Follett Higher Education Group Reviews

Pros

My manager and above are extremely talented HR professionals

Cons

Too many green associates in HR who feels they are Managers

Advice to Senior Management

Better start being more progressive because when the economy gets better eemployees will look elsewhere.

Pros

Discounts on textbooks and bookstore merchandise serves as a great incentive for student employees. Flexible scheduling around classes. Co-workers are students as well (except for mgt.)

Cons

The biggest con to working for Follett would be the pay. After working an 8 hour shift as a cashier I could have a total value of transactions around 28-30k. This would include cash, credit cards, gift cards, and deferment purchases. Now multiply 8 by $7(that's only $56)... chump change compared to the value of all the items I scanned at my register on a busy day with as many as 6-8 other cashiers.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay your employees more! You're making massive amounts on overpriced textbooks, but paying your employees minimum wage.

Pros

Gives you an opportunity to work on interpersonal skills.
You get to work in a large, growing corporation.

Cons

Salary was too low for the work required.
You feel like you're a small fish in a big pond.
Raises are minimal and benefits are nonexistent.

Advice to Senior Management

Management I directly interacted with was completely fine. I just would like the higher executives to consider the "cons" listed above for cashiers employed within the company.

Pros

It all depends on your manager. Luckily I have a great manager.

Cons

The HR department is like dealing with the DMV.

Pros

Flexible hours for a working student.

Great people in immediate management positions.

Cons

Corporate atmosphere can be stifling.

Pay-raise scale isn't good.

Outdated computers that can barely run company software.

They lack the infrastructure to really move forward in the future of textbooks. There doesn't seem to be a grasp of what customers really need in the implementation of things like e-books and text rentals.

Advice to Senior Management

Get more input from the people directly affected by large decisions before going through with changes.

Pros

- Flexible scheduling if you're in school
- Laid-back coworkers
- Closed at 8pm
- Location. The store was on my college campus

Cons

- Very tedious set-up
- Managers/Assistant Managers play favorites
- Poor overall communication between managers/workers
- No training or general guidelines to follow. You have to figure it out on your own

Advice to Senior Management

Offer some sort of introductory training to new employees. I stocked textbooks and other things and always got yelled at for not having things up to "company standards". If you want something done a certain way, please inform your employees of it. Everyday of work was like a guessing game. Standards and expectations never stayed consistent and it was frustrating.

Pros

If you have a good regional or VP who worked his or her way up through the stores, you will have a great work experience.

Cons

If you have a store manager, regional manager or group VP hired from outside the bookstore industry, forget it. Too many mid-level to high level managers have no clue what the workload is like. Too many people at the home office never worked in a store. Home office comes up with brilliant ideas and edicts to carry out in the stores, but don't allow you the payroll hours to get the job done.

They talk a big game about values, but don't follow through. Work/life balance is a buzzword only. Forget about it.

Once you are hired, you pay range is stuck. They will not give you more than a 3 percent pay increase per YEAR. The only way to get a 5 percent increase is to change locations - and that means relocating out of your current community. There is a huge difference between working in a community college store and a university store, but policies do NOT account for this. Pay ranges do not account for this. There is no compensation for expereince or a well-done job.

Buying decisions are in the hands of the home office - when attempting to satisfy the needs of the campus, you will be thwarted because you are only allowed to carry x number of budgeted dollar value of books and clothes... forget about trying to increase sales, because you can't carry more. And too often, you are forced to carry x number of something that will probably not sell, meaning your inventory dollars are tied up uselessly and things that DO sell, sell out, and you lose sales because people go elsewhere when you're out of stock.

The bonus structure is impossible. If you're in a lucky location, you can max out. If you're in a tricky location, you get squat. And you don't know what kind of situation you are in until you are hired and you find out you've gotten squat. Also, you can leave mid-year to move to another job, and your successor can flush your bonus down the drain by not understanding what things you need to do to max out the bonus. Sometimes, you have to choose to work for the bonus rather than for the customers. If you carry enough product to make the customers happy, you will have too many returns and destroy your bonus.

Advice to Senior Management

Increase your bandwidth. I waste all kinds of time using windows XP to run poorly designed software through narrow bandwidth to try to get things done. Find people in the field who aren't afraid to NOT suck up to the VPs at the home office and tell the truth about your initiatives instead of getting rid of those people. People at the home office MUST come from the stores or they just don't get it. You people have NO IDEA what it's like to work one text cycle in the field carrying out your ridiculous edicts using this outdated technology and these poorly designed, clunky, diverse and patchworked proprietary pieces of software... without real training, and without enough personnel to take care of daily tasks which must be done regardless of sales levels for the day or week. I could go on and on, buy you won't listen to me.

Pros

Great hours
Fun people
Ability to work with other parts of the campus, such as the science department or the UPC

Cons

During peak season, people were really rude to the staff
One of the managers was really bad at working with the other staff members

Advice to Senior Management

Allow for more room to grow with the temp staff (holiday staff, peak season staff), I loved the job, but because I was only temp, I had to reapply and did so too late--- allow GOOD temp staff employees to get first pick for the next season.

Pros

It is an excellent part time job opportunity for college students. You get good sales experience and discount on textbooks as well.

Cons

One of the downside which was the a major contribution of why i left the company was because there is very little career advancement opportunities for college graduates.

Advice to Senior Management

You should develop a leadership program which would allow your student employees to progress in the company after graduating.

Pros

As an MIT you can travel around the US working at different locations when there is a need.

Cons

Mislead about expectations for salary when applying for a permanent position. High cost of living areas do not have a bump in salary to compensate for it. You are offered the minimum of the pay scale for that store and position plus 5-10% increase. The scales are so wide that it is extremely discouraging to be given the minimum. Prior management experience is not taken into consideration. Everyone is treated the same whether you are bringing 10+ years of experience or if you are fresh out of college. To be hired to the MIt program, if you do not have a degree, you cannot be hired as a STore Manager. You are hired as a Course Materials Manager at $5000 less.

Advice to Senior Management

Reconsider the new salary schedule put in place this year. Only offering the minimum is discouraging to experienced managers. Not being hired as a Store Manager solely because I don't have a degree (but have 15 years of management experience) is insulting. I will have my degree in August but that could not be taken into consideration. These are some of the reasons I am leaving after 8 months in the training period.