS, which I bought. "Great career advancement potential, company training, benefits, entrepreneurial spirit"..etc. Firstly, let me say that the entire culture of this company is very immature. The trainings are conducted mostly by people who have no experience in the field and are hired as teachers. When I was flown to Winona to attend the Branch Mgr Development progam for a month, we were given a $25.00 coupon card for groceries. WTF? The salary sucks. We rarely have the product on the shelf that the customer needs. You are expected to sell your products at 30-40% over the competition. The managers are usually promoted from within, but there is a lot of politics involved as well. You are expected to help with other store moves, and work overtime without compensation. Management is clueless. They do not want entreprenuers, they want slaves..there is no decision making power. In most other fields, outside sales professionals are respected for their craft and allowed an expense account, and other benefits, but not a Fastenal. They tout that they are a " frugal company". Christmas bonuses consist of a letter from the CEO and a box of candy...seriously. I am a bit disgruntled over the way I was fired, but I have to say that it was the best thing that could have happened. I should have left after my first year, but I had developed good relationships with customers and co-workers.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop ripping off your customers, and your employees and sell this company to a profesional outfit that will turn things around. You are dinosaurs.

Pros

A good place to start. A lot of the people at HQ are very nice.

Also ~~ if you live in Winona, then where else are you gonna work, right?

Cons

The pay is terrible. I have worked with the company several years, and done a good job with one promotion. One would expect that my pay may have increased, but no, since so much of my salary is tied to a bonus I'm down 20% year over year. When you are unhappily making only around $30 K to start with, that hurts. There is no way that people in such a low pay bracket should have so much of their pay at risk (but what am I talking about, there are no pay brackets... you have no idea what anyone else in your type of position might make). Particularly at headquarters where your connection to sales, and therefore a bonus, is minimal at best.

There are no regular employee reviews. I am convinced this is so they do not have to face the prospect of giving someone a raise. I know people that have gone 6 or 7 years (that is not a typo - seven years) without a single raise. All good employees to boot.

It's hilarious to me because Fastenal sells its customers on "service" and how you have to pay to get good service (which is why their prices are so ungodly high, and regularly increase). And then they pay their employees s**t, with no raises/increases, and expect to get top notch performance.

Granted, the recession has made it worse, but come on. Our sales might be down, but we're still turning a profit.

Advice to Senior Management

The only advantage Fastenal has at a corporate level is a monopoly on corporate jobs in the area. Winona is such a small town that you're hard pressed to find another corporate job within driving distance. Plus with three colleges in town, cheap labor is easy to find/replace.

Fastenal's leadership needs to realize that they can't keep screwing people over and expecting it not to bite them in the a**. The only people they hang onto are the ones that are tied to the Winona area for some reason (family, etc) or the ones that are so unemployable they can't get a job anywhere else. All the talent I have known at this company eventually leaves for better pay. I will soon be one of those ranks.

Pros

The dress code is not too strict. If you need a day off getting one is not really that difficult (at corporate at least).

Cons

The benefits are worse than Wal-Mart, which is hard to do. Some departments get bonuses, others get none. There really are no perks what-so-ever. Perks being health club, day care, etc... Also, you do not get Per Diem if you need to travel. Thats right, you pay to go to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Start investing in ALL of your employees because they have a wealth of knowlege. Each person that leaves that company is a threat and can go to an opposing company to work.

Pros

Health benefits are probably good enough that Obamacare will tax them as a "Cadillac Plan"! Fast promotion from Outside Sales to General Manager. Not much other than that.

Cons

10+ Hour Days (no OT) plus weekends sound fine when you start, because you are idealistic and see huge potential for advancement. They get tiresome after a couple of years of banging your head on the same walls over and over. Don't think you have autonomy over your branch - you don't. You have several bosses who micromanage your time and activities each day - not just your district manager, but your regional auditor, regional finance manager, and regional VP as well. Imagine trying to do your most important job (selling), while having to deal with probably 5 emails requiring urgent action each day from all of these bosses. Imagine filling out the same forms over and over again. You eventually stop believing all of the hype about Integrity and Core Values when they require you to raise most of your customers' pricing for the 4th time. Imagine making a handshake agreement with a customer of 10+ years (i.e. one of your branch's first customers) that, as long as your costs don't skyrocket, this will be their pricing for the next 6 months on a commonly-used product "concept" (say fasteners, one where you're making TONS of margin) - then the next week being FORCED to lower their discount because they're spending a 3-month average of $2000 instead of $2500. What do you say to that loyal customer? The people I see that have risen fastest here are those that specifically try to juice their numbers for 18 months so they can make District Manager. My advice? Quit while you're ahead - when you've hit goal for 3-6 months in a row, make the change - start interviewing elsewhere!

Advice to Senior Management

Margin isn't everything! Some markets have a lot more competition than rural Oklahoma...you need to accept lower margins in those areas!

Pros

You work with management to achieve goals together, individual stores are run like small businesses. They will train you and help you get to be a better sales person. It can be rather rewarding to move into a store manager position.

Cons

Depending on location, pay varies greatly and newer pay program is based mostly off sales growth over prior year, harder to do in these times.

Advice to Senior Management

Management positions should be decided on ability to manage not just on sales ability, but it is a sales driven company.

Pros

Benefits and the fact that you only have to deal with middle management maybe once a month. Everything else about this company is a joke!

Cons

Firstly, expect zero respect about your work ethic or intelligence from middle management. Trust me when I say there is no good enough. The pay structure is designed for you to never increase income. If you are on of the few lucky ones who begins getting high commissions, they milk you dry, fire you, then find someone to do your job for half the pay. The continually promise you things then renig on the offer and deny every proposing it in the first place. You will be expected to drive to other stores further way if they decide that's where they want you. Of course they will tell you that you will receive gas reimbursment, but you will not.

As for the job itself, upper management expects unrealistic results, and does not help at all. In fact im not sure what the majority of management even does. The warehouse support is completely unreliable, which makes branch employees time and time again look like idiots. Still, in all those instances we are blamed. They even have an anual super sale where we have a goal to hit, and half the products on there we cannot stock at the store! And a quarter of those aren't stocked at our distribution centers, and they are made over seas so we have no option to bring them in. Honestly, what kind of legitiment business puts out a super sales promotion and come of the items aren't even obtainable!?

I really do not understand how in the world this company became as big as they did. Either things were different years ago, or the excessive penny pinching pays off!

Advice to Senior Management

Discard middle management. This company tries to cut every penny! Instead of recycling the face the customer sees every day, who are low paid workers; make the district management postion obsolete. They serve no purpose other than to reiterate what the regional manager says. Save all that money and pay your branch employees more! Maybe if you have happy workers sales will go up, i dunno call me crazy!

Pros

Flexable scheduling. Kind of your own boss as long as you meet your goals and expectations. Not many nights and weekends.

Cons

Competition is fierce. Pay cuts keep coming. Very closely tied to the economy. If economy is good your pay is good.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't hide paycuts. It's not a new commission calculator, but a pay cut. Cut some middle management fat. What exactly do some district managers do?

Pros

Outside sales is not all commission based so you will get a small paycheck even if you are not able to meet quotas.

Cons

Very small percentage pay on sales volume 2-3%
Fastenal sets up the sales people on small salaries. Once that is done the hours you are asked to work are unlimited.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop changing policies every time you get a new College graduate with a new idea at corporate.
Most policy changes seem to come from people with no practical job experience.