W.W. Grainger Reviews

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great job security, good benefits, competitive wages, tuition reimbursement. Grainger has a healthy approach about helping you further your education and have very generous profit sharing. It was recently named as one of the top 100 to work for in the US because they make a conscious effort to be flexible with employees.

Cons – difficult to advance career, it can be very political if you don't know people who will support you and help you move in the right direction.

Advice to Senior Management – promote from within more

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

Former Employee – worked at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great pay for hourly workers
Great benefits
Some great managers
40 hour workweeks

Cons – Micromanagement at the middle-management level
Always adhering to the LEAN principle, always trying to do more with less
Silly "motivational" meetings every morning
Very hard to make upward or lateral moves in the company
Not-so-up-to-date proprietary sales technology

Advice to Senior Management – Drop the micromanagement and the LEAN stuff, the company & the system flat-out work and has worked for one hundred-something years. other than that. great company to work for.

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

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Autonomy, pay, growth , career builder

Cons – too much administrative work to do at night

Advice to Senior Management – development employees and align mentors

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Best Industrial Distributor out there.
Customer Loyalty.
Competitive Pay.

Cons – difficult to communicate between functional areas
confusing goal setting process

Advice to Senior Management – They need to understand that our customers do not always see the differences between us and our competitors as distinctly as we do.

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

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time

Pros – Structured Career Path, Reputable company

Cons – Not very flexible when think outside the box to achieve better solutions for customers

Advice to Senior Management – Competition is adapting to provide customers with solutions that can help save time and money too. Value the opinions of those that are in the field..

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Benefits package, can work remotely.

Cons – Goal expectations---difficult to overcome and make real money. Income is essentially capped with unrealistic goals. Disparity of goal incremental from one employee to the next. Favoritism, good ole boy network for both men and women. Perception is everything, or you'll never get anywhere in this company. Upper management all the same---and that's not a complement. Old School Grainger people (lot of women), leaving or being forced out in droves for the younger, cheaper, straight out of school churn and burns. Lowest pay grade in the industry for compensations and bonuses. For the record, I'm one of the few that have made goal several years in a row, at the expense of my family. Looking to get out.

Advice to Senior Management – Sales people understand that they're a $$$ sign, but at least treat us with some respect. Stop with the micro-managing and the ridiculous goals. Grainger's idea of inclusion and diversity is a joke. Try being white, and over 50. You're losing first rate people for the almighty dollar, and ironically, it will cost you more in the end.

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

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Home Office, Lap Top, Cell Phone, Great C level Leadership, Profit Sharing

Cons – Mileage reimbursement plan (Runzheimer), Commission Payback possibilities, Not much team interaction. Goal increases year over year are pretty steep. Commission structure has changed 6 times in 7 years. Sales training process is about 3-5 years behind. Annual Achievers program is virtually not attainable unless a large sale falls into your lap. Ability to make 100% sales goal year over year is not easy.

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of Commission payback structure. Find a commission plan and stick with it. Goal setting needs to be more realistic. Allow for goal adjustments for sellers when contracts are lost that the seller has nothing to do with.

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

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Flexible scheduling. Can actually choose your schedule, as long as there are 80 hours in the 2 week period.

Pay is competitive for the area. If you factor in the profit sharing trust and benefits its much higher. Don't expect it to go up much though.

Relatively low pressure for a call center environment.

Cons – Zero upward mobility. If you are on the front lines looking to move into a management role, you need to be tapped into the "Old Girls Network", The only real mentoring opportunities are through "business resource groups" and of those the only ones with any actual activity are the Women's and Latino. White males need not apply.

Management spends all their time on "projects" and very little on working with their staff. You can be absolutely incredible at your job, and nobody really will know. Be prepared for very low annual raises based of goals which have no real relevance to your day to day job. Even if you max out your review scores, % raises work out to less than half of the increase in the cost of living year to year.

Advice to Senior Management – Take a hard look at your internal hiring practices. Instead of touting how you are getting "good people on the bench" take a hard look at if you are ever putting them in the game.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger part-time for more than a year

Pros – Fun to go to work, can get busy and hectic but it's pretty much a good time

Cons – Can get busy and mostly frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management – Put yourselves in the work flow and understand the day to day of the company

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

Former Employee – worked at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good compensation, good benefits, and well known and recognized company.

Cons – During my time there, there was an extremely high attrition rate of the District Sales Managers, along with the territory sales reps. This doesn't allow for development of synergies between representatives and management nor representatives and clients for medium to long term.

Advice to Senior Management – Yes, it it understood that people with continue to buy from Grainger as it has a strong brand recognition, however, imagine the % of growth potential to be realized in a med to long term relationship with one representative with an account. Multiply that per account and the numbers are quite astonishing.

Most of the objections or non positive perception from the client initally were ,"What, another Grainger representative? Wow, seems like you guys have a new rep every few months."

That said, Grainger is still a leader and has increased its stock price share from $80's to over $100 per, so, as stated in the beginning, does (attrition) it really matter as long as profits are growing and shareholders are happy:? Probably not.

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