Whole Foods Reviews in Austin, TX Area

Pros

Compensation package
Benefits
Sense of Teamwork
Learning environment

Cons

Travel
24-7 mentality of senior leadership

Pros

Decent pay retail, decent benefits package. Actually, it is a lot better than 90% of most retail environments. Lots of great people work there

Cons

You will live in fear, be over worked for your pay, burnt out, picked on, and subject to nepotism and the personal whim of the higher ups. Leadership who do a great job will always get screwed some how. Having a good relationship between with superiors is better than doing a good job. You will get hung out to dry for no reason. You will be reminded - constantly - about how lucky you are to have your job (i.e. you are expendable). If you are a buyer and deal with direct vendors, you will be required to screw them over at some point. Everything is cut throat.

Advice to Senior Management

Train people. Reinstate the core values. You can be profitable without running people into the dirt. This is a company that relies on service, and having smart, amicable people stay around is paramount to the success of a place that has one of the most insane markups of any retail grocer anywhere.

Pros

benefits, decent pay for retail, work with great people, lots and lots of beautiful women shop there

Cons

get ready to get bitched at for just about anything you can imagine, hounded, hassled, run through the dirt...all this when you are doing well.

Advice to Senior Management

Let people do their jobs, expand our labor budgets, and get off our asses!

Pros

Whole Foods is an amazingly progressive, socially conscious and generous company. Whole Foods has provided me the opportunity to be creative, be involved in my community, take ownership and change people's lives.

Cons

Many people still have the wrong idea about the company and don't way the good and the bad. The good far outweighs the bad.

Advice to Senior Management

Tell our story!! We are a great company, I wish we shared it more with others! I think if people really could see all that we do as a company they would be amazed.

Pros

A very open dress code for corporate/CEN employees. Even to the point of shorts and flip/flops. A 20% discount for purchases. But, it goes downhill from there

Cons

NO DECENT PTO TIME. From years 1 to 4, you are "given" just 124 hours per year for everything! That includes vacations, holidays, and sick leave. That is just 15.5 days to use. WFM does not pay for holidays. So, if you take the standard 10 or 11 days off for holidays, that leaves just 4 days for vacations/sick leave. Also, the benefits premium per check is just $10, but there is an absurd deductible per year. All told, WFM is not very family friendly. Do not take any job offers here. Wait for something better. I will have to work almost 15 years here to get the same PTO time I received after just 1 year at other jobs.

Advice to Senior Management

HEY, we do have families and a personal life. Please give us decent PTO times to take care of them.

Pros

* It is a unique company with an admirable mission.
* Most of its leadership walks the walk.
* The executives care about the well being of their employees.
* Despite its flaws, WFM is a great place to work.

Cons

* Corporate support functions are not as valued (IT, Legal, HR) as evidenced by lower than average pay, and benefits voting systems that highly favor the younger workforce at the stores.
* Negligible 401(k) match (~$150/yr max).
* Lower than average pay at corporate leads to less-skilled hires, who provide less value.

Advice to Senior Management

You get what you pay for, most of the time. I think this is true with corporate functions. With WFM at its current size, we cannot expect the majority of staff to work for less than market just because of WFM culture. Keeping less TMs at corporate who were more motivated and fairly paid would likely provide the same value.

Pros

Work/Life Balance, Benefits, People, Training opportunities, Varying experience

Cons

You will not make anywhere near what people make in your same profession
It is very difficult to get promoted because you are constantly competing internally

Advice to Senior Management

Evaluate your salary statistics and realize that the turn over you've gotten, and the turnover you will receive is due to qualified candidates leaving to other organizations, and in most cases they are willing to give up the fringe benefits associated with working at Whole Foods because the pay discrepancies are so vast, and the promotion model is almost non-existent. If you want people that are self motivating and productive, that appreciate the little things you do as a company, you need to make a reasonable effort to keep them. If you can find someone who will work for nothing, and are so narcissistic that you actually believe the culture is the only thing holding them there, you'll probably turn around one day and ask yourself why all of this went from a benefit to an expectation and be forced to deal with the fact that you've got a bunch of non-producing toads that expect the fringe, because they don't want to work, and don't have the pull anywhere else to demand change.

Pros

Employee discount now tied to TM health stats so we are now able to get up to 30% off great food!

Cons

About half of the Regional Presidents are excellent, the other half are seriously disconnected from their stores. The RP sets the tone for the region.

Advice to Senior Management

Lower gross margins in Produce and make it more accessible for people of all income groups. Get in to your stores more often.

Pros

discount on food is helpful

Cons

they let people go seasonally, particularly if you are due for the raise

Advice to Senior Management

give real healthcare, not this fake stuff you offer. don't just keep people around that have skills but no ability to get along

Pros

A supportive environment.
Values driven
Employee centric

Cons

Pay can be a bit lower than industry standards.
Poor performing employees are able to stick around

Advice to Senior Management

Review compensation structure. Sometimes you get what you pay for.