Lidl Reviews

Pros

It's great place to work! Nice team and management! Clear strategy and intensive growth! Was a great experience! If I will decide again, I will join Lidl!

Cons

Work harder and try to get a foot in the emerging markets!

Pros

- well paid job especially for Bulgarian standards
- very good benefits, such as mobile phone, company car, 25 days holiday for employees at management level

Cons

- keeping extremely formal relationship with colleagues favoured
- mainly suitable employees promoted
- often not asked to think, but to perform
- a lot of overtime which is not compensated
- liaisons between colleagues are not tolerated
- cameras everywhere in the HQ as if participating in Big Brother
- layoffs happen overnight

Advice to Senior Management

You should realise that you are working with human beings not robots; show more respect and gratefulness to your staff; a simple "Thank you" for well done jobs will work

Pros

Excellent remuneration for the retail industry at entry level.
Few opportunities to get bored or become idle while working.
Varied duties make things more interesting than a comparative role in other retail stores; you will in effect be doing ALL jobs all the time (receiving, stacking, cleaning [inc. deep cleans], cash handling, rotation, outdoor maintenance, complaints handling and more, as opposed to simply sitting at a till for a whole shift.)

Cons

Good starting pay doesn't translate to consistent or generous pay reviews.

Confusing pay structure makes it difficult to keep track of what you should be paid; it is common for management to 'drop off' hours from your pay, often deliberately because of upper management pressure.

No internal promotions.

Extremely unprofessional rota-management. Shifts are frequently added or dropped without notice. Hours are frequently added-to or dropped-off, again without notice, sometimes even as you work the shift in question. You will have all the hours you can handle during seasonal periods, but find your hours cut in half during quiet times of the year.

Management rarely communicates store strategies, or amendments to working practices; as a store assistant/cashier you will often encounter problems when trying to deal with customers or scanning products, and have to retroactively discover for yourself that practices or products have changed.

Many of these problems arise because of pressure and threatening behaviour from upper management; threats of summary dismissal, or being summoned to HQ for a talking-to (a two hour drive away) from district or regional managers were common.

On-the-job training often translated to simply being left on your own to figure things out. This was especially common with new duty managers, who rarely received training at all (even though our store was meant to be a 'training store'.)

Long shifts with minimal (30 minutes), oddly placed break time. 10am-9pm or later are common. Sometimes you will work from 5am to 3 or 4pm, with NO break until an undetermined time AFTER 12. Simply exhausting. It is also common for managers to close store by 9pm or later, and then be expected in at 6 or even 5am next day, depending on the workload. Sometimes store assistants are expected to do this also, with accusations of 'not being a team player' or disciplinary action if you attempt to assert your rights.

Just as there is little information flow downwards, so there is no upward flow at all. There is an ingrained company work ethic and expectation for all employees to complete all necessary work regardless of how long it takes or what your written shifts are. You stay until everything is done, or you find yourself getting disciplined and eventually dismissed if you assert your rights, complain, or are simply too exhausted to work effectively.

Advice to Senior Management

Due to company structuring as a discount retailer, with overheads reduced by aggressive management of human resources, the only worthwhile advice would have to go straight to the secretive, unreachable top, and includes a complete overhaul of the way the company is run in its entirety.
A good place to start would be respect for the law and labour practices of the countries it trades in.

Pros

They have never made anyone redundant, so it's a great place to look for (or hold onto) a job during a recession.

Cons

Hours are very poor, as a minimum managers will work 10am to 9.30pm one day, then be in at 6am the next day, working until at least 4.20pm. Typical hours are much longer.

Communication in poor; years ago the company was so keen to expand, they were promoting staff from management into District Manager with no formal managerial training. The result is a team of weak and inexperienced regional managers. This has a negative ipact on motivation for the staff, and means that important issues are missed.

Examples of managerial failings include a lack of understanding around Human Resourcing related legislation, no knowledge or training on Health and Safety and Risk assessment.

Advice to Senior Management

The managers are all keen and work hard, at every level in the company. But training and resourcing needs to improve dramatically. Better management will bring in improved communication, clearer goals, and greater motivation.

Pros

Career Opportunities are very good.

Cons

A very time-consuming job. No work-life balance.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management has got to do some major changes to keep their high potentials in the company.