Total Wine & More Reviews

Pros

Depending on your store, there is a decent amount of flexibility on your hours. Also, the work is not difficult.

Advice to Management

Hire talent from within. There is plenty of talent in the company from people who are looking for a decent way to advance if you are willing to see them shine through.

Pros

Discount on they're products is okay

Advice to Management

Realize who had the potential and move them up, instead of the ones who don't.

Pros

Get to work at my hobby. Great coworkers and customers. In addition to learning more about wine as well as spirits and beer.

Advice to Management

Look at the compensation for sales associates, take some of the profits and look into a better way of managing inventory to eliminate wasted time and safety hazards. Look at staffing levels, because of low staffing sales associates only spend a small percentage of time actually selling most time is spent sorting through top stock, stocking shelves, fixing signs and backing up the front end team.

Pros

Fairly easy job, the managers and coworkers are very nice and will work with your schedule. They bring in food during busy holidays. You get .10 extra for every person who is under 30 that comes through your line, and .25 for every 21 year old. $5 extra if someone doesn't have their i.d.

Pros

- Coworkers while overworked really rally to help you even if it means them staying later.
- Lots of cool technology to implement due to lack of investment in systems for such a long time. They can't put off any of this stuff longer.
- With people quitting, mgmt is acknowledging these reviews and trying to make changes.

Advice to Management

Act on the survey results you are always getting from the employees.

Pros

They work with school schedules. Which is hard to find. They buy food on busy days. The wine discount is nice.

Advice to Management

Boost morale. Promote with in. Learn to stand up for employees when customers are harassing them.

Pros

Coming from a wine background, I was quite please at the opportunity to learn more about beer and spirits. The company's vast selection and numerous opportunities to try new things is a huge positive. I've discovered a great love of Belgian style beers, Tequila and Single Malt Scotch from working here.

With wine training, it is what you make of it. The company is committed to giving employees the tools they need to succeed but it is ultimately up to each individual employee to decide if they want to utilize these tools to their full potential.

The company offers wine associates "Wine for Life" which for the first year of employment is a set list of 6-12 bottles an employee on the service team can take home (free of charge). After that first year, the employee has more flexibility in picking what wines they want to take home (within certain guidelines) with TWPs (Total Wine Professionals who have passed 7 levels of certifications) having the most flexibility and access to higher end wines to take home. With this Wine For Life program, employees have a tremendous opportunity to expand their wine knowledge by actually tasting wines that they may not have the financial means to regularly taste.

More ambitious souls can utilize their Total Wine business cards and connections to attend free trade events put on by wine commissions, distributors and local wineries (ask your Store Manager and District Manager about invitations to these events). The company also helps set up visits to wineries across the globe if you are traveling (on your on dime). I've had the opportunity to dine with winery owners of classified chateaux in Bordeaux and Piedmont all because of Total Wine and I'm just a simple Wine Associate.

The opportunity is always there. Earning your TWP opens even more doors to company paid trips to wine regions, attending (free of charge) events like the Union des Grand Cru of Bordeaux where you can meet even more Chateau owners and taste, in one evening, over $5000 worth of wine. Likewise you can get free tickets to events like the Wine Spectator Grand Tasting where, again, the amount and quality level of the wines you can taste is fantastic.

Advice to Management

As an employee, I have a lengthy list of "Pros" because I've been fortunate to work in a store and district with a fantastic culture that encourages growth and good employee moral. To some degree that was luck of the draw but a goal of management should be to minimize the amount of "luck" that there is and encourage this kind of positive culture in all markets.

Another reason for my lengthy Pros is the type of person I am. I am an ambitious person who seeks out wine knowledge and opportunity to learn more and maximize these tools. Some of my peers don't have the same ambition or confidence but it is in the best interest of Total Wine & More's customer to try and stoke the fires of ambition and thirst to learn.

Losing "Alfio training" in Old World has hurt (but I know some markets are cobbling together their own version) as well as going from monthly MSM training meetings to now 5 or 6 times a year. The quality level and efficiency of product training during those MSM has been reduced--especially in markets with rapid growth. Often these meetings seem to be more about herding cats and power tasting through a rapid fire of wines without taking the time to really learn and discuss how to know what kind of customers would best enjoy these kinds of wines.

Finally, while the company does a fantastic job in promoting small family wineries and unique labels with their Winery Direct program, the company absolutely needs to make it a focus to have more training and tasting on large, well-known brands. When a customer comes in saying that they like "Brand XYZ", it is vital for the associate to know what Brand XYZ taste like in order to best serve the customer with other recommendations. While, as I noted in my Pros, ambitious folks can use their connections and business cards to visit these wineries and attend trade tastings, it is in Total Wine's best interest not to have this kind of knowledge just limited to the ambitious.

Pros

They provide you with extensive training in wine, spirits and beer. Monthly sales meetings where new products are introduced and sampled.

Pros

Flexible hours, good hourly rate, managers are decent.

Advice to Management

Hire more, or add more people to each shift.

Pros

Works with class schedule, gives time off when requested.

Advice to Management

Help out your hard working employees before you end up losing everyone.