Harris Teeter Reviews

Pros

Very good pay, Excellent benefit package after probation period has expired. Some friendly associates but not all. Good customer base.

Cons

Absolutely and I mean never ever mention a job well done. The only words you hear every day is why aren't you done yet. And since I meant my quote I recommend anyone that is think about getting a job a your Harris Teeter. I would first talk to full time employee's, most will tell you run and don't do it. This company SUCKS! But if you like working for free. This company is for you because the labor rate requires ALL department heads to WORK OFF THE CLOCK. I could think of a worse company to work for but they have not created that one.

Advice to Senior Management

Fred Morganthall II since you keep cutting hours out of the stores to make more money a little each quarter. Here's a clue, cut the hours to 0 in all departments and the profit margin will be off the charts with this new wage stucture. Let's hope when a medical issue arise, the hospital you choose has the same wage standards you expect. Welcome to your Harris Teeter!

Pros

Raises
Twice a year bonus check
Regular customers
Constant busy
Weekly pay

Cons

Lack of respect
Over worked under paid
Body sorness
As a cashier you literally get no down time
You have to do everything for the customer...from getting their groceries out of the buggy....ring them up....and then bag it....then put it back in their buggy
Constly busy
Micro managed
Constaly doing something wrong
Written up over anything
Pay for your own uniforms
Clean, fix shelves, bag for other cashiers, ring up customers, and ,ake sure they are geeting supper satifacton at the same time
Strict on some....not of favorites

Advice to Senior Management

Give people a chance to make mistakes and fix them instead of getting wrriten up the first time....see if any cashiers are interested in moving onto another part of the store. Quit wasting your time and money on training that is long and boring.

Pros

competitive salary
and profit sharing

Cons

too much politics
high insurance co pay

Pros

Good esprit de corps among employees (front line). We all seem to know we are the bottom of the totem-pole, even though we are the last, and most important employees the customer has contact with.

Cons

NO FULL DISCLOSURE AT THE INTERVIEW, OR DURING COMPUTER TRAINING. I was NEVER told that as a cashier/bagger I would be expected to perform janitorial duties in the mornings and during evening shifts. IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE A CASHIER / BAGGER, YOU CAN EXPECT TO BE CLEANING TOILETS, SCRUBBING DOWN URINALS, DEALING WITH FEMALE-BIO-HAZARDOUS MATERIALS, EMPTYING EXTERIOR RECYCLE-BINS (DISGUSTING, FULL OF GARBAGE). You are provided with very inadequate safety precautions, e.g. very thin latex gloves only. All this as well as being expected to perform excellent customer service at checkout, carry-out to the customer's cars. DO NOT ANSWER YOUR PHONE ON YOUR DAYS OFF, they have a nasty habit of calling you in to work!
Their "on-call" system is a scam. Because you have to call-in to "check" on your status (wether or not they will need you that day), legally they do not have to pay you for the on call time. So, your day is wasted, especially if you're on call for a PM shift. UNFAIR.
   ALL THE ABOVE, NOT TO MENTION A TOTAL LACK OF ANY "ATTABOYS" FOR A JOB WELL DONE, FOR MINIMUM WAGE! ! ! I REPEAT, ...MINIMUM WAGE!!

Advice to Senior Management

Full disclosure of ALL job expectations at the time of interview / training. Better pay, in light of the "additional duties" involved in the lowly job of cashier / bagger.

Pros

Pay is better than average. Benefits is above average. One of the few companies that offer a semi-annual bonus. Chance of moving up is OK.

Cons

Doing less seems to be the way to move up. Dairy Frozen is the most under appreciated department in the entire store.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more observant of the associates and the department managers who want to move up. The ones who care are usually not the ones who move up and it is very disheartening.

Pros

Harris Teeter really takes pride in the overall operation of their stores, the professional image they portray and their associates. They are one of the few companies that realize their associates are what make up the company and they really take care of them. They offer competetive pay, health benefits for both part-time and full-time employees, oppotunities for advancement, Bonus Checks twice per year, 401-K Plan, Employee discounts and so much more! They even had an employee appreciation day for us and the Store manager cooked steaks and potatos for us, while other managers washed our cars for us. Hands down, this is the best employer I've ever had. If you are willing to put a little hard work and dedication into your job, no matter what your position.. it will pay off in the end. As their jingle says "It's my Harris Teeter!"

Cons

Its is a public retail job, so therefore you have to work at the demands of the public. If you work at a beach store, it gets incredibly busy in the summertime and then in the winter when things slow down, your hours get cut. Dealing with angry or disgruntled customers can sometimes test your patience (We rarely have angry customers).

Advice to Senior Management

The management staff does a great job at what they do!

Pros

competitive pay
two bonuses a year
extra bonus to order from a catalog if you hit a certain club depending on the sales your store does
flexible schedule only have to work two nights til 7 a week

Cons

not enough praise for what we do
need to pay the employees who make it happen for the company and not the others
need to recognize us managers that are great versus that just get the job done

Advice to Senior Management

take care of the managers that go above and beyond when they come to work everyday.

Pros

Pay is good plus Benefits and the Bonus check

Cons

No communication plus if you or a familiy member how the staff including store manager performance skills are the retaliation is immediately. Plus double standarts.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be such a hypecrits and liars and every once a while to say something positive about what your employer is doing will not break a jewel out of your crown.

Pros

There are honestly no real pros except for the fact that they do pay you some amount of money and it's not volunteer work...

Cons

-Pay not competitive

-Overworked

-They do not hire baggers separate from cashiers. You can be scheduled as either.

-They expect you to scan items very fast and bag your own orders (no matter how big) fast but also provide great customer service. They will let you know often if you are not doing all of this quickly enough for their liking.

-Threats from the assistant manager that if I didn't raise my items per minute (the amount of items you scan per minute; counts any amount of time time you do not have your register locked as time you're not taking to scan items) she was going to start switching me off my register with anyone who came in after me scheduled as a bagger and who was faster.

-They have "on call" days (usually 2 a week) where you call at a designated time to see if they need you to come in (though they may just end up calling you whenever they feel like it that day and make you come in). You're expected to get ready very quickly (or be ready already perhaps) and arrive soon after your on call time if needed. These are basically scheduled days in which you may or may not have to work/get paid as you cannot really make plans and still need to call out if you're sick or can't make it in at your designated on call time. At my location, they never tell you how long they are scheduling you for if you are called in. You will need to ask. I worked many on call days where I didn't know how long I was there for until it was almost time for me to leave.
I was once called in for only 1 hour and 45 minutes... So don't go thinking they will make it worth your while to come in either. They may also substitute these days as days off.

-Very bad communication between management and employees. You will always be asking co-workers questions (managers often unavailable to ask) and be unsure of how to complete any new tasks. Your co-workers will often not be sure themselves. You will also often be totally unaware of some new tasks. I've had many new-ish people scheduled as baggers ask me what they were supposed to be doing if there were no orders to bag... Baggers have many duties but you will probably only learn about a couple of them from a superior.

-Lack of baggers on the front end. Cashiers usually have to bag their own orders.

-No conveyor belt at registers. Cashiers often complain of back pain as they need to reach and bend over into the customer's cart and get to anything underneath it - all at a quick pace. Another cause of back pain is the flip-over cashier bagging station (which you will use often) that causes much bending over.

-Everything pits cashiers against other cashiers in competition. From Items Per Minute (which is posted for everyone to see and the top 3 are posted with separate honors) to amount of organic item PLUs punched in, to amount of dollars collected for charity. They act like it's meant to be fun but then why am I being threatened with constant bagging duty if I'm not super fast and then whatever mysterious consequence there is for not collecting enough charity money? Was once threatened with being written up if I forgot to ask customers if they wanted to donate to a charity as the customer was able to get a free HT brand 2-liter cola if the cashier forgot during that period. It was insinuated that being fired could be a possibility after a certain point under that.

-You don't count your own till and have to take their word for it if they say you were short/over. You also share the same till with other people throughout the day (they only count tills after the day is over) and if they are short/over by a significant amount, everyone who was on that till that day are all blamed for it.

Advice to Senior Management

Corporate needs to work in a store for a few days and realize how all of the new tasks, checks, policies, unnecessary cutbacks and little programs they send down actually work out in real life. My managers are virtually unavailable for customers and their employees. Employees are overworked and not compensated properly. Customer service is understaffed. If I need customer service at my register, it often takes a few minutes of just standing there looking at my customer as customer service reps have to answer phones, work the desk (selling tickets, lotto, cigs, money transfers, propane, etc), keep an eye on Uscan, help with customer questions/returns AND help at registers.
Oh, and no one likes "on call" days. You should deal with needing more people by either allowing more people to be scheduled on statistically busier days or calling people up the old fashioned way. No one likes to be completely unsure of what they're doing every week.

Pros

Harris Teeter is a great store. I can find things there that I can't find anywhere else. The weekly speicials are great and the sales in the meat dept is outstanding! the produce dept is amazing!

Cons

Unless one is a member of management they are not allowed to work more than 28 hrs/week. At $8.25/hr that doesn't add up to be a lot of take home pay. The position of cashier requires one to not only collect money for groceries, but it also requires us to unload the carts as well as bagging groceries,and retrieving carts from the parking lot. I don't object to any of those things, but I feel that better wages would give me a greater incentive. Cashiers should be making a minimum of $10.00/h because of the responsibility of handling money and ensuring accuracy and keeping the integrity of the cash drawer secure. Management is forever harping on giving great customer service, but they are only paying lip service to that notion. When I have to stop scanning groceries to start bagging on large orders becuase I don't have a bagger or when I go to another register to bag for another cashier and stop in the middle of it to return to my register for customer checkout, it leaves the customer for whom I was bagging to wonder "Is it something I said?"During training we are told that Harris Teeter customers are not to bag their own groceries. I have said it before and will again, I'm not going to stop them from doing it when I have a line at my register.

Advice to Senior Management

Instead of paying lip service to customer service, ensure that there is adequate staff to do the job that is expected of us- hire baggers! I don't want to hear anything about providing great customer service if you're not doing anything to facilitate that. The cashiers shouldn't have to bag groceries on large orders- it interrupts the flow of traffic, If the ideal IPM (items per minute) scanned is the goal for Harris Teeter it will never happen without adequate help.Spend less time talking about customer service and more time providing the help that is needed to do that.