Fred Meyer Stores Reviews

Pros

There are always enough hours if you want to work. Generally speaking, it's a pretty steady paycheck. The benefit packages are quite good for the job level.

Cons

Management are always finding ways to cut man hours. Stringent break schedule. High stress environment. Easy to get fired. Lack of communications between Associates and managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should be more appreciative of store associates, not just provide lip service. Employee appreciation week seems to be more for managers than anyone else.

Pros

For a non-union hourly salary manager overtime was the best part. A 60 hour week actually meant 20 hours of overtime.

Cons

20 hours of overtime a week was expected.

Advice to Senior Management

A true work/life balance ability with realistic goals and an understanding that not all stores are created equal. Different stores have different needs, just as their neighborhoods have different needs.

Pros

Discount was great
Most cowokers are friendly.
Benefits

Cons

Pay is average
Hours
Scheduling sucks
Management

Advice to Senior Management

Find better managers.

Pros

My fellow employees. We were all in it together.
Some awesome bosses, friendly and caring, but few and far between
Learned outstanding customer service skills
Looking back, I enjoyed my 12 years as an employee, but it was definately a job and not a career.
Steady work, 40 hours whenever I wanted it. I loved doing back-to-back shifts. It's a job, not a daycare.

Cons

I was told by a number of managers (and wanna-be managers) that the company did not want them to be friendly to the employees, and some of them excelled at doing what the company wanted. The few "leaders" I actually met in my 12 years there often went on to other jobs. When the District Managers would show up, the store manager would panic and insist on employees running around to make sure the store looked good. Are you kidding?? This is a good indication that managment by fear is coming from the top.

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, I feel lucky to have been part of the Fred Meyer family. I learned a lot about business, customer service, and how NOT to treat employees. Since leaving I have gone onto a professional career in a leadership position. Have your management teams take classes on interpersonal dynamics and how their interaction can be interpreted. Personally, I didn't need the emotional support of my boss.....I had a job to do and I did it. But not everyone (and you can read it on this site) thinks like I do.

Pros

Good insurance (when you can get it)
Can move around to different positions in the store

Cons

Happiness depends completely on the competence of your manager.
Only guaranteed 20 hours a week, and insurance for non-union required 100 hours a month to get.
You can be scheduled to close (until 11:00) and then scheduled to open (7:00) and get no overtime.
Unless you explicitly request a weekend off, you can be scheduled to work every weekend in a year.

Advice to Senior Management

Train the store managers to treat their people better

Pros

Gain valuable experience and insight. Good people. Opportunities to be promoted to higher levels within company.

Cons

Pay scale could more at assistant buyer and planner level. Many assistants take their great training to other companies that off higher pay.

Advice to Senior Management

Increase salary at assistant level to keep the talented assistant buyers and planners from leaving to companies that offer better wages.

Pros

the employees are awesome, kind, and caring
the employee benefits are helpful
close to where i live
pays the bills
pay scale is very nice

Cons

#1. Way too busy for the amount of staff we have.
#2. You get rude customers that expect you to be all knowing in the checkstand
#3. You never EVER have a stable work schedule. you work a 3-11:45 day and then the next day you are there at 8 in the morning.
#4. Very hard on the body and mind.
#5. If you are 5'7" or taller you could potentially have back problems because the bags at the checkstand are so low you are consistently bending over with just about every order.
#6. No baggers!!!
#7. They will sometimes have you to cashier despite originally coming in that day to parcel. They also have a tendency to forget this, which requires you to call and remind them of your current position.
#8. You are also sometimes left with no breaks due to their negligence.

Advice to Senior Management

please hire baggers, having to scan, bag, and cart groceries on very large orders by yourself is very hard, and it makes the customers have to wait. If we hire just baggers that would cut that time in half And possibly get locks on carts, we lose so many carts due to customers taking them back home with them, but having those locks that some places have on them it would save the store and company a lot of money from not having to replace those stolen carts.

Pros

Flexible Schedule
Pay Raises
Lots of stores available to move around if you need to

Cons

Mangement focuses too much on personal issues

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

The people who work there are the nicest people you will ever meet. That makes the shift a lot more tolerable because there is constantly a sympathetic ear.
The pay is weekly. Sunday pay is nice because it is time and a third.
The work is pretty easy once you learn everything, but it took me a year to know the basics to get through a day smoothly.

Cons

&& It is union, so a lot of your paycheck will go towards a union that you probably won't even need.
&& People are vicious at grocery stores these days, always trying to save as much as they can. It is stressful when people are constantly looking at the screen and blame you for everything that comes up wrong.
&& I developed carpal tunnel from typing on the register and handling heavy items all day.
&& This job really sucks if you are doing it for more than 20 hours a week. It takes a toll on your body and mind.
&& Every hour that you are on the clock and in a check-stand, you have to talk to customers. There is no down time as a cashier like there is in Apparel, how they can easily slip into the stock room for a couple hours doing nothing. This job makes you WORK.

Advice to Senior Management

If someone comes to you and asks for a maximum of 20 hours a week, it is because they only want 20 hours a week, not extra leeway for you to use so that you can make that person fill shifts that someone called out on. A cashier should not have to stand in a check-stand ringing huge amounts of groceries up for up to three hours without a break. That is slave driving and hard on a person's body.

Pros

Good Benefits, stable industry, area institution, store discount,

Cons

Salary is low end of industry standard.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work.