Tim Hortons Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Tim Hortons part-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Flexible part-time hours in respect to personal life

Cons – Low wage
Poor management
Poor work environment

Advice to Senior Management – When promoting employees to management positions please understand the qualities that it takes to manage a group of employees. The only benefits I received from this job was that I know how NOT to manage and treat employees. As far as my advice to the corporate headquarters would be I would highly recommend that they take a closer look at the individuals who own franchises and represent the Tim Hortons brand. Not only were my low, middle, and higher managers simply terrible but I've met numerous franchise owners who were just as bad if not worse. Please understand that these franchise owners represent you as a company and please take steps in correcting the actions of these poor business owners.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Tim Hortons part-time for less than a year

Pros – well....i would say there isnt any. unless everyone you work with is white and speaks proper english this job sucks!

Cons – Can get very busy, its usually understaffed, the people you work with dont speak very good english, as the new person you get stuck with the horrible jobs. they just expect you to know what youre doing.

Advice to Senior Management – Make sure that the people training the new people speak english. its hard to learn when you cant understand them!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Tim Hortons part-time for less than a year

Pros – You can get paid some money, you will learn to be faster at thinking and multi-tasking, and you will learn the extensive menu.

The supervisor is like the main robot and the storefront staff are like the arms of this said main robot. The main robot sees more than the arms, so the main robot can give a command so that you can deal with the fires (read: emergencies such as a longer line or tables that need clearing). You can think on your own in slow times, but when it gets busy, always be ready to give up autonomy and just follow orders.

It's an assembly line, no different than working in a factory other than the fact that you deal directly with customers.

You can get to watch the training videos. I got the opportunity to watch all of them, including those for supervisors. So even though I am still a storefront employee, I understand what the managers are doing. I don't talk about it, I just act dumb, everyone thinks I'm dumb.

The store manager is really nice, she knows how to motivate people. You even feel bad when you disappoint her because she is not one to just be rude to you when she is correcting you.

I have nice co-workers who seem concerned for how I am treated and they are nice to me. They use a gentle but firm tone to correct me and they try to encourage me. They don't realize that even though I may have a dumb and scared look on my face, I appreciate their polite and kind manner and I learn faster that way than when someone sneers at me or shouts.

Cons – The pace is very fast and not good for those who are faint of heart. You also need to be able to handle criticism and sneers from those above you. Be ready to have commands and counter-mmands and consequences from either of them. Be ready to be blamed for something you did not do, no need to state you didn't do it because sooner or later, you will make that mistake anyway.

There are cliques, so be ready to be part of one or remain an outsider forever :)

Be ready to not get any hours sometimes, I get only 6 hours a week so far and I was told I could not ask for more. I think they are trying to get me to quit on my own. I have applied for jobs elsewhere and I will ask them to limit my contact with them to just those 6 hours and never increase it. I do not mind being harrassed for 6 hours to get paid some money, who hates money anyway? I am beginning to learn most things so it is less stressful, I get do more orders than before.

Co-workers who think you are dumb will give you the wrong sequence of pouring and mixing drinks because they think it's funny. They don't realize that you already watched the videos and know what needs to be done, only that you watched too many of them and the sequences are out of order, you just need clarification.

I did have one incident that caused me to apply for another job the very same day. I had tears streaming down my face and the customer I was dealing with was in complete shock. It was a medical problem but I was told to suck it up and finish dealing with the customers before I could take a break. The pressure keeping the reaction inside is what produced the tears. I never imagined anything like this could happen at a workplace but it did happen to me. I think the customer was disappointed and shocked.

This is not a place to work long term not unless you lost all hope in life. If you are young and starting out, you'll later on find out that some things you put up with here should not be accepted.

I have only had one really horrible customer. Some were very annoyed but they only had cross faces but this one went out of her way to laugh out loudly, point at me and scream about how she couldn't believe how stupid I was. I am a tough person but truth be told, it got to me. I hadn't been openly ridiculed since I was maybe 12 years old. But it helped me learn the menu faster so that I wouldn't be in the same situation again, lol

The lack of storage room at the back was shocking, so my purse is out there for anyone to go through. My only consolation is that there is no time to rest, I doubt anyone would have time to look through my purse.

Advice to Senior Management – I think the business model results in this terrible situation at the stores. It can't be helped. Too much is expected of employees and yes you do stay extra after your shift to finish up things. The end result its that it eats into your paid break, which means you really had no break. I think issues like this cannot be fixed, so can't issues to do with food safety, employee safety, and even excellent customer service. All these things sound very good on paper and in training but because of the extreme high pace of work, only problems can result.

You will continue to experience a high turn over, this can't be helped.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Tim Hortons part-time for less than a year

Pros – -Great work experience
-Best way to learn teamwork
-Develop useful skills for future employments (eg. time management)

Cons – -Humiliated by management in front of customers
-Early shifts at 5am
-Verbal abuse from customers

Advice to Senior Management – Check to see how the store managers treats your employees. I've had customers literally tell me they were embarrassed to be in front of the cash register because of the yelling from management to team member.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Tim Hortons

Pros – Free coffee
Nice coworkers
Flexible
Half priced food

Cons – Did not like the atmosphere
Did not like how I was treated by customers
Did not like the location of the store, way too busy

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Tim Hortons full-time

Pros – Most places, the team members are getting rather well together. And that's it.

Cons – The wage is minimal, as expected for a fast food store. What is not minimal is the amount of work. To make money, a store keeps it's floor staff at a minimum, and for at least 50% at the day shift the crew members must literally run and depending of the location, serve the drinks, sandwiches and run cashiers at a ridiculous pace. At some moments, because of the huge lining up, we were serving the coffee so fast we didn't had the time to stir! That was ridiculous. Considering the minimum wage, this is a ridiculous amount of work. Maybe for students it's just an entry job, but on many locations half the staff are persons who are paying a house and sending kids to school. Those people still earn such miserable salary for such a hard work. Not everybody had the chance to stay in school. Meanwhile, the co-founder of the company is billionaire, runs his 40 millions dollars yacht, and in average a store owner makes 200.000$+ clear a year after all expenses. This is a Canadian money making machine at the expense of thousands of hard working poorly paid canadian employees. Yes, the customers get reasonable quality products at the cheapest price, but at which real price. On top of it, the floor managers I've come to meet or had been interviewed by, where for most part angry persons with bully attitude. The store owners seem to have a preference for such persons.
Finally, the company has hypocrite policies such as making their employees fill grids with questions such as how satisfied are you about your job, manager, pay, etc. Really.

Advice to Senior Management – To store owners: bully floor managers don't motivate employees already stressed by the amount of work coupled with minimum wage. You make your money and recover your investment in 5 years, why not make this a really pleasant working place by hiring floor managers with real interpersonal skills.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Tim Hortons full-time for more than a year

Pros – decent benefits package thats about it

Cons – horrible managers, not enough hours

Advice to Senior Management – get new managers

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Tim Hortons part-time for less than a year

Pros – Coworkers were very friendly and nice

Cons – Management was horrible. They didn't care about part-time employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Be nice.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Tim Hortons part-time for less than a year

Pros – free coffee and stuff
compromisable shift options

Cons – - rude customers daily yelling at you/etc
-supervisors/etc are minimum wage, no credentials or skill, playing queen bee games
-crazy hen house
-irrational expectations of new employees with little training
-low pay, even with promotions youll probably always make min wage

Advice to Senior Management – have better control of the women at your location, many are playing queen bee games and treat others with no respect which increases turnover.
have a realistic perspective when it comes to learning curve, lotta random stuff to learn.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Tim Hortons part-time for more than a year

Pros – Good for high school students who have neither skills nor experience

Cons – lack of staffing, unhygienic practices, mistreatment of employees, lack of employee benefits

Advice to Senior Management – Conduct mystery shopping to get a better idea of how franchises are ran. Do not let them compromise quality of food, customer service and employee benefits in mindless pursuit of maximizing earnings.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend