Safeway Reviews in Portland, OR Area

Pros

Great Health Benefits, opportunities for advancement, plenty of face to face interaction, works well if you want to work evenings to avoid paying for child care. Managers are usually very good!

Cons

Work nights and every weekend after 12 years, Only $1.00 raise after 12 years of Service, Work all holidays and not allowed to take vacations during these weeks. Must take vacations 1 week at a time, can't take a day here and there, hours are super tight so you are expected to do the work of 2 or 3 people. Great benefits but it takes 6 months to get them, earn 1 week of vacation after 1 year of service. Safeway has a sink or swim attitude due to lack of hours, always cutting costs so you have to bring your own supplies to work. Pens, tape, calculator, etc.

Advice to Senior Management

All the cutting of hours really causes the employees to stressed out and unable to fulfill job requirements. Safeway has very high expectations and I think that is great but put an employee in an environment where they can flourish with plenty of training (not just on a computer). Stop cutting costs when you are having extraordinary profits. Let the employees know where we stand as a company, not struggling but a fortune 500 or better. Give the store enough hours to stock the shelves not have 150 OOS be the goal, that's too many.

Pros

Opportunities for promotion and flexible scheduling. Management took notice of employees' skills and contributions to the company. Good job to work if you have another job or go to school.

Cons

Company was cheap; when I received a customer service award I was given a pin and a coupon to Quizno's. No discounts for employees, had to pay union dues while making minimum wage. Was promoted to produce, but stayed on the books as a courtesy clerk so they didn't have to give me a pay raise.

Pros

flexable schedule for college students. good pay if you make it to journeyman. work life balance for backstage employees is good.

Cons

only 15% of employees get 40 hrs. In many stores and in upper management, promotion is based on political games instead of skill. Only 20% of stores can reach bonus targets and even then sometimes the target is moved up with most of the year gone. Work life balance for in store management is non existant.

Advice to Senior Management

latest internal pole showed 92% of managers would leave company if they had a good opportunity, yet no changes were made to make job more enjoyable. Make profit targets more attainable expecially in high theft areas.

Pros

Good people, keeps you busy, get discounts on food, able to choose your hours, managers are nice, customers are nice, good co-workers, nice background music

Cons

No career advancement, don't really use your brain, upper management has no vision, treats janitors poorly, not enough disipline when errors are made

Advice to Senior Management

try to reward your employees when a job is well done, don't disparage new employees when they are just stating to learn

Pros

Great pay. I was taking classes at the time and the manager was very helpful in scheduling me around them and around exams.

Cons

Very difficult work, poor work environment (loud, very hot), inflexible hours. Time off, etc. was based on seniority, which was frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management

The system could be made a little more friendly to newer employees. It was also frustrating not to have an assignment everyday- I was required to check in and was sent to whatever part of the plant needed help.

Pros

*Training can be applied to future jobs
*Benefits and health care package very good
*Management respected employees
*Fellow employees fantastic

Cons

*Too many duties placed on courtesy clerks (It even upset cashiers to see my list of daily duties for opening/closing courtesy!)
*Some snooty customers (but that was due to the area of downtown the store is located in
*Lack of hours

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, management was very respectful and nice to every employee, but sometimes they could be condescending and downright rude.

Pros

-Good benefits
-They "try" at work/life balance
-Some of the people who work there are awesome
-My pay was good.

Cons

-The Service Program. Biggest obsticle of the company.
-Pay starting employees very little. Then they blame it on Walmart.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut the service program. Invest the millions spent on Service on insentive based rewards.

Pros

After working with safeway for a year you get two weeks paid vacation. there is also a decent benefits package, however in order to make it affordable you have to go through this discount process which i find to be very inconvenient.

Cons

no merit raises, the benefit discount program is a pain in the rear end, and you have to do it every year. it is now april and i have not yet completed it and will not get retroactive pay once i do.

Advice to Senior Management

this is more directed to corporate: there is an unreasonable expectation for managers which i do not get. there are some amazing managers who do not get any recognition or promotions, and there are managers who should not be managers at all being promoted and recognized when they do not even have good results. i think it is all about who you know and that is not right. it should be about your job performance.

Pros

Safeway has great benefits. You have medical, dental, vision, 401K, stock options, retirement after invested 5 years. Wide variety of retail jobs at store level. Opportunity for growth is excellent. Flexible hours.

Cons

Safeway is to quick to hire and promote without giving proper time for evaluating that individual. I have seen more employees quickly moved to PIC's where there is a huge conflict in being a manager and knowing how to manage store employees. A great deal of immaturity has spread with new PIC's, not enough close supervision on what is exactly going on with PIC's performance with employees. I am disappointed to see the group of PIC's we have at our store perform with such unprofessionalism and immaturity throughout the staff and store.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more attention to what your PIC's performance level is rather than what they are projecting to be in the store when you are there. Listen to feedback and ask your employees how they feel about your PIC's when it comes to them running the store. Hold more employees and PIC's accountable for their unprofessionalism in work ethics.

Pros

There's alot of opportunities for people that otherwise wouldn't have them because of minimal education. Safeway is big on internal promotions, and going up in the company is easy if you have a positive attitude and are willing to take direction.

Cons

Safeway coperate expects a lot and they don't give you a lot of time to get it done in.

Advice to Senior Management

Dial down the negative and give more positive reinforcement. It goes a long way when the little victories are recognized. It puts the drive back in us.