Pets at Home Employee Reviews about "pet"

Pros

Working with animals is such good therapy

Cons

Smelling like Animals takes a while to wash off

Pros

Loads of training. Good pay

Cons

Fairly high staff turn over

Advice to Management

Numbers aren’t everything

Pros

Flexible hours and good management

Cons

Boring After a while .

Advice to Management

Show employees more respect I think

Pros

Great benefits and pension scheme

Cons

Expected to work wherever the company needs you to

Pros

Everyone’s really passionate about their job Relaxed work environment You can bring pets everyday to the office

Cons

Poor training Too much spending on refunds

Advice to Management

Focus on your staff, train them better because staff turnover is too high

Pros

My managers in my specific store are very approachable and get things done. Always able to ask questions Put the care of pets first Training is in-depth Incentives A focus on working as a team and having fun as well as being productive

Cons

A lot of specialist knowledge is required, which is provided with training but you may feel overwhelmed initially! The company focus on swipe rate is unrealistic and isn't measured very well: If you are on the tills and you serve 200 people but only 100 of those have a vip card, then it's 50% rate but if someone jumps on serves only 2 and they both have vip cards then its 100% for them. It's unreliable and not a... true indicator of productivity.

Pros

It was great working with the animals and caring for them. Fellow colleagues are all lovely. Generally nice customers as most are going to be animal lovers, but it's still retail so you get bad ones.

Cons

Don't expect support from management. My experience (and that of fellow colleagues) was that the management were just power hungry. There is the customer loyalty scheme (VIP Cards) and you will have to meet the same targets for these (regardless if you work less time than others, or are working the stock in the morning before the shop even opens?!) You will be kept in at the managers discretion for multiple... extra hours each week (at no pay) and are expected to do lots of extra paperwork on your own time. If you're taking this job as an animal lover (most colleagues are), keep in mind you also have to deal with animals getting sick and dying - it's not all cuddles! Be aware there are early starts most days at 6am - not an issue for me, but may be for others.

Advice to Management

Listen to your staff and try and support them

Pros

speaking with regular customers (when you have the time from being at the till for 8 hours) 2 hours every sunday, cleaning the animal cages. lots of books around which they let you read on quiet days at the till for 8 hours. Dog groomers are lovely people.

Cons

Where to start.... - "Managers" only care about managers, and will use vile language to try to "bond" with you, even if you're not that type of person. The most sexiest comments ive ever dealth with. They had already bullyed someone into leaving when i got there. They tried to bully me, i left before they had a chance. - Managers are the worst thing about the job, and i saw this in other stores too. No support... given, they simply didnt care for anyones mental health, even their own. They would take 2 hr breaks and put anyone on till for the whole shift, even on very slow quiet days. they would constantly complain about one another out loud. - You have to sign people up to the VIP scheme on a daily basis (even though most people have a vip membership and are regular customers) i found it very hard to sell useless things such as; collar and chip for lost dogs. doesnt tell you where they are but alerts other vip members in the area to keep a eye out.....................useless. another vip scheme. everyone was faking it. I got the least amount of sign ups every day, partly because i was part time and they don't take that into consideration, and also everyone was swiping the forms and throwing them away. Management knew of this and still took it upon themselves to mark me down. i even mentioned everyone was faking the swipes and throwing the forms away so it still counts but was told by management to "just deal with it. our bonus' are resting on this".... - poor animal hygene. Dirt that was at the bottom of the cages couldnt even be scraped off, it's been there that long. we teach people not to keep too many fish in one cage, but practise it ourselves. One dead every ten mins. Cant handle any of the animals, as they are not used to it. We have to then pretend to customers they are friendly animals. - Pay is poor for the work you do, and the extra hours (unpaid) to clean up after customers. - i was left to teach myself about animal care and the products as no one cared to teach me and when customers needed advice, no manager was around to help out. - Still selling slip leads and then bragging about charity donations. - Laughable turnover of staff. How is this company still going

Advice to Management

Rethink the VIP scheme. Please. We don't have to lie to make money. we have some brilliant products which sell themselves. Get rid of the yearly bonus so no one feels bitter if you havent signed up enough people. Get rid of the negative points given if you dont make enough sales, negative reinforcement doesnt work. It's not a healthy mode of work. Split time of tills evenly so we can talk to customers and build... positive long lasting relationships and regular customers who actually want to come in and speak to us. Get out of the cliques you've made and respect everyone. Bullying should not be tolerated anywhere. Take some time getting to know new staff and support them correctly. managment needs more overseeing. a lot needs to be monitored