Pros
It is a well established and secure company. It is very challenging. It is a great opportunity to learn about managing people in a big box environment, you won't get many to manage but you will learn to do a lot with very little. The company has changed a lot in the time I have been with them. The job security is there even though they now like to dangle it over your head and make you keep running on the little wheel. The secured stock offered to store managers and above is a great benefit, if the leaders of the company could every figure out what Wall St. is looking for and get that stock to gain value.
Cons
In the last 7 years the amount of square footage that a Home Depot sales associate has had to cover has increased by over 200%. The company continues to cut hours from the floor. In addition to the normal daily issues created by not having the neccessary staff to run a store the size of an orange box the company drills their managers constantly on customer service metrics that in fact they are driving down with years of poor decision making. Home Depot was, when I started, a customer service, sales based company. At this point the company is all about metrics. It all started with the decision to put an unproven, and in my opinion, unqualified CEO in charge of the company. The customer service/ taking care of our people culture that we had all grown up with disappeared. In it's place was a culture of making a number just for the sake of making a number. The company's new found focus on top line sales, which has nothing to do with being profitable and creating shareholder value, only shows that this is still the case. In addition to the stores being grossly understaffed, as voiced not only by our managers, but also by our customers the company has made it extremely difficult to order the product that is needed to take care of the customers. When I started with the company we did all of our own ordering. Everything that a customer had the opportunity to buy was ordered by someone in that store. Someone who was there with the customers every day and knew what their customers wanted and what would sell. This system was replaced because, "it created inventory imbalances". This system was replaced with several systems. One of which orders merchandise based off of what the computer thinks you need and will bump up an order to as much as 10 weeks of supply if it can make the minimum and stay within the guidelines. Another system creates orders based off a preset weeks of supply, and you as a store manager do not get to set that predetermined number. Yet another system is in place so home office can do blanket orders to cover seasonal and advertisement items. The problem with this is that it groups over 2200 stores into just 4 volume groups and doesn't take into account what the season is or what a particular store sells. As a store manager you have the ability to order about 25% of your active sku's without jumping through hoops to do so. All of the systems that were put in place to give the company more control over our inventories have created more imbalances that experienced, engaged associates ever did. Physical inventory is another issue. As a Home Depot store manager you only have vision to your perpetual inventory, or what is in you store computer. You have no vision into what your book inventory is until after you complete your yearly inventory. In addition Home Depot uses an old antiquated system of keeping inventory. We are the only retailer to my knowledge that inventories based on retail instead of cost. This creates multiple issues. One, you have to have individuals that could be used for sales and service to physically do price changes. This is something that all other retailers figured out years ago. Instead of having to physically count everything every time there is a price change, companies like Wal Mart do a manual price change in the system and all the associate has to do is change the labels. Incorrect price changes cost Home Depot more in shrink every year than theft. Another down side to working at Home Depot is the fact that the company was founded on the "good ole boy" system and remains that way today. We've all heard the stories of high ranking officers of the company starting out as a lot tech. I'm not taking anything away from those individuals but maybe a former lot tech isn't the best person to lead a multi billion dollar retailer. The bonus structure has been reformatted to give the company the ability to change your sales plan in the middle of the year to "give more store managers the opportunity to make a bonus". The fact is I haven't seen that. What I have seen is managers that made their goal for the first half of the year having their sales plans jacked up so they couldn't make it the second half. I call this the Katrina rule. Too many managers bonused in the wake of the storm. The company had to do something to control the expense. There is very little appreciation for a job well done with this company as a store manager. In fact my only motivation at this point seems to be, "I don't want to get fired". This company has forgotten how to treat their salaried managers. We are beaten into submission over taking care of our people but the company fails to take care of us. I guess anyone can see the irony there. The fact is that a salaried position with this company is a constant source of stress and dissapointment for anyone that truly wants to succeed. If you are just looking for a pay check (a pay check that isn't equal to what a store manager at Toys R Us makes) and you are really good at putting up with a constant beating and not really good at figuring out that things don't make sense this is the job for you. In fact the company's recruiting tag line should be, "Creative? Driven to succeed? Need not apply, all yes men welcome!". Perhaps I have a twisted view because I have seen the transformation first hand and do not agree with it on any level. But I have worked for other retailers in management and there were processes and systems in place to make your job easier not harder.
