Jamba Juice Reviews

Pros

advancement, development, fun, healthy , recognition

Cons

time consuming, a lot of menu changes all the time

Pros

Learn to Manage at high levels of stress.
You become very efficient.
You meet a lot of people and develop customer service skills quickly.

Cons

The pay isn't competitive compared to the amount of work that is expected.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on treating your employees like their opinion matters. Offer your employees ONE free smoothie per shift again , It isn't like they are paid that well.

Pros

Easy money
Consistent hours
Really fun people to work with
Get to eat lots of free stuff (well, you're not "supposed" to, but...yeah...)

Cons

Easy money doesn't mean good money
I NEVER got a raise in my two years there
Customers are, well, customers

Pros

Since the product is healthier then other places I feel better promoting them to customers. The product is also very tasty. I have learned a lot about health benefits of different types of fruit and food. I have been able to learn how to be a manager and do inventory among other things at a smaller place so it was easier to learn.

Cons

I do not get enough hours even though I was promoted to Shift Manager. This has caused me to seek another job while still planning on keeping my job at Jamba. It has also been difficult because my manager pay is less than my starting pay at other jobs I have had. I do not get enough money for what I do. And even when I did a great job as a team member I was still only getting minimum wage. People who did much less work than me were still getting the same pay as me: minimum wage. This made me feel disposable. I could just be easily replaced.

Advice to Senior Management

A lot of places give employees a rasie ever six months if they are not written up and management believes it is appropriate. I have worked hard for two years and the only time I got a raise was when I was pormoted to shift manager. That is wrong. I do a lot more work than I am getting paid for.

Pros

The management team was pretty chill in my experience there meaning that they were patient and understanding, and very good about giving time off and such. The payment system is reliable like most gigantic companies. It was easy to catch on quickly to my responsibilities, and overall it's just a good place to dip your toes in the food service industry. Also you get a break during your shift by policy which some food service jobs do not allow, and you get an employee discount which is pretty cool.

Cons

the schedule is unreliable (it changes week to week) AND their work weeks are wednesday-tuesday so it was irritating wanting to plan out my week on sunday or so but not knowing for sure when i would be working next. Also, in my experience management hired too many people during my time there so everyone was complaining about not getting enough hours; if you didnt need the money so much it was just a little annoying not to be making more money, but if you were really relying on the paycheck it was legitimately unfair.

Advice to Senior Management

I approve of the relaxed environment the management team at my store facilitated but sometimes on the flip side it also brought about some disorganization. The only part that I felt really truly needed to be addressed was the overhiring issue. I realize how many applicants there are, but for that very reason I think that hirings should be more strategic than they were while I was there so that A) management is satisfied by the shifts always being covered and B) the employees can all be satisfied by meeting their hours and subsequently paycheck expectations without labor being too high.

Pros

Positive Environment,
Fairly easy to "catch on",
EXCELLENT management and CEO (Yes, I got to meet him!),
Easy to stand behind your product because everything is great,
Clean working environment,
Nice "raise" system,
Clear communication from all management,
They hire only the best!

Cons

I don't really like mopping floors,
Starts at minimum wage,
Sometimes the customers are picky,
No more shift meals I've heard

Advice to Senior Management

Somehow, you've created an excellent "family" of workers, and I'm so happy that Jamba only hires the best in Customer Service. It was a wonderful company to work fore, sometimes I miss working there a lot!

Pros

flexible scheduling sometimes, good PTO, discount, fun in store environment

Cons

bad work/life balance, raises are terrible from themanagement level down, in-store team members are not appreciated or recognized for their hard work

Pros

Vibrant, upbeat place to work. It's a great first management job from an experience standpoint, as you really learn the ins and outs of some of the more intricate management duties. It's a great job for go-getters and people who interact well with customers and are sales-minded.

Cons

They expect an exorbitant amount of work for pay that, quite frankly, I consider insulting. It's a deceptively physical job, even for the team members you see blending your smoothies in the store; they make minimum wage, with insulting "raises" totaling pennies per hour, if that. Your raise might net you an extra $100 a YEAR (on a good year). Benefits are almost non-existent. They offer medical and dental, but most high school and college students (the bulk of their employees) are still on their family insurance plan, so that benefit is useless to them. You get 50% off snacks and smoothies daily, which is nice, but beyond that there's nothing motivating team members.

In my store, we often resulted to holding in-store contests with our team, with gift card prizes (sometimes paid out of the GM's pocket), to help motivate them and give them something to look forward to and work towards.

The corporate big-wigs are so strict with labor hours that stores are often left understaffed when they need the labor most, and the GMs get slammed for it either way (from disgruntled team members when they're understaffed and overworked, and senior management when they break labor restrictions).

In Jamba's defense, James White came on board a rapidly sinking ship, and did great things to plug the holes where needed. However, the focus was entirely on the sales/customer side of the equation - improving Jamba's image and branding in the public eye, which was crucial, but in the process they lost sight of the other side of the equation: the store-level employees. In 2009 the company halted all raises in an effort to cut spending while they drove sales. When raises were finally reinstated, they were miniscule. I worked my butt off for two years as a shift manager, and in 2010, my first raise came at $0.21/hr, raising my pay from $10.50/hr to $10.71/hr - as a MANAGER (shift managers are Jamba's equivalent to AGMs - assistant general managers). My raise was the highest in our store, so that tells you something. Towards the end of my time with Jamba, my district manager unofficially offered me a promotion to GM my own store, but there were no openings in sight in my district. Eventually, I had to move on in order to support myself. I couldn't wait any longer.

Jamba has an employee history marred with low retention and job dissatisfaction. That's not to say there haven't been employees satisfied with their jobs there, but I assure you they are few and far between. They milk you for all you're worth until you burn out and quit. I saw it happen numerous times in my own store (with all levels of store-employees), and there are over 750 stores nationwide.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from working there for a first job (your fellow team members are often really fun to work with!), but do so with your eyes and ears trained for these problems. If you don't take your own worth as an employee and a person into account, in the end, they'll beat you and leave you for dead.

Advice to Senior Management

There is a complete and total disconnect between senior management and store-level employees. This is one of the biggest problems, and also the easiest to fix! Senior management needs to start listening to their employees, particularly the ones working on the front lines for minimum wage (SM and below). You don't have a successful company until you have at least a moderate level of satisfaction on both sides of the equation - customer and employee. Together, these two camps help a business grow.

As for compensation, senior management needs to take a long, hard look at their job requirements in comparison to what they pay. There is a staggering inequality there. If you're going to have managers, you need to treat and pay them like managers if you expect them to act and perform as such (referring primarily to shift managers). As for front line team members, senior management needs to recognize the difference in this employee demographic, and the need for varying benefits - ones that team members feel actually benefit them in some way. I assure you, no high school student cares about 401k options, or medical and dental coverage. If you don't want to increase benefits, then increase their pay. I was constantly frustrated FOR my team members at the amount of work they had to do for minimum wage, and what's worse, there was nothing I could do about it.

Pros

-50% discount, daily
-tips
-busy
-usually nice people to work with

Cons

-overworked, and not payed
-went through 5 different managers (within 3 years)
-managers didn't keep with up what THEY needed to

Advice to Senior Management

Try to take better care of ALL of your employees and take situations with HR seriously. And don;t hire so many external for management!

Pros

I was a high school student with a lot of extracurriculars, but my boss, the store manager, was very accommodating and flexible with my hours. It's fun to learn how to make all the different drinks, even secret menu items, and my coworkers were great.

Cons

Sometimes senior management is not as understanding as the store managers, such as item usage. They are really stingy with inventory, which makes sense, but they're honestly not very practical (e.g. - when you scoop fruit quickly because there's a long line and each smoothie is timed to be made under 4 minutes, some fruit will inevitably get lost.) . Unfortunately, the store managers are the ones to get chopped if the employees aren't performing up to standards, but I don't think all the standards are fair.

Advice to Senior Management

The order of management is far too vertical at Jamba Juice. Many of the employees feel disconnected with the company. Senior management is so far up there that the retail employees don't even think they know what it's like to work on the floor.