Vantaggi
Supportive and friendly co-workers for the most part, community feel in some stores with customers, fun manager conferences and barista of the year- full oversight of own recruitment processes allowing for flexible team building and trust- learning opportunities (on occasion, although that diminished with Coca Cola) Opportunity for a great bonus potential (although hurdles increased every year, feeling like goalposts were moving) Good recognition for the most part, including peer to peer and from senior leaders. Flexible shift patterns, if you like early mornings and few late nights
Svantaggi
Corporate Coca Cola- store managers 48 hours a week contracts, often worked more to cover sickness with no time back opportunity as stores run tight on labour. Attending work at 2/3 in morning for alarm faults frequently, having to walk through city centres alone. Arbitrary merch and product targets, who the hell wants ANOTHER mince pie at Christmas, not reflective of genuine store successes (like 2% team turnover and 13% profit over target). Consistency in results, as in always high, sees stores that are ‘improving’ overtake stores that are always good in company rankings as percentage increases are higher, obviously that’s the case if I’m 99% I can only increase 1%!! Demoted all assistant managers to BM’s meaning already overworked managers had even less on ground support, contributing to an already shocking work life balance as a GM. Expected to cancel leave or attend calls on holidays GM’s working week was 40 hours on shop floor, 8 hours admin meaning working days were 10 hours a day. Rarely opportunities to take breaks away from store