United Stationers Reviews

Pros

Industry leader in the office supply wholesale trade.

Cons

The glad-handing and back-slapping of the good ol' boys network.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't overlook internal talent.

Pros

Good benefits, decent pay for my first job out of college.

Cons

Micro-manager boss, lack of good communication, plenty of backstabbing, office politics and gossip. Deadlines were a joke.

Advice to Senior Management

Do your catalog production in-house.

Pros

Monday through Friday work week
Full Time Hourly associates have the ability to earn OT when available
When the business is slow, management allows associates to take time off without pay

Cons

If you are a union associate, dues will be taking out of your pay check
Some departments get more overtime than others

Advice to Senior Management

As for management, some of them care about their associates and some don't. My immediate supervisor has taken the time to provide me with the necessary tools to help me prepare myself for the next level.

Pros

The pay and benefits were actually really good for a warehouse position. Much better than most other warehouse positions out there.

Cons

You're treated as though you're nothing better than a worker ant. You're looked down upon by certain superiors. They do a good job of feigning respect for you, but in actuality they care very little about you. There is one person in upper management at the Denver facility that is an extremely nice guy and I would have loved to work for him. I interviewed with him as opposed to my direct manager, and therefor was fooled because my direct superior turned out to be terrible.

As an example of no concern for you: I was hospitalized on a Sunday with an injury sustained outside of work. I get back to work on wednesday after recovering and find that I'm being written up for not giving 24 hours notice for missing work; Even though a call was placed to my manager ASAP after getting out of the hospital on sunday. I understand that the policy of 24-hour notice is put into place so that people don't abuse sick days and leave everyone else shorthanded that day, but when I'm in the hospital, with a semi-serious injury, to show no leniency or even concern for my health what-so-ever is just poor managing. They don't seem to grasp the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker.

They give you "check-marks" on your record for various infractions. If you get something like 6 check-marks on your record, you're terminated. They also give you somewhere around 6 sick days, but because of the "24-hour notice for missing work" policy, you are given a check mark whenever you actually use them for the intended purpose of calling off when you wake up with a 102 degree fever. You do the math!

I showed about as much interest in advancing within the company as i possibly could. i volunteered to learn every position possible within the company, yet this was very rarely acknowledged. I stayed late to help finish work a few times, yet was rarely acknowledge with so much as a half-hearted "thank you." After that, i just stopped volunteering for it because it obviously wasn't appreciated. The second the clock hit the end of my shift, I was out of there. I'm not going to help you if you don't appreciate me!

Thinking back about it now, most of this review is actually centered around the manager of my department. He wasn't an evil or mean or terrible person or anything like that, he just really doesn't know how to be a manager. He just needs some training. I sometimes worked in other departments and the managers were reasonable, from the little I was exposed to with them. So I don't know that this company is a terrible company to work for, so much as this one department is.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice to the upper management would be to make sure that the people you promote to manager are truly management material. I would suggest some sort of training for it as opposed to just putting someone in there that has never even been a lead, yet alone a manager.

Pros

Good Employees, Solid Service levels, Balanced life is important.

Cons

Technically behind the times in old industry

Advice to Senior Management

Keep moving forward with Technology

Pros

Good group of core people, flexible on work/home issues, and overall a very stable company. Many people have worked there for over 20 years.

Cons

Hard to implement change there, due to IT constraints. There is a lack of overall direction from top management. Fragmented dealer base makes implementation of new programs almost impossible.

Advice to Senior Management

There will not be any significant growth in the next five years without some major overhaul of the marketing and IT systems. Last acquisition has not panned out at all.

Pros

Great Pay, Generous time off,

Cons

The need to always "watch your back". If you haven't been there for 20 years and worked with management from the beginning you will never be accepted by management. Management will always support their buddy's from back in the day.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop living like it was 20 years ago. Embrace new ideas and let your people do their job. Train them to move forward and be the next generation instead of working every day to hold on to your job and your perks

Pros

I live close to work,i have good working hours,the pay is ok for the area and the benefits are good.

Cons

Senior management needs to spread the wealth down the pipeline.We have had no or weak raises in recent years,while our stock prices are at an all time high.

Advice to Senior Management

Make the supervisors and leads actually do some work once and a while,before they criticize how other associates perform.

Pros

The leader in their Industry with really only one major nationwide competitor
Good pay and benefits
Reasonable sales expectations
Treated us very well when traveling for meetings

Cons

Very much a boys club
An old group of buddies that seem to run everything. Very hard to fit in.
There are potential HR issues everywhere

Advice to Senior Management

Watch out, anyone with basic human resources knowledge would see some major potential problems at particular locations. Some people really need to be reigned in.

Pros

their involvement in the community

Cons

poor work-life balance and disrespect between associates ignored by management

Advice to Senior Management

It is important that associates feel repected in the workplace.