Pros
- Grainger sellers are relatively autonomous and enjoy a certain level of flexibility. -Mileage reimbursement (but your vehicle must be 5 years or newer for full reimbursement) - Company phone and laptop - Great team members/internal business partners (there is a well-defined and widely-perceived sense of camaraderie among most front-line employees ) - Opportunity for advancement is bountiful if willing to relocate every 2-4 years - Brand recognition; Grainger is the most widely recognized brand in the B2B MRO market sector - Top-tier sales and specialized (safety, metalworking, energy savings, etc) training.
Cons
- Compensation package (commission/salary) is an incomprehensible, complicated-on-purpose, volume-over-PY (not total revenue) mess that is no longer competitive - Team morale is at a five-year low - Micromanagement is at an all-time high company-wide (correlation to the previous point? Hmm...) Sadly, the current Account Manager role bears little resemblance to what it was 2-5 years ago. With the company's recent investment into Salesforce and "Value Based Conversations", micromanagement of metrics has hit an all-time high; it is a very unstable period in the Sales world at Grainger. Since the adoption of SF and VBC there has been a mass exodus of sellers, District Sales Managers, and Regional Sales VP's leaving the company because of the path the company is heading down. Senior leadership demands metrics to be met, and it is left to the District Managers to drink the Koolaid and regurgitate the Company schlock ad nauseum. If an employee does not believe in the cause, they are typically removed from the organization.