Harbor Freight Tools Employee Reviews about "good pay"
67% would recommend to a friend
(601 total reviews)

Eric Smidt
79% approve of CEO
Found 601 of over 3K reviews
Updated Dec 1, 2023
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Top Review Highlights by Sentiment
Excerpts from user reviews, not authored by Glassdoor
- "You receive a small portion of time off on each paycheck depending on the hours you work." (in 93 reviews)
- "It just reeks of poor management and a lack of caring of who is promoted to what position." (in 174 reviews)
- "No work life balance work 2 or 3 overnights followed by an early shift then a close." (in 76 reviews)
Ratings by Demographics
This rating reflects the overall rating of Harbor Freight Tools and is not affected by filters.
Reviews about "good pay"
Return to all Reviews- 4.0Jan 17, 2023Sales AssociateFormer Employee, less than 1 year
Pros
The managers care about you and your safety a lot when it comes to getting to work or if a customer is getting out of hand. The pay is really good also when it comes to the situation you are in.
Cons
Favorites are chosen quickly and will get the credit that you deserve, and when brought up nothing really changes
Harbor Freight Tools Response11mo
Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. We are committed to building a great place to work by continuously improving in all areas and at all levels. Your feedback will help us do that. Thank you for your hard work and we wish you all the best!
- 1.0Aug 17, 2020Asset RecoveryFormer Employee, more than 5 yearsCamarillo, CA
Pros
Good job to have in till you find a company that pays a competitive wage.
Cons
If you voice your opinion, you are a problem.
2Harbor Freight Tools Response4y
First, we want to thank you for trusting Harbor Freight with your career for over 5 years. We wouldn’t be able to accomplish all that we do without hardworking associates like yourself. We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us. Our goal is to be a great place to work and that means listening to our associates every step of the way. Your feedback helps us do just that. We wish you the best in your future career endeavors.
- 4.0Jan 23, 2022Operations ManagerCurrent Employee, more than 5 yearsMoreno Valley, CA
Pros
HFT distribution pays a very good hourly wage &; is very competitive with the local market. They truly are about the people & are always evaluating how to continue making the DC a great place for the associates.
Cons
At times, the global supply chain issues also impact HFT. This causes the hours to be inconsistent at times.
1Harbor Freight Tools Response2y
Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback. We value people above all else and we are dedicated to building the best place to work for all of our Associates. Harbor Freight is built on a commitment to excellence and we are continuously working to improve in all areas and all levels. Thank you for your continued hard work in Moreno Valley, CA and we’re glad to have you on the team!
- 3.0Feb 29, 2016CashierFormer EmployeeHouston, TX
Pros
The good things about working here was that the pay as a cashier was above the average minimum wage.
Cons
Some cons about working here were the lack of leadership and just workers being everywhere.
Harbor Freight Tools Response7y
Thank you for sharing your feedback, as you may remember Harbor Freight Tools is committed to continuously improving our processes and we will make sure to share your feedback with the appropriate team members. Over the past few years we have made some big changes to the way we operate and how we recognize our associates and we have more to do and hope you will take a minute to learn about the changes we have made at Harbor Freight Tools. We invite you to visit our career site at www.harborfreightjobs.com.
- 3.0Feb 9, 2015CashierCurrent Employee, less than 1 yearMission Bend, TX
Pros
The pay rate is decent when you factor in the commission you get off of selling in-store member ships and extended service plans. Managers are very driven when it comes to the store and its appearance. Daily interaction with store manager and what is expected of all employees. Opportunities for advancement immediately if you're a hard worker and have a good attitude.
Cons
The Point of Sale program is below average, item look up and product numbers are in a separate program as well so expect to bounce between the two all day wasting everyone's time. One cash register was open at my location out of four, lines would get long and back up cashiers were always slow in coming, even with a radio. Basically everyone else's time is more important than yours. First check took two months to get, same with the last check. Not enough floor personnel. Had to leave register when there was a line to help the customer being checked out daily. Too stressful, even for retail.
1 - 1.0Dec 17, 2017Warehouse WorkerFormer Employee, more than 1 yearColumbus, MS
Pros
When I first started working at harbor freight tools the first two pay checks were great and the hours were the same. I learned how to put the store together, stock items, unload truck.
Cons
After the store opened hours were cut for a lot of people unless management liked you a lot. The schedule would have people on there for just five hours and when you show up management would tell you the schedule changed and you weren't on there anymore. Also they lied about being compensated for gas while I trained at a different store that's over an hour away. I never got paid for it. From my experience the good managers left because how corporate did employees there and the managers that stayed were big dbags on a power trip.
1Harbor Freight Tools Response6y
Thank you so much for sharing your feedback, we're always striving to continuously improve and that includes in our hiring processes. We wish you the best of luck in your career!
- 3.0Jun 11, 2023Senior Logistics AssociateFormer Employee, more than 3 yearsKent, WA
Pros
Good pay Lots of manual work but depending on your coworkers the team will support you well
Cons
Hard to get a set schedule
Harbor Freight Tools Response6mo
Thank you for dedicating over 4 years of your career to Harbor Freight and helping us make Harbor Freight a great place to work. We believe in providing respectful schedules for all our Associates and we highly encourage them to reach out to their Store Manager regarding scheduling concerns. Thank you for your feedback and we wish you all the best in your career journey.
- 3.0May 21, 2016Anonymous EmployeeFormer Employee
Pros
The pay is good and the monthly bonuses are a plus but inconsistent at best. Most of the hourly associates are good workers.
Cons
LP is a joke and the District managers micro-manage everyone including the store managers. The communication skills from district managers to store managers to the assistant managers might as well be non-existent. Hours are all over the place; you never know what to expect from week to week. They expect 80 hrs of work to be done within 40.
1Harbor Freight Tools Response7y
Thank you for sharing your feedback, as you may remember Harbor Freight Tools is committed to continuously improving our processes and we will make sure to share your feedback with the appropriate team members. Over the past few years we have made some big changes to the way we operate and how we recognize our associates and we have more to do and hope you will take a minute to learn about the changes we have made at Harbor Freight Tools. We invite you to visit our career site at www.harborfreightjobs.com.
- 5.0Aug 30, 2017Area Manager1Current Employee, more than 3 yearsDillon, SC
Pros
Job Security... the pay for entry level Management is one of the highest in the Distribution Center Field. Pay for performance based company. You get out of it what you're willing to put in.
Cons
Weekend work is not compensated for Management. In some departments Managers are spread to thin. Too much repeat hiring from dismissed temporary employees.
- 2.0Oct 15, 2015Sales Floor AssociateCurrent Employee, more than 1 year
Pros
The crew is very laid back in terms of office banter and getting along. As a pro it makes the environment a little less stuffy when you can joke and get along with your co-workers - The dress code is pants or shorts, your HFT shirt and your name badge visible at all times (no jacket covering). You are only unable to wear sweats and open toed shoes or flats - The cashiers are capable of making decent pay by selling ESP's/ Warranties and memberships. We have a handful of cashiers who when you compile their hours against their commissions they are making nearly $10.00 plus per hour and that's basing it on the assumption they are still only basing at the starting pay of $8.00 per hour. See below for how it's a con for others. - The S.O.P.s the company has created are very functional IF everything is set up and accommodated properly. See cons below.
Cons
That laid back crew is also a negative when it becomes so laid back that no sense of urgency or responsibility is had. Some crew doesn't take their job seriously enough to put effort into completing day to day tasks either fully or accurately, and why should they, there is no accountability for them. Instead the beatings get handed down to the assistants and the supervisors that are over the lazy staff such as the back room supervisors or the head cashiers as if either of those latter positions have any control over the hiring, scheduling or staffing in the store. When they attempt to hand down a write up, reprimand or talk to any employees about their work ethic, 9/10 times it's dismissed or undermined by the upper management in the store unless the store manager hates that particular person they are trying to discipline, then they will go for blood, otherwise, no accountability to the nuts and bolts of the crew. - This unprofessional laid back attitude goes all the way up the ranks into the manager's office where the store manager will sit and bad mouth the staff to not only other management, but to the peers of the people being talked bad about. I.e. badmouthing and making fun of a cashier to another cashier. - In the store I come from the store manager seems more interested in the inappropriate relationship they are having with an employee (the whole store is aware of it but too fearful for their job to speak up), than they are with doing everything in their power to make their store successful. A great amount of effort has gone into promoting and defending this employee from termination (how can one person miss less work and get fired for attendance while this person misses more work and more regularly but their job is still safe?), while the store falls below expectation, and rather than put that amount of effort into trying to fix what's wrong like scheduling enough people to follow s.o.p. even if it requires a little more front line work from them to accommodate it, the store manager would rather throw every human shield they can in front of them casting all blame on others rather than acknowledging scheduling and staffing issues and trying to fix what they can and defending their staff from problematic issues that are outside their control. Again every staff member is aware of this and just too afraid to address it because we've all seen people come and go who have spoken up about concerns in the store. HR has done little to make anyone feel safe from retaliation and the D.M. has done nothing more than refute every concern mentioned to them leaving most looking for a different job and turn over in the store high. - As I said about warranties for the cashier it's a plus. This is a plus to the cashiers but not the floor crew who spends most of our week working either overnight or doing the Merch S.O.P. process which has us work mostly off hours and 90% of our day in the back room at that, leaving little to no opportunity for us to talk to a customer about warranties or memberships. Most of the floor crew interaction with customers in my store comes from pages by the cashiers to bring an item to the front from the back room. While the floor crew is doing that, the cashier rings up the transaction and sells the warranty. This leads to insane levels of frustration for the floor crew because we not only have to get the product out of it's crammed corner seeing as how the stock room is way undersized for the amount of freight we get, but it's usually heavy and we have no help and we have to take it and load it for the customer with no help. This is all while we make the same starting pay of $8.00 per hour and the cashier stands at the front raking in commissions off our back breaking physical labor. It's very demoralizing to the crew and even when addressed with management we get feedback of little to no rat's butt given about it. We even get notes on the board to pick it up when we aren't contributing enough to those areas of sales as if it's possible to do. The only floor crew that ever gets a warranty sale in my store gets it 98% of the time while acting as a back up cashier, not from customer service from the sales floor. - The entire Merchandising S.O.P. is good on paper. It works well for a model store. One with the proper layout in the back room, the proper tools for the process, adequate space in the back room to execute the process and adequate space to store back stock properly per the S.O.P. Unfortunately there is no variance to the process to accommodate any one variable being wrong. In my store we don't have all the tools we need such as enough rollers, our back room is not laid out in a manner that accommodates unloading per S.O.P. and the size of the back room is so limited that utilizing the secondary unloading process is impossible because by the time you take the pallets out of the truck, there is little to no room to move about the back room. The S.O.P. calls for extra bays to be open for fluctuation in section back stock, where as we don't even have enough bays to accommodate all locations, sharing one bay between two different sections and all bays being typically packed full. Product stacked on top of a different product stacked on top of a different product, stacked on top of a different product floor to ceiling and then they can't understand why we cant work the entire back room in a night when we have to remove 5 different items stacked front to back on top of the item we need to pull one of to fill the shelf. That doesn't add up little by little and take hours out of your process by the end of the day does it? It affects the speed of a replenishment each morning as well for the same reason. Management and D.M.s are all about follow the S.O.P. and then handing down fury when following the S.O.P under the circumstances does not afford you the ability to complete the task on time. It's demoralizing to the warehouse supervisor and to us on the crew to be busting our butt only to have our supervisor tell us that we need to bust our butts harder because the crap trickles down hill as the saying goes. - Management does not seem to put any focus on pressing the S.O.P. like replenishment on weekends which sets back the entire process by two days. Most of the time we are told stop at 11am no matter where we are in the replenishment report. Some times we get as little as 8 and if lucky as much as 15 pages of a 30 page report done each day less than half and it hurts the entire process at the start of the week. We are stressed the importance of the S.O.P. when we are being told we suck and aren't finishing S.O.P. but then Management doesn't utilize tools like the fabled replenishment calculator that tells them how many to schedule based on sales, and that it usually says we need to schedule 3 people most days and 4-5 on weekends to actually follow through with an accurate replenishment. We are lucky to have 2 people a day weekends included. No attention is paid to variables.
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