Jack in the Box Reviews

Pros

Hourly warehouse employees are well paid and treated fairly. Decent benefits package though employee contribution has been increasing quite a bit recently.

Cons

Your career is in the hands of your immediate boss. If you do not get along with that person or they have an ulterior motive to make you look bad, then you are toast.
Recently executive management has made some poor decisions that made it difficult to provide good customer service

Advice to Senior Management

Management talks about "Jack's way" which is to mean treating employees fairly and keeping their interests at heart, yet then they don't lead by example

Pros

Easy to learn. It's like any other fast food. If you move up you can make some pretty decent money.

Cons

Minimum wage starting out. Large menu to learn. A lot of cleaning to do. Not as many team members to run a shift like at McDonald's or other places so its difficult to be fast sometimes.

Advice to Senior Management

If you are a quick learner and have leadership skills you can become a team leader fairly quickly. You get a nice little raise just for that. If you prove yourself from there you can become an assistant manager and eventually a store manager.

Pros

From my experience, majority of the managers work really hard and usually are fair in their decisions. Your schedule can be very flexible and can be changed if an emergency comes up. It's a place of teamwork and getting along with each other. Great place to start off if it's your first job.

Cons

Since you are dealing with food, you always have to be keeping your place really clean and be changing and washing dishes during your shift. While working, you have to wear slip resistant shoes due to all the slippery grease on the floor. Expect to smell really funky at the end of your shift.

Advice to Senior Management

When working graveyard shifts, it would help a lot if they have more employees working at that time instead of only 2 trying to be in two or three places at the same time. It can get really stressful and overwhelming for the restaurants that have the most rushes during the night.

Pros

Very cool and supportive co-workers. Generous benefits such as every-other-Friday off, casual work wear, and unlimited frozen yogurt and beverages. Good experience in learning about the process of how restaurants operate and how the fast food industry works. The advertising agency has built the brand well by creating funny commercial ad campaigns.

Cons

Company still has a long way to go in terms of understanding Franchising. Too many VPs, DVPs and RGVPs for a company its size and not enough workers in the lower ranks. As the company has grown in complexity, the adjustment in resources has not been matched. Senior executives force decisions that create unnecessary and heavy workloads on middle managers and below.

Advice to Senior Management

-Gain experience elsewhere at another company in another industry. Or, if you haven't worked in a restaurant in a while, it's time to go back.
-Learn from other companies' (not just fast food) successes and mistakes, as well as your own.
-Start cutting unnecessary, overpaid staff that aren't contributing value and growing the brand.
-Reorganize processes and teams to produce the best work, not quick results that creates more (clean-up) work.

Pros

The people I worked with.

Cons

Senior management is the worst. The good folks were forced to retire and the remaining folks only care about their stock options and big salaries. They claim to have care and respect for their employees but at the end of the day they use you and let you go. It used to be a great place to work -- not anymore.

Advice to Senior Management

The company is now a good old boys club. Linda is not a leader. It is sad how the company has changed. There are many long term employees who are let go because they are older and make more money. The approach now is to replace these employees who lower cost younger folks.

Pros

They have many locations in the central valley, Sacramento and South Bay.

Cons

They do not respect their employees and are very willing to dispose of them if they request raises or reviews.

Advice to Senior Management

Start operating with more ethics.

Pros

Excellent Insurance compared to many other companies if not working for a franchise location
Good Pay if not working for franchise location

Cons

Expect long hours and no comp time
Training is not consistant
No work life balance with the job
Labor guidelines are tighter than many other companies

Advice to Senior Management

Really mean it when you say you do not want your managers to work over 55 hours per week. Adjust labor guidelines to take into consideration such things as schedule creation, food orders, and checking in the truck.

Pros

The company is doing a better job providing opportunities for development at various levels. When it comes to menu--innovators by far.

Cons

Guest service is very inconsistent at all levels internally and externally. You are chosen for development opportunities more so by who you know rather than for your talents, competencies and skills. Working harder and longer hours, practically killing yourself, may get you a development opportunity since you are showing them you are a slave. Promotions and development opportunities are for those who do not challenge status quo and keep their mouths shut. Managers hire their friends to supervise (conflict of interest and sr. mgmt is aware). Many of the HR folks are unethical, especially those in place for years. Senior management continue to get increases and bonuses while they keep cutting jobs and/or making the bonus structure less for others who actually work to bring in revenue and profits. And communication, every department is doing their own thing -- waste of money, time and causes confusion as well as duplication. Employee engagemement -- out the window, especially when you are forced to complete a survey which may/may not be anonymous. Employees at all levels are unprofessional.

Advice to Senior Management

Change the leadership group. Jack in the Box is ran by petroleum people and Linda is OK with them.

Pros

Jack in the Box offers a fantastic training program to it's employees and managers. Jack in the Box is also one of the few fast food companies who offers benefits to all levels of employees including team members. Jack in the Box has some fantastic people working in the organization. There is a lot of opportunity for growth in the operations department. The food at Jack in the Box really is better than most fast food.

Cons

Communication from senior leadership could be improved. Jack in the Box is undergoing a lot of change and not all employees fit into the new business model. Working for a 24 hour concept can be very demanding on the schedule. At times, it seems new initiatives and programs are implemented without any input from the field operations and are difficult to implement and support due to the lack of planning or operations feedback.

Advice to Senior Management

Develop better communication trees for new policies, programs and information that include all affected personnel. Solicit feedback from field representatives regarding new initiatives because they have a lot of experience to offer.

Pros

Good salary
Good Benefits ie, 401k plus retirement

Cons

Don't understand employees are #1 asset
poor operations manual
unrealistic time demands
poor training and development

Advice to Senior Management

Practice what you preach