Trader Joe's Reviews

Pros

I love my full time crew.The store is up beat and the customers love it.

Cons

The stock room is small and sometimes challenging when looking for merchandise.

Advice to Senior Management

Some of your employees are not as wonderful as they appear to be as with any place of employment.

Pros

Trader Joe's is a fun, casual environment to work in. Customers love the products and return policies are liberal, so it's easy in the regard. The job is active and assignments vary, so the time passes quickly. Coworkers are a varied group, too, and interesting to talk to. Paid time off, entirely employer paid retirement (15.4% of salary), great health insurance, short- and long-term disability insurance, life insurance. Employee discount helps with groceries. Hard work and good people skills are rewarded with raises, praise and promotions.

Cons

Ten hour work days, five days a week, can get old. It's retail, so we work weekends. Unpredictable nature of business, late trucks, etc., can make it challenging. Lots of in-store HR issues can be tiring. Conservative HR on the corporate level makes it nearly impossible to fire anyone, which keeps low performers on the job.

Advice to Senior Management

Take some chances and let people go when they don't meet expectations. If nothing else, that's what our customers deserve.

Pros

Great co-workers. Great benefits. Work day goes very quickly. Diverse duties throughout the day so you are not bored or stuck in one area. We have a liberal tasting policy and often sample new items. We are allowed to open product for customers to sample too. 10% employee discount which is nice as our prices are already low. Very laid back management style which is wonderful most of the time.

Cons

VERY early morning shifts (5 AM start time) Open 8 AM to 9 PM seven days a week. May be expected to close (midnight or later) and back to work the next moring. Sometimes frustrating to work with the "slackers". Supervisors don't seem to notice or choose not to. Tolerate the same people calling in far too much. Puts a strain on the rest of the crew.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more aware of the "slackers". They are very frustrating to have in a team environment. Same people every day. Be more aware of waste and employee theft. Happens more often than you think!

Pros

Working part time 18 hours a week qualifies employees to incredible benefits. This in and of itself is a reason to work at Trader Joe's. I enjoyed trying new food and wine products as part of the job- a great way to increase product knowledge and learn about variety of foods and wine.

Cons

The job is very physically demanding. The pay is not great. Employees are not treated evenly. I worked under one store manager, and felt the wrath of a lot of transparent favoritism. Resentment and tension builds between employee interactions because of the favoritism. This can be true in any work place, but the "feel good" company vibe Trader Joe's corporate tries to advertise should really enforce fair managing among store managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Biggest complaint about working at Trader Joe's is that part timers feel undervalued and under-appreciated. It's important for them to feel like they're hard work is noticed.

Tips for Management: Appreciate that crew members are working hard for you and you will receive better results. Do NOT do this by buying the Crew pizza or acting chummy.

Managers should show part time employees they are appreciated by making them feel comfortable asking for in-store breaks and by letting them take ten minute breaks when asked for. Frequently giving $5 coupons to buy lunch (like once or twice a week) makes part timers feel more valued by their managers.

If my manager told me s/he had noticed I was doing a good job, or that I had recently shown improvement with my customer service and therefore s/he was going to buy me lunch, I would feel proud, valued, and rewarded for my efforts.

Pros

Trader Joe's provides the best starting pay I've seen for a part-time position in a grocery store. In addition, you have the chance of obtaining up to $1 more for your hourly rate around every 6 months.

Trader Joe's focuses on hiring friendly people. Most of the managers and crew members I worked with were easy to talk to and made working there more enjoyable.

Cons

Rules could be better structured. For example, each manager has different opinions on various things such as how products are stocked, so you have to change how you do things depending on which managers are around that day.

Advice to Senior Management

Figure out a solid set of rules for the store and stick with it.

Pros

The pay was great, the people were interesting, and I was able to have a pretty flexible schedule

Cons

I was younger than most other employees. It's hard to get a job there because they prefer t transfer most workers but if you can get one, take it.

Pros

It's all about the benefits here. You build retirement and can get good medical. uhhhhh...that's about it.

Cons

Work your tail off for not much, if any, reward/recognition. The entire company is run like a mom and pop store. There is a reason mom and pop stores don't make it big. It seems a bit hypocritical. Integrity, ha. No bureaucracy, ya right. It's all politics. Get in with someone good, your good. But if anyone throws you under the bus, you're there for good. You may be doing all of the work but none of the recognition, and thats at ALL levels, PT to Manager. And there is NO, I mean NO work life balance, NONE.

Advice to Senior Management

You're a BIG company think and act like a big company. Don't nickel and dime everything. It takes money to make money, spend money on improvements to stores and for employees. Pay a little more and attract and retain better people. Spend a little more and START with a bigger store. Don't struggle to cram everything and everyone in a small unconventional bad space just to save a dime then have to move or remodel/expand in 10 years. Spend money on the smart choice of software, hardware, equipment, space, or technology THE FIRST TIME.

Pros

Trader Joe's may seem like a unique place to work, but actually it is just like any other retail job. Pays the bills that is all that matters.

Cons

Poor management, poor management, poor management, poor management. The company has lost sight of its laid back attitude. Poor Management.

Advice to Senior Management

All management does it stab each other in the back, it is never their own fault, it is someone else's, fault. Everyone is so worried about losing their job, they just throw each other under the bus.

Pros

-Variety of tasks throughout the day depending on your abilities and work ethic.

-If your willing to relocate and have a captain that knows good leadership and hard work you can move up to management pretty easily.

-Have always been very fair in my reviews.

-If you have a clear head, stay out of the gossip and drama, have a good attitide, working here can be pretty good.

Cons

-Quality of management is very inconsistent. You may have an awesome captain and team of full-timers and then when they start transfering people you may get a not so great team of managers and you'll be sctratching your head on how these bozos even got hired let alone promoted

-For some reason TJ's loves to open stores in areas where the greediest, cheapest, and rudest, customers reside so difficult customer expriences is fairly common but you do have good ones in the mix as well.

-As I stated above what really makes or breaks your exprience working here is if you have decent and competant managers so while working in one store maybe great the one in the next town maybe totally chaotic if the lunies running the asylum.

Advice to Senior Management

The one thing I think the company would benefit from is making the firing of painfully obvious bad employess easier and not promoting someone mainly because there willing to move around rather then there abilities.

Pros

The people. They are the best part of working at Trader Joe's; they're fun, outgoing, hard working, and just great to be round and learn from.

Cons

Working with customers is always difficult at Trader Joe's, and the work is somewhat physically demanding so that wears you out as well.

Advice to Senior Management

Management at Trader Joe's has proven to be very adept at handling issues of conflict as well as disorganization within the store. A lot of methods have changed recently which have streamlined how we work.