Pros
1. Graybar is a great place to start a sales career. You learn a great deal of information about the products they distribute and the partnerships between manufacturers, end users, and more. You get to be involved in a lot of cool projects that make you proud to be a part of. Lots to be learned about the supply chain as well which I believe to be pretty critical information in regard to the everyday life of most here in the US. 2. The people that work for Graybar are, very much for the most part, wholesome, friendly, and willing to help at a moment's notice. Particularly the folks on the sales floor or others that handle order entry. I have made great friends here. 3. As a Sales Rep, my direct manager frequently came by the office to say hello and talk with us to see how we are doing. He was always making himself available to help with anything we needed, or provide coaching and insight on how to solve a particular problem. I learned a whole lot from his leadership. 4. Any Graybar employee will tell you just how awesome the benefits package is -- notably the profit sharing and stock options. It is very great, despite some catches, but you can certainly retire very comfortably if you have a lengthy career with Graybar. 5. There have been improvements to the work environment in regard to the aesthetics of the office.
Cons
1. Unfair pay gaps between associates and workloads. Essentially, in a few years time only $5K to my salary despite exceeding budget expectations. In total, this came in form of a merit raise, as well as a large promotion which numerically increased my workload and sales budget by nearly 3X. Even after this promotion, I was still making less in base salary than any collaborative member of my sales team, including the new employees that started at minimum 20% more than what I was making in the same position and have worked in for two years. Even after the promotion I still didn't make near what new team members were making even after I had worked my way through some ranks. These folks in training were starting out at $50-$60K in salary before commissions, which is more than many people there were based at, and word of this spread fast. Management refused all of this any time it was brought up by an employee. Corporate seems to be sweeping this under the rug by offering better YOY stock dividends instead of paying their employees what they are worth despite record profits, but that does not contribute to solving this problem. Upon my promotion, I had a great conversation with my manager about increasing my salary once I began in the new role in hopes to slightly beat or least match what new employees in training were making, as I was living paycheck to paycheck. It essentially ended in "I'll fight for you to see what we can do" which made me feel good, but instead they continued to not even meet me halfway or anything in regard to what I was hoping for, and gave me the base pay of the position, which equated to a salary raise of less than 3%. This made virtually zero difference to my paycheck and really made me realize I am not being valued as I should nor am I being listened to. This was one of the biggest reasons as to why I left. 2. Graybar doesn't communicate well...and this is applicable to multiple aspects of the job but most notably when it comes to trainings, sales campaigns, and company goals or workflow changes. This company pushes out new software to employees despite it clearly not operating well and having a negative effect on the work they do. This even often had an effect on customers as well, leading to more upset or confused customers which would lead to more work on the employee's end. When addressing concerns in this regard you would often be told things along the lines of "that's just how we're doing things now". Despite sending out a quarterly "continuous improvement" survey to all employees, this only reaches your direct manager and does not allow any opportunity to provide feedback regarding the company as a whole. Even when there is an opportunity to ask questions to district leadership, they are often disregarded entirely. 3. The myriad of softwares and systems you have to work with on a daily basis is far too much. Graybar has an extreme need to not only downsize this, but even more importantly need to optimize the accessibility and workflow for employees in a way that actually makes sense. Any attempt at this almost always made my job harder by adding extra steps when the goal should be to find ways to do more in less steps. 4. Work/Life balance varies from time-to-time but I frequently would have to take my work home with me and work up to an additional 2-4 more hours just to keep up with internal deadlines, customer requests, and more. A colleague of mine had to work nearly 70hrs but only clocked in 40hrs because his manager told him to stop working overtime despite the unreal amount of work he had on his plate. Eventually my manager told me I should not be working overtime which I would be fine with if I had the resources to better streamline my workload and workflow. There are also simply not enough hands to do all of the work that is necessary and quickly leads to regular feelings of burnout or failure. 5. Re: benefits, stock dividends, etc: my buying power of stocks actually decreased the longer I worked there. My first opportunity, I was given the power to buy 91 shares. The following year, that decreased to 23, which I did not like at all. Upon bringing this up to management, I was told there had been a corporate decision that nobody had known about that made to modify how the buying power of shares amongst employees is decided, which ultimately had a negative reaction amongst employees and made it harder to buy more shares. 6. Some office managers were absolutely unaware of company celebrations/achievements and company changes.
