Costco Wholesale Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Costco Wholesale full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great Place to work large worldwide company with lots of opportunities

Cons – Dont get to know your shifts till the week before

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Costco Wholesale full-time for less than a year

Pros – friendly staff throughout the warehouse

Cons – there are no cons working for costco

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Costco Wholesale full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Before this review gets all negative, i must stress the good aspects. Firstly, with a variety of different departments, there is scope for progression in the company from the bottom up if you are willing to put in the work. Traditionally, this company has always been supportive of it's staff at difficult times and family values were always considered important, even if this attitude is dwindling. The pay and bonus scheme is better than most retail jobs also.

Cons – The core of the problem is simple - the US sent over a dream and its UK counterparts have tarnished it. The Employee Handbook, the supposed Bible of Costco which is supposed to set out its ethics and rules is flawed. Constant re-writes and re-issues fail to address the basic problems which centre around the poor treatment of its staff. Different departments need flexible staff to ensure standards are met and shelves, pallets and cabinets are stocked. Staff are asked to be available between 0500 and 2200. However many have often worked outside these hours to help out and get no extra pay for nights or anti-social hours. And recently, where before there was more structure and planning behind shift patterns, managers are making staff change from earlys one day to lates the next with little thought to how this effects families, with next to no notice for employees to sort out possible complications. Where there was once a flexibility and mutual respect between management and staff to ensure 'Showtime Readiness' and the quality of goods to our members, there is now constant friction and upset under the current stewardship. Staff are stressed constantly by bullying tactics and rule changes, excuses used by the management to balance wages and profits. If a member of staff has managed to accrue full time status and top out on his/her wages, a £4000 bonus every year seems like a superb thing to most people and should be commended. But now the current management looks to punish staff on top rate, constantly telling them they are not doing enough work, all the while forcing staff members to change departments with no notice at all. There is absolutely no training plans involved at any level, with a generation of supervisary and managerial staff clueless to basic employment law and man-management skills. Promoting from within is admirable in any company, but training is key and Costco UK does not want to spend any of its vast profits on this. Instead it leaves these senior staff unprotected. A culture of favouritism for staff that are willing to crawl and back-stab to succeed is spawned as a result with complaints having to often go out of the warehouse to be resolved fairly, and 9 times out of 10 managers are not punished, trained or told to how to change their approach to amend these issues. The recent changes at the top of this warehouse have backfired terribly creating massive division between staff and management.

Advice to Senior Management – It's simple - Bring some of the US managers over here to teach the UK lot how to instill its original ethics back into our flawed system. The warehouse at Thurrock was the original and should be the best of the rest, but it has been abandoned since head office relocated to Watford. The company has some great aspects too it and could actually be the nearest some would get to a 'Job-For-Life' for those with next to no qualifications. Stop looking at staff as disposable and get back to respecting them as previous managers have. Communication and transparency need to improve and stop going backwards. The staff are most flexible when treated right. Whilst the company's needs must be met, management and salaried staff need to step up/in more, all the while remembering that everybody have families not just them. Respect is earned, not just given.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Costco Wholesale

Pros – the best place to start a new career and there is lots of learning new skills and costco recruits within the company.
Highest pay rate as compared to other warehouses.

Cons – there is lot of favouritism. i suppose its everywhere.

Advice to Senior Management – please see the true potential and hardwork rather than favouritism.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Costco Wholesale

Pros – pay compared to other companies in the same line is better then most .
£125 a year optical voucher to be spent in store not transferable and only percription glasses
free dental treatment after 2 years employment but subject to certain limits

Cons – you are expected to change your starting time to suit them all the time ie you could start at 4am one day and midnight the next shift .As a salaried supervisior you can work upto 11 and 12 hour shifts at a time even though it should be 9 hours.you very rarely get any time back ending up you are cheap labour earning less then hourly paid staff.

Advice to Senior Management – preach a very good code of ethics,reality is not the same.
little feedback in most things
not what you know but who you know that counts a lot
different standands for different people.
vists from headoffice are mostly known about giving time for managent to prepare store so there again many bad points not seen.
staff having to sign training given sheets without training being given,thereby covering the company against any claims

Current Employee – been working at Costco Wholesale

Pros – Good salary, oppotunities of educational interaction with customers.

Cons – Poor management skills, No communication or respect for staff, sucking up culture that does not reward hard workers only those who kiss in the right place. Intimidation and bullying tactics buy senior managers that is forced down to supervisory level and has left a huge amount of discontent among employees, with very little representation at warehouse level, and when taken higher very little is done to help you which is widely known and been explored by many warehouse workers, but a lot is done to defend the management without any actual knowledge of what is really going on day to day. There are many many more.

Advice to Senior Management – Costco in the UK is a stagnent mess. Yes there are plans to open new stores, but the quality of management just isn't there to encourage and plant the seeds of future excellence within the company. As the flagship store in the UK West Thurrock is letting down its staff on a massive level. At the moment the Store is run by a Naive individual who is only interested in his own personal developement within the company, and only interested in those with the same single minded selfish work ethics. Costcos values and ethics ( as i interperet them ) are a laughing stock within the warehouse and with the level of favoritism, bullying and victimisation within the warehouse the path to an eventual resolution of these problems is fraught with stress anxiety and most of the workers do not have the courage, time, support and sheer determination to make our flagship warehouse the great place to work it should be.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Costco Wholesale full-time for less than a year

Pros – If you do not have a college education, you can still get to a good salary in a short period of time....You just have to be a good fit....(See Cons)
Also, this company has a high level of Corporate Social Responsibility

Cons – Undertrained Supervisors and a very rushed environment. Unless you are in VERY good condition, this is not the job for you until you become a supervisor, then you can sit/ stand around alot.

Advice to Senior Management – Provide leadership training and "people" skills training to Supervisors. Just because they were once best in their department, does not mean they they will do well leading others.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Costco Wholesale full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Excellent pay, flexible hours, and opportunities for promotion if you wish.

Cons – Seniority priority when promotional opportunities arose.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Costco Wholesale part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – The good thing about Costco is the pay and benefits, both way above average for similar kind of work. Positions are flexible, I worked is 3 different departments.

Cons – The quality of the managers differ from each warehouse. Unfortunately for me I had a assistant manager that did not do work yet was on your case for personal reasons.

Advice to Senior Management – Better warehouse manager training.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Costco Wholesale

Pros – people, pay, hours, benefits, shopping

Cons – i cant think of any problems