Pros

Pay was decent ($7.50) for someone with no previous experience. Hours were pretty good. Management was friendly.

Cons

Employee dress code is very strict. Standing on concrete floors all day is bad for your feet. Non-management employees weren't always the best. A lot of times you have to pick up the slack for others who can't do their job properly.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be afraid to let employees know when they aren't doing their job well. Too many slackers get by with little punishment or warning.

Pros

Great workplace, awesome management. Good hours

Cons

Customers can be picky and difficult.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it up

Pros

- More often then not, they work with you on flexibility.

Cons

- Managers who consistently are shown to perform poorly are not demoted, but rather just moved to another store.
- In efforts to cut expenses, not everyone who deserve raises will get one. This leads people to "burn out" .. Many really good workers cease to perform cordially knowing no raise is in store.
- Management often seems to lack a central focus. You'll be told how to "correctly" do something about 15 different ways.
- Backstab attitude.
- Associates are trained poorly, because they are too cheap to have a person decently trained.
- The level of service corporate demands are impossible to meet given corporate's weekly hour restrictions.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers need to be held accountable.

Pros

Publix offers plenty of potential for advancement, and a fantastic benefits package--for the right people. Pay is good for the industry, and the management allows for flexible hours. Personally, I think the focus on customer service makes Publix a great company in which to work. Many of the people are great to work with, and managers are very helpful

Cons

Most of the benefits are for full-time employees, but the majority of associates are kept at part time, barely, so you work the hours without the benefits. Even if you have a regular 35 or even 40 hours available, it's nearly impossible to get full time unless you open your availability completely. Favoritism and nepotism are problems, at least at some stores. Policy enforcements are slow, to say the least. The whole chain is supposed to be changing uniforms, but currently only about half a dozen people at our store have the new uniforms. For many people, hours are inconsistent. One week you can get 15 hours and the next, 35 hours. Corporate imposes rules without ensuring that they work in real life. For example, demanding there be one person doing nothing but handing out samples between certain hours, but cutting the department's overall hours allowance, or scheduling only a couple cashiers on a day expected to be busy.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the little people. When associates bring complaints to management, they should be taken seriously. Don't play favorites with departments or people. Make sure that qualified associates reach full time before new associates. Allow part-time associates to accrue sick leave and vacation time. We need it just as much as full timers.

Pros

Management, at least at my location, are fairly supportive in allowing days not available not to work. They also are more willing than other places I've encountered to give you slack when you need it most depending on the circumstances. I don't even consider myself a "favorite" and I get that treatment. Its very hard to get fired at Publix, you have to do something big and down right bad to accomplish it.

Cons

The pay is below average in all departments. Its more than Kroger but thats not saying much. Opportunities for quick advancement are limited. The downside to Publix is that they retain too many people in the departments, this overextends the hours available making it hard to make a living if you're part time. The current raise increment is 15 cents for an above average evaluation, used to be 25 cents. Publix has had instances where it has rehired members of management who acquired a misdemeanor conviction stealing from their own store location.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on transferring associates between departments and cross training instead of hiring new people. Increase pay to be a leader in the marketplace and draw better talent in the process.

Pros

benefits, bonuses, some coworkers are friendly, customers are mostly nice

Cons

only care about full time employess while working part time employees just as hard or harder, with only a promise of full time in the future. too busy to talk to you about your concerns, and when they do, they only tell you lies

Advice to Senior Management

tell the truth. consider employees as human beings not robots

Pros

It was a great place to balance school and work. The management was always flexible with time-off and there are so many employees working there that it is likely you will always find somebody to cover you. This was especially helpful with such a busy schedule when you're attending school.

Cons

Customers are not always respectful and can be really nasty to you sometimes. Other workers (baggers especially as they stay outside getting carts a lot) don't always pull their weight so you end up doing double the work.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to hire more dependable workers so that others who are getting paid the same don't always have to do double the work to make up for the slackers.

Pros

Fair wages, great benefits, being employee owned. Somewhat caring about your personal needs, more so than some big companies. It all depends on the store manager.

Cons

In management 50+ hours in a normal work week. Corporate wanting to cut back on hours, but still try to please customers on a skeleton crew. The daily demo's take up alot of payroll and hours which could be better spent on taking care of the customers and keeping them happy. I'm sure most customers would prefer great customer service over a sliver of free steak, chicken etc...

Advice to Senior Management

I would suggest that all leadership at Publix spend at least one week (all 7 days in a row) in each department so that they can better understand what actually goes on behind the scenes. There is alot of work that people who have never worked in a department do not realize.

Pros

I love the awesome working environment. Everyone is very nice and helpful and the customers are usually very nice. The benefits are really good for the position.

Cons

Sometimes the hours are difficult but the managers are very understanding of requested days off.

Advice to Senior Management

Always be open to employee questions/concerns. Reward for good work done.

Pros

Working at Publix is one of the best decisions I've ever made! The benefits are outstanding, the opportunities are there for the taking, if you're ambitious, you can retire at 40! Where else can you do that? Without a college education to boot! I also love it that the salaries and bonuses are common knowledge. There are no secrets about who is making what, so if you want to go into management, you know exactly how much you can make and what your bonuses will be.

Cons

It's working at a grocery store. No ifs ands or buts. It's not glamorous, but it is what you make of it. If you concentrate on the customer and making them happy, you forget the rest. So the cons aren't really cons at all.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the little guy, listen to us out there in the trenches about what works, what doesn't and what customers want. Because we hear it all day long and know what it will take to get the job done and keep the customers happy.