Levy Home Entertainment Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Levy Home Entertainment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Nice people to work with. It's a small company so you can make a difference and get to know just about everyone. Often promote from within.

Cons – Slow to adopt new technology, however the new management is much better about this. Don't believe salries are competitive. Like to do things they way they have always been done, but again, new managment is changing this.

Advice to Senior Management – Be open to and invite new ideas.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Levy Home Entertainment

Pros – best reason to work at this company is the flexibility it offers and the ability to work independently within my own scheduoe

Cons – job entails too much lifting of boxes up to 50 pounds and not enough management support when asking for help when schedules are tough

Former Employee – worked at Levy Home Entertainment

Pros – Flexibilty with hours for home problems and schedules and discounts on books purchased.

Cons – With new technolgy, not enough training for new procedures and patience for the people having trouble. No job security and no interaction with management. Always waiting for the ax to fall and making people very stressed to the point of illness.

Advice to Senior Management – Be a lot nicer to the non-exempt employees. They work very hard with little compensation and acknowledgement. Everyone needs to feel respect.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Levy Home Entertainment

Pros – Nice that it's part-time, you set your own hours

Cons – Management is out of touch with the ground troops. They rarely get in touch with you-your field supervisor might be decent but their management is terrible. You're constantly caught off guard with shipments that you weren't expecting or management will send the wrong thing, the wrong amounts, often far far too many books that you end up having to either pack back up and send back or cram into what amounts to little or no space. All the time management is trying to cut down your hours and constantly wanting reports as to why it took you over an hour to unload everything they sent. If you try to contact them, you never hear back. Field supervisors feel un-listened to.

Advice to Senior Management – Try to get on the same page as the people actually unloading the boxes. It feels like decisions are made that have no common-sense basis.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Levy Home Entertainment

Pros – Family atmosphere. The CEO knows everyone by first name. She makes a point of saying hello to and good morning to everyone she sees. There is a good sense of commradere and coworkers are friendly and supportive. There is good communication of overall goals and overall strategy of the organization. There is a huge diverse talent pool at Levy. CEO, Carol Kloster believes on emphasizing and recognizing all successes in the organization.

Cons – Strategy and implementation seem to change with whichever way the wind is blowing. Many good programs and inspirational initiatives have been started, however, there seems to be a failure in follow through and commitment from all levels of management. For example, all employees were trained on the 7 habits of becoming an effective manager. However, there was no reinforcement of the ideas or follow ups after the 3 day training seminars. A great deal of time and money spent on training with no visible results.

Advice to Senior Management – Follow through on initiatives. Challenge management to work with frontline and corporate staff to identify our challenges and our attempts to address them. What are our successes? What are our failures? What have we learned from both?

Current Employee – been working at Levy Home Entertainment

Pros – The part time merchandiser position offers flexible hours, independent working conditions, and has good long term employment potential. Decent pay when compared with similiar merchadising roles.

Cons – There is not always enough time allotted for store assignments. The need to enter reports, inventories, etc... at home while not being compensated is a problem. Sometimes store management expects more than what falls into the merchandiser role. No review/raise after over a year of employment.

Advice to Senior Management – Compensate employees for time spent off the clock entering perpetual inventories, filling out questionnaires, reading through the piles of paperwork that come to our homes every week. Offer reviews and raises after a reasonable period of time.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Levy Home Entertainment

Pros – Levy Home Entertainment is a great company to work for. Just do your job and do it right and management leaves you to your task. Independent working environment, work your own hours. If you have a passion for reading and like to organize and display, the Levybooks division is a great choice for employment.

Cons – Yearly raise less than 25 cents per hour. The "Suppose to be scenarios" (layouts, planograms, etc.) usually don't materialize due to errors in product shipments or lack of products. Not for the perfectionist, frustrating. Some heavy lifting.

Advice to Senior Management – Use of technology needs improvement. Ordering system is somewhat antiquated.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Levy Home Entertainment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great senior management team that have visionary ideas in a difficult time in the print book industry.

Cons – Levy was recently sold and is now called Readerlink. Not sure how the new owners will handle the ups and downs of such a turbulent industry.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to invest in your employees and technology. This company has a lot of dedicated employees that are willing to go the extra mile for the right management team.

Former Employee – worked at Levy Home Entertainment

Pros – Love the running my own territiory like it was my own business

Cons – No connect between home office/upper managerment and field operations

Advice to Senior Management – Instead of hiring college degrees...hire people with field experience..make this a requirement of all shirts in the office. Decisions and directions will be alot clearer.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Levy Home Entertainment

Pros – Close to home
Can obtain a work-life balance if you want it

Cons – Terrible IT systems - very old and outdated
People work in silos and are so rude to one another
Senior management is slow and out of date with reality

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend