Pros
-Opportunity for employee ownership. -Access to vast amounts of training, knowledge bases, and contacts in the electrical wholesale industry.
Cons
-Horrible internal communications—Employees across the company are given pieces of important information at different times than other employees and the organization is messy. -Outdated and antiquated training system and procedural documentation—It’s really a bunch of old timers from the industry trying to teach today’s millennials and GenX how to use a computer. —Salesforce administration is in disarray—This is a fairly new software tool for the company, but in one year they are struggling with insight on Salesforce usage by sales reps in THE MOST PRODUCTIVE OFFICE IN THE COMPANY. -Favoritism and nepotism—Employees referred by other employees, or industry contacts, were allowed to keep their jobs through the pandemic while 25 other employees with the same title and MORE EXPERIENCE were “furloughed” from the company at the same location. -Insufficient Human Resources or people operations for Fortune 500 — When a Director of Human Resources for a 9,000-employee company calls you directly, you might have to wonder why, especially if you are a lower-level employee with at least a handful of other reporting managers above you to communicate with. -“Boys will be boys” type management — One Manager in particular made constant references to “punching nuns” while describing what he could get away with at work, or rethinking his career move back to stripping and “working the pole”, if Graybar didn’t pan out. Also, managers who don’t properly introduce themselves to lower level employees but demand and command respect from whatever room they walk into. -No protection for Employees — When one employee threatens another, and it is documented, and the employee who made the threat has already been written up for extreme misconduct but is allowed to keep their job....yeah, I’d say there’s a problem. -Where is the culture?!—A complete absence of comradery, professionalism, team building exercises, employee networks, etc. This is non-existent at Graybar.
