Home Depot Canada Reviews in Edmonton, AB Area

Pros

-It's a good part time or transitory job, you can learn and grow there if you make it a priority.
-Make friends and have little supervision, you learn to make executive decisions yourself.
-A fair rate of pay if you are there for the paycheque, negative feedback is rarely given.
-If you find teaching and helping people is rewarding, you'll enjoy your work.
-Loyalty is rewarded with promotions from within, even if you are poorly suited for the job.
-You could network with contractors and make connections you need to get hired in a trade position.
-The Home Depot is largely a well regarded company, as they have good public image, on your resume it says that you are helpful and knowledgeable.

Cons

-I was helping the ex-wife of a Home Depot store manager and she brought up pay, and I gave the very vague ranges finishing with store managers can make 100k, to which she replied- "It isn't enough." Few people in management are happy with their jobs, and if they are it's because they don't do half the work they should be doing.
-At a short staffed store, employees were constatly being booked for days they had requested off that were signed by management several weeks ago. Threatening to leave or calling in sick would mean that you could recieve the days off, undermining any authority management had.
-Little or no recognition for work well done, usually because your supervisors are too busy doing their own work, or alternatively too busy not doing it.
-When I 'had a day' and started expressing to my supervisors all the things wrong and was asking why poor decisions were being made- to which a manager later acknowledged were all legitimate concerns, I was asked "If you don't like your job why are you working here?" I love my job, because I love helping customers, I was given a $20 gift card at Christmas by a customer and have had at around 5 specific letters a year to management expressing there appreciation for my service, not to mention hundreds of "Thank you so much." The solution for my being disgruntled was, if you don't like it here, leave. That's exactly what you should expect, if you care and love your job, you will be affected when poor management decisions, supply chain mgnt., or when other employees are incompetent or caustic- and if you don't care and are there for the paycheque- Welcome to The Home Depot!

Advice to Senior Management

-Wow, I don't know where to begin. The incompetence is amazing. I'm taking Commerce in school and in one class of Organization Management the class would learn more than the collective intelligence of senior management.
-The Home Depot is indifferent that their inventory is off by hundreds of dollars of merchandise for ANY given item. Staff is aware that you should call ahead and get a visual before sending a customer to another location- but few actually do. When a customer agreement (selling merchandise that is to be picked up later) is paid for, inventory is adjusted, regardless of wither the customer has picked up the item yet. An ASM that had been with the company for 10 years, did not know that this is how it worked, and thought that inventory was only adjusted after the item had been picked up/signed out. These are the people heading yearly inventory. Another ASM told me that an item isn't taken off inventory when it has been processed and tagged as being Returned to Vendor, so that damaged items in the store would still show up on inventory- they don't. Good system, incompetent implementation.
-The printed return policy on the receipt of customers is that they can return a toilet seat for up to 90 days. This unsanitary policy shows how management is fostering a self service experience instead of helping the customer, or expecting them to get a measuring tape, and getting the right one in the first place. No support from the corporate level.
-The new management structure was presented in an All Store Meeting, where upper management explained it to front line employees all the while talking like they were at a shareholder meeting. "This increased the average sale at the test store by $4.38 and we're confident that we can achieve even better results" The presentation skills required to pass a grade 10 social studies project weren't present. Only a quarter of the audience could read the font size, and the speaker was only reading the information on the slides, no additional information or commentary was added.
-Zero accountability is present, e.g. on more than one occasion managers have told me to issue $100 gift cards to customers (within their approved limit) for various inconveniences/damage, only once have I been approached as to why my till issued a gift card for no merchandise returned- and it was because the associate had just been given training. I gave a vague verbal response, as it happened four days ago, and this was jotted down and she was off. (note: I have never abused this)
-A Police officer once approached the desk with letter in hand, asked what it was about, they stated that it was for the management to express their admonishment for the inefficiency in being able to produce the camera records relating to a fraud case they were working on. I also fielded a call from a customer that I believe was related, saying that it was two and half weeks before they had the request camera records. I wasn't surprised by this at all, I seriously doubt that the delivered letters message even reached the person responsible for actually producing the records.
-A cashier was pocketing cash and issuing receipts for $0.01, one customer came back noticing that their receipt was only for a penny and asked 'what if I had to return it?' The cashier was picked up by the police, and I later heard that she had stolen thousands of dollars, all before a customer realized it and brought it to the stores attention.
-My store was short staffed, as in 30+ employees short, instead of: increasing wages, having staff appreciation days, employee retention programs, or increasing the amount of service awards given- our store did not meet it's sales goals (go figure) and there was no profit sharing cheque. "You've been doing a great job, lets really try and sell the whole project and meet that goal next time." How about, "we're down 20% of the staff level we should have and sales are only down 4% congratulations, here's a bonus- stick around please."
-This year, as with last year, the automated phone attendant would not be updated to reflect the extended summer hours we had so for two hours on sat. and sun. you could not reach 4 out of 7 Home Depot stores in our area. One ASM at one of the stores it was occurring at said she had been on the phone for three hours the weekend prior trying to get it fixed, obviously to no avail.
-Home Depot doesn't pay me to be a consultant- I left the company because it had become a corporate machine and didn't have a human’s common sense.