Pros

They offer flexible scheduling and you learn a lot about painting supplies. This is most helpful when you own your own house and are trying to get it painted. There is room for advancement in most stores, because of the turnover. The workout you get from hauling around paint is healthy.

Cons

The low pay is the biggest downside. They barely give above minimum wage and you are doing back breaking work most of the time. The amount of service they ask you do for customers is not worth the paycheck you receive.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice would be to appreciate your workers more by offering other benefits to staying there. The pay just isn't enough.

Pros

Can run the retail store as if it is your own

Cons

Lack of employees to staff store

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more employees

Pros

Soild company, nearly recession proof. if you in the door and work hard you'll have job. promotions are very easy to be made aware of, getting them may be another story. the corp. network is nice to have to service customers fully. brand rec. is huge. makes selling a little easier, than if you where a mom and pop paint store. R and D is always cooking up some type of new product to keep us on the cutting edge. but the thing i would consider best by far is the fact that you are devloping real realationships with your customer base. you are helping them grown their biz, in turn you'll grow.

Cons

the sitgma of being a corp. feast or famine bonuses. if you year sucks its sucks. if it is popping, its popping. the three major factors that play in your profitablity are you, your rep, the market. if one is off. your year will suck. and you will start to lose hair. often you will find your self alone in your store, for the reasons of keeping down cost. normaly not a issues, but it sucks for your customers when you are waitng on seven or eight people and your trying to take the time to make sure each is getting the proper service level. the most annoying thing is some of the 'days of our lives' type of drama that occurs. people talk about everything that anyone has going on.

Advice to Senior Management

foucs on developing good management staff. have a bit of grace.

Pros

The Sherwin Williams company has a great sense of community and family.

Cons

You have to move to Cleveland, OH if you want to get ahead in Sr. Management. Cleveland is not worth it.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to attract and retain talent you need to have better time off benefits.
Put more investment dollars into divisions other than house paint. Especially research and development.

Pros

Good Pay out of school. Relaxed atmosphere. Direct supervisors/coworkers have been great.

Cons

Training falls on you and immediate supervisors (store management) with mixed results. There are no clear standards, just some vague standards. Up/down communication with District Management is limited because they don't allow criticism. They have either been not deciding to promote me for unknown reasons or stringing me along, we'll never know because they don't allow the necessary communication. Basically, they have a system that they follow it. However, sometimes it's necessary to go outside of their comfort zone/system sometimes to solve problems and get ahead. Otherwise, you have a stagnant situation. I came in with a company merger, which meant I had twice the roadblocks. District Management are people that it's going to be up to you to handle, and you have to find a way. These people want to hear all solutions and no problems all of the time no matter what.

Advice to Senior Management

Would actually trying to be creative and solve a problem be completely out of the question. Getting ahead of others on how you handle your business issues are how one beats their competitors. Your competition may not be the greatest, but it is there and you guys better get to work to reach your full potential.

Pros

Flexibility for college students or someone who needs a second job. Pay for part-time is very competitive. Small store, less employees = great comradery. Doing deliveries gets you out of the store for awhile. Your paint knowledge will expand 10 fold while working here. It is knowledge you can take with you. Employee discount is great; 40% to 50%. 401K was good until the economy took a dump.

Cons

Customers can be demanding. Self-important Contractors treat you badly and think they are the only people on Earth who paint and need deliveries. Contractors should tip more! DIY customers can stress out the best of us. Upper management needs to support subordinate managers much better, especially the ones that actually do their job. Upper management needs to come off their Schaumburg HQ tower and observe the front line more than 1 to 2 times a year. I saw my DM once last year...hmmm...and stop with the favoritism in certain employees who are no more capable than anyone else.

Advice to Senior Management

Look more closely at Store Managers. Many take advantage of their salaried position by leaving early almost everyday. Hold the accountable. Think about promoting within a little more. Many excellent part-timers are lost due to the fact they are overlooked as possible full timers and/or Assistant Managers. Wouldn't it be more beneficial to move up an experienced part-time Sales Associate than to hire and train a college graduate who has never dealt with paint in their life? Come to the stores more often and see the progress of your stores, sometimes its good to get to the front lines once in awhile. Get to know your employees better. Promote from within, promote from within, promote from within. Invest some time into forming positive relationships with your subordinates. it seems social skills are not as sharp as the way they look at numbers.

Pros

They have always been loyal to me.

Cons

.I may be able to make more somewhere else in sales

Advice to Senior Management

Don't micromanage

Pros

good entry level job, and they advertise that. however, once you get out of the "entry level" range i feel there is a disconnect in career advancement, and a disconnect in salary. i guess that is part of the problem of working with big companies in general.

Cons

as mentioned above, career advancement/development is lacking. Employees are not rewarded for obtaining advanced degrees either by promotion or pay increase. lateral moves are the norm

Advice to Senior Management

work on helping to advance people careers...don't pigeon hole them into their position. SW is a massive company and cross-functionalization and diverse backgrounds are a benefit to a company. Also, reward people for having an advanced degree, even if you don't have one yourself.

Pros

Good work environment, products are very solid so most sell themselves. mostly quality people come into the store, DIY or contractor. Managers give time off if you give them the heads up. I like the business.

Cons

Retail, open on weekends, company isn't doing well so cutting hours. Manager isn't as solid as others. not much opportunity for growth in the near future. Working with DIY can be very stressful at times. working with some contractors can be awful because of how some treat you and think they are better than you. training is basically watching training cds and getting onto the sales floor, which is the best way to learn, but is very uncomfortable for the first few weeks.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn how to price certain products better. there is too many overpriced primers, paints that we sell. They need to do this to market more of the DIY market, which is very low compared to the big box companies.

Pros

401k, Benefits, and movement inside the company. Each and every position is based on merit and how well you perform. It also has a very extensive training program that keeps all the management/store staff on the same page. The incentive plan is amazing too. Once you start hitting your budget the company strongly rewards you. Its is very nice getting an extra $11,000 per year. Overall I would recommend getting involved with the Management Training Program(MTP).

Cons

Long hours, customer complaints. Sometimes requires alot of patience. There are some days which I do not get many breaks but thats how the painting business goes. The bonus money is taxed 40% though which is kinda bad, but that is not this companies fault.

Advice to Senior Management

I like the way everything works and I would like to continue moving forward even in this tough ecomony.