Home Depot Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

Restricted stock is the best thing about Home Depot

Cons

It is a sweat shop

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on the basics and stop all of the unneccesary work

Pros

Competitive salary
Industry standard benefit package

Cons

Advancement
Senior management
Pay equality
Leadership
Educational recognition

Advice to Senior Management

Look at the process of laying people off.

Pros

The benefits, stock and 401K matching

Cons

Salaried associates reap most of the benefits while hourly associates have very few benefits. Overall, more investment needs to be placed in the hourly front line associates in stores.

Advice to Senior Management

More incentives for hourly associates.

Pros

home depot has alot of room and opportunities for growth within the company

Cons

at senior management level there will be times when long hours are requested from you

Advice to Senior Management

keep constant communication wih your family if your at senior management level and help them understand what it is you do for the company

Pros

I am listened to and appreciated for what I deliver. Compensated appropriately and understand the daily expectations of my job. The culture and passion for the business is second to none and overall a great place ot get up and take care of customers every day.

Cons

You work a lot but not sure it is a con if you are enjoying what you are doing and doing the right thing.

Advice to Senior Management

The changes over the past couple of years to provide better service in the stores and focus back on core business are working. Stay the course, appreciate your people and the business will continue to grow back to where it has been in the past. Under the Blake leadership it feels like Home Depot again.

Pros

Benefits, avoiding boredom, better than staying in bed (just).

Cons

Disrespect of employees as individuals

Advice to Senior Management

Read the Value Wheel and try to understand it!!!

Pros

* Opportunity to work in and learn many different disciplines is unlimited. It is easy (perhaps too easy) to switch departments (logistics, procurement, store operations, merchandising, finance).

* Large company that has people of all backgrounds working there. I was able to meet and network with a ton of incredible people because of the sheer size of the company.

* Decent job security of you can exhibit your value to the company. There were 3 or 4 layoffs while I was there. All of the people that got laid off were in experimental departments or positions that were not mission critical. It was sad to see them go but I understood why they were being let go.

* Any project that you implement will potentially impact 2,000 stores, 80 distribution centers, and millions of customers. When you get something right it gives your resume incredible juice. The most meager program that I completed saves $50k per month on the low end.

* Great mobility if you are well networked.

Cons

* Human Resources team is not necessarily comprised of people with education in Human Resources. There were managers and even sr managers who had no background in HR. They are typically people who have just worked at the company for a long time. As a result, they handle situations poorly. I've personally been in a situation in which HR took management's review of a sensitive situation and wrote it up word for word as fact without as much as asking the accused what happened.

* Managers generally have the wrong approach to their jobs. 70% think there job is to give projects/tasks to analysts and sit back waiting on results. Once the analyst's work is done the manager slaps his/her name on the presentation and presents it as their own work. Analyst morale is extremely low because of this behavior. While I was there I never had a manager who was able to do my job better than me. This was an accepted practice organization wide (with the exception of 1 or 2 departments). There are several people there managing functions, organizations, tasks, and subject matter of which they have no working knowledge. It creates chaos and bottlenecks at every turn.

* Reorganizations make it nearly impossible for people to learn and master their subject matter. People there talk about the constant change as if its either a) necessary or b) a huge joke. The problem is you can easily work there for 7 or 8 years and have developed very few marketable skills.

* The development process is non existent. In January you get an urgent email from your manager telling you to complete the required documentation. If you do a good enough job they'll copy your information word for word and give you the "average" review.

* The company runs on archaic Microsoft Access databases and excel spreadsheets. In 2010 I was maintaining a windows 1997 database.

Advice to Senior Management

There are a few major problems with Home Depot as it stands.

1) Managers should masters of their craft. There are too many jacks of all trades who have no content knowledge. Associates can't develop when their managers can't develop them.

2) Career paths and review process need a thorough overhaul. Promotions and developmental opportunities are random at best and nonexistent at worse.

3) Encourage and support ideas from workers. I've seen multi-million dollar ideas squashed simply because they didn't come from the Director or Vice President level.

Pros

Great place to network and grow as an individual within your own career. The place was large enough where you could move to differenct feilds if youwere not happy.

Cons

Hard to stand out. There is a lot of people working with lots of talent, so in order to stand out you to work above and beyond what most would do.

Advice to Senior Management

Always recognize the strong players and reward them for it opposed to trying to make everyone on the team (good ones and bad ones) think they are doing a good job.

Pros

The company has some of the best talent out there when it comes to customer service and product knowledge. For most part associates are friendly and helpful and go out of their way to help the customers.

Cons

The management of the talents may be questionable.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to base decision on values stipulated in the home depot value circle.

Pros

You are really given the power to take care of the customer, and I like that. They also work with your schedule, and are flexible with college and other activities.

Cons

The only downside that I see is some of the hiring experiences I have gone through. I have graduated from college and I am ready for more responsibility and compensation for that responsibility, but I haven't been given the chance to even interview for such a position.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't just make the easy decision, consider the advancement of your employees.