Tesco Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

People get things done here and the head office is a well aligned working culture meaning people fit their jobs well. There is a real energy in the place and people are respectful towards each other. Working for the biggest supermarket is just very interesting.

Cons

You've got to work hard - but it is rewarding

Pros

the best things about working at tesco is the flexibility of working hours, bue to beingopen 24/7.

tescos staff discout is also useful, especially on such low wages.

Cons

the downsides of working here are, the management believe they are special human beings and acknowledging the presence of lesser employees is not important. Therefore a lack of morale pervades the lower ranks. the common courtesy of saying hello is very rare.

Advice to Senior Management

treat us like human beings, we are on the shop floor facing the customers, day in day out, keeping your store alive, say hello, be more friendly, it won't cost you a penny.

Pros

People and opportunity to contribute. I join in a role that did not previously exist and I am able to make my own work.

Cons

Lack of focus on long term growth and control. There is a very short term focus on growth, with controls and long term viability not always getting the time it need.

Advice to Senior Management

Put some more focus on governance and controls, especially audit. Audit today is not the same as in the past, but a place where well defined controls improve performance and saves money!

Pros

Marmite - you either love it or hate it at Tesco
Pay is good in head office
Opportunities to progress are good - if you are good at your job
Treat employees to team days out.
Good train links to london central (30mins)
lots of International opportunities - I spent a few months in India, Bangalore
You will be moved around quickly if you are good.
People are nice
Calibre of people is very high
Great opportunity to learn new skills and new ways of doing things

Cons

Very hard work (Can be quite technical at times, very high volume, requires a very fast pace in turnaround)
People are challenging in terms of push back
Long hours required
People are aggressively managed by peers at all levels WL2-WL4
Not for someone looking for an easy job
Little support from peers and very high expectations
Many people leave after a few months however some people thrive in the environment
Systems dont work too great
Challenges around working with the Bangalore team where the capability of staff is lower, environment has less urgency and culture tolerates errors.
Location of HQ is poor, it is on an old industrial estate where there is a high crime rate in local area and nowhere to eat outside and canteen food is not good.
Difficult to get to work level 3 if you are a WL2 and difficult to get to WL4 if you are WL3 - political

Advice to Senior Management

Support staff more,
move staff around if role is not right for the staff talent planning does not work
Provide better tools

Pros

A dynamic forward thinking business with good opportunities for advancement. Reasonable renumeration in terms of the sector. Lots of varied and interesting roles in terms of employment. Employee morale tends to be good. Certainly better than I have known in other companies. It offers flexible hours so is really good if you are bringing up a family or just want a better work/life balance. There are also good benefits and perks available.

Cons

The work culture is not for everyone. Although you can progress quite quickly, there tends to be quite a high turnover of staff especially at thelower end of the scale

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the staff on the shop floor

Pros

My department is Grocery, which is essentially the biggest department in the store - all food and drink that isn't fresh.

On Fridays and Saturdays there is an extra delivery which has to be worked (put on shelves) during the day, it is quite a hefty amount of stock to do when the store is so busy, around 25-35 roll cages full. Along with doing this which keeps you busy, you have plenty of customer queries to deal with and depending on whether you are multi-skilled or not you sometimes have to answer 'first class service' calls (much to your department managers annoyance) which means lending a hand on the checkouts during busy times. Getting 'multi-skilled' on the checkouts when you don't work on the checkout department is usually something you have to orchestrate yourself, I did it because there tends to be plenty of overtime opportunities on the checkouts as opposed to anywhere else, especially around Xmas. You do sometimes get till trained when you first start, it depends whether you work during busy times or not.

Cons

Any new vacancies in store are always advertised internally before employing new starters, and they have an internal course called 'Options' which trains you for a managers role, all the managers and team leaders at Tesco tend to have worked their way up, so if you are interested in a job at Tesco you are unlikely to be able to get straight into a managers role. This is good because it keeps current staff motivated to work hard, and to be honest if you want to work at Tesco and plan on settling there for a substantial period of time you need to be aiming for promotions. Kissing ass really helps your cause.

Advice to Senior Management

Start treating people at the bottom with some dignity, its them who do the backbreaking work that is making you the money.

Pros

Wide range of jobs available.
High degree of job stability & security.
Well entrenched concept of Tesco values (to promote fair treatment of staff)
Good pension plan, and share bonus scheme

Cons

Career obstacle course rather than career path.
Short term cost focussed, does not always correctly evaluate total cost of ownership.
Compensentation comes up short compared to other businesses nearby in London
Admin tasks (travel, expenses etc) are over-bureaucratic
Sometimes lip service payed to Tesco values
Lack of basic resources (meeting rooms, projectors etc) makes work more difficult than it should be
Difficult to find the right person to take responsability for issues

Advice to Senior Management

Make efforts to equalise the skills and compentency of the more senior job grades (WL3+) across the business.
Try to get teams to work in the same location
Publish complete org chart for head office and RACI

Pros

Training courses, work and life balance. A good place to work for people with families and children.
Tesco is a great place to work - whether you're planning the layouts of our aisles, sourcing products in Thailand or improving our supply chain in Turkey.

We have become a market leader by doing the little things that really matter for our customers and staff.

We believe in treating each other with respect, giving everyone an equal opportunity to get on.

Cons

It takes forever to get promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

No feedback.

Pros

There is a reasonable amount of staff/staff interaction and generally you never feel dreadful for having to go into work. Discounts and freebies are also enjoyed.

Cons

Tesco has a model that works no lying in that, sadly the model requires store management to be mushrooms, aka they are kept in the dark and manure is dumped on them.

Advice to Senior Management

You'd be incredibly surprised how many smart people you have working in stores whose suggestions for store improvements are usually totally ignored.

Pros

thinking....still thinking...it's convenient and easy if you're desperate for a job. Also generally speaking the staff are great despite the poor pay and poor working conditions.

Cons

Poorly paid, poorly rewarded for hard work and poorly rewarded when the company performs well due to the hard work of it's lowly employees! From my experience within other industries and businesses if a company performs extremely well due to the great efforts of it's staff then those same staff can often look forward to a bonus of some sort. At Tesco there is no reward for great results. Unless you are a senior executive that is. Of course those billion dollar profits are all due to that merry bunch of executives at head office.
It also has a very poor culture towards the health and safety of it's staff. In the warehouse fire doors can often be found blocked, Roll cages stacked with heavy stock will arrive for delivery with only 3 wheels where 4 should be and chiller floors covered with water making for highly dangerous working areas. I could go on. I think this is in danger of turning into a rant and so here I will stop

Advice to Senior Management

Recognise that in order to attract exceptional staff at ALL levels of the business the level of remuneration has to be good, the work to life balance has to be considered and the rewards for great company performance through high standards of work by it's employees should be shared by ALL of tesco employees from trolley guy to CEO. Not just handed out between share holders and senior executives in their value tesco suits.
Also understand that staff have opinions they would love to express in order to improve the business and highlight shortcomings. This cannot be achieved simply through a standardised multiple choice questionare every year.