Home Depot Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

great people to work with

Cons

management lack the experience to lead and inspire

Advice to Senior Management

the job of management is not only to tell people what to do but also to give credit when credit is due and to inspire and guide their team as well, the old school management approach does not work with current realities. Fix that weakness and what you have is some of the most dedicate and smart people working for your company, do nothing and face the consequences - the smart ones will leave!

Pros

It is a decent job that is somewhat flexible with scheduling. Pay isn't too bad and vacation time and bonuses are nice, although bonus checks aren't really great for part-timers usually.

Cons

Not everyone that works there is the brightest and a lot of things dont quite make sense. It's retail, so everything changes all the time and you have to follow plan even though often times there are much better ways to do things.

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, I haven't had any major problems with leadership that aren't common in other places. I feel like assistant store managers are not always the brightest people and I wonder how some of them got their jobs. However, I think this is a common occurrence amongst many work places. The one thing that has bothered me is when something is not their task or they are unable to do it, many managers have been unhelpful in assisting on how or who is able to do it(ex. sign paper work or approve something).

Pros

Good pay, good people, great training, opportunity for those who work. Home Depot is, overall, the best retail employer I have ever worked for. They have given me ample opportunity to advance, and accomodate associates who are team players. The company is great about allowing you to develop skills in multiple departments, and recognizes accomplishment.

Cons

Favoritism, failure to promote from the stores to corporate, no preference given for seniority.

Advice to Senior Management

Retain talent by actively assisting key assets in attaining their career goals. Communicate more effectively.

Pros

good people some good management

Cons

long hours poor management petty

Advice to Senior Management

better communication with management and associates. managenent could have a better attatude towards associates

Pros

great benefits
good pay
good people to work with
room for advancement

Cons

acknowledgement of good performance could be better

Advice to Senior Management

recognize good work more

Pros

Great learning opportunities if you are a hard worker

Cons

Long hours as with any retail job

Advice to Senior Management

Bring back some of the passion Bernie and Arthur created

Pros

If you have an idea at the Home Depot, you are usually listened to and management will consider your idea and it won't just sit in a PPT like it would at many other companies.

Cons

Not a great work-life balance. In retail, for the first 5 years, you only get 10 days vacation (unlimited sick though).

Advice to Senior Management

I usually enjoy my work at The Home Depot. The only issue I have are the vacation days for employees.

Pros

Innovative, team oriented, determined a dedicated peers, growth potential, and fun!

Cons

Political leadership environment in HR with power hungry VPs

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on how the work gets done vs. it simply getting done

Pros

I was at Home Depot for a very short time and my experience was pretty bad, but the pros are pretty obvious:
* well-known company--top retailer
* good networking (including many active employee-run groups)
* since it is a big company, I found that their automation and documentation (especially for HR processes) on the intranet was pretty good
* hypothetically, there is opportunity to move around to a lot of different functional areas (not sure how to make this happen...)

Cons

* management in my department was extremely critical of internal work and accepted the work of outside consultants without question. This is not only very demoralizing but probably detrimental to the business, since the consultants incentives are not strictly aligned with the company's goals.
* the mentality was "we are all super busy all the time and have to work all hours", even though it wasn't really accomplishing anything. Very much "look busy for the sake of looking busy", which not only will burn out your employees, but also makes them feel useless since the overtime work doesn't go anywhere.
* vacation, time off, benefits all suck: 2 weeks of vacation is new college-hire level, plus there were only 6 national holidays (par for the course in retail, but still crappy). Health insurance was crazy expensive for such a large self-insured company, and they won't cover spouses if they work for a company that offers health insurance--this left some new hires' spouses without coverage because it wasn't during their open enrollment and couldn't get on their employers' plan right away. Pretty harsh, and this conveniently wasn't mentioned until orientation.
* people without retail experience are looked down upon. I had a lot of relevant experience to my job function, but in service and financial sectors, which was essentially viewed as "no experience".
* personally, I had very bad experience with my immediate management. This varies, of course, but I would say this is a buyer beware situation and varies greatly by department.
* non-management employees are generally treated like children: I reported an error with my time sheet where I was overpaid and received no response from HR until a few weeks later when a COLLECTIONS LETTER was mailed to my home. THIS WAS SO RUDE, I was trying to do the right thing and report the mistake and offer to re-pay the over payment!!!
* I observed a heavy tendency towards preferring to hire from the outside rather than promote from within when senior positions were needed. This also may vary by functional area, but it didn't make me feel like I would be moving up very quickly or without fighting for it.

Advice to Senior Management

I don't really have any advice to senior management, except to make sure that the middle management that does your bidding is made of reasonable, sane human beings (in my experience, this varied a lot). As with any extremely large company, some people have great experiences, and some people have *awful* experiences, so just be VERY CAREFUL of the department that you go into and make sure that you really like your immediate manager/senior manager/director/senior director (and the ones around you--in case yours leaves).

Pros

Learning and teaching the employees is very detailed and enriching. They have some of the best learning modules and classes I've seen.

Cons

No schedules are always the same at the store level, but what retail is. It's difficult to reach out to higher managers because the chain of command is really driven hard.

Advice to Senior Management

Respectful and compassion is the number one way to reach your subordinates. The number one reason I personally have felt indifferent is because of the lack of respect for the younger generations, but in general this has always been a downfall of management.