Corporate Mismanagement really hurts location - Sales Associate Guitar Center Employee Review

3.0
12 Aug 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great staff, from management down to entry level. Everyone was very welcoming and fun/easy to work with

Cons

GC Really needs to adjust their commission policy. Your monthly commission percentage (0.25% to 3%) varies based on your SPH (Sales per hour) bracket. This would be fine, however the way most staff is scheduled; you have LOTS of downtime, which while you can keep busy with many tasks every day, your sales per hour average will go down from having very, very little traffic during certain hours. It feels terrible, when you are meeting your goal at the end of the month in a high bracket, then Guitar Center schedules you to stay late (after business hours) to do merchandising at the end of the month ( while on the clock); and it bumps you down to a smaller commission bracket by a dollar or two different in SPH. Very, very demoralizing. The other problem for us was inventory. We would lose countless potential sales/customers to other GC locations, due to our store not having inventory that our sister-stores did. GC really pushes online (fulfillment) orders to try to alleviate this issue, however most guests/customers that come in, are coming to YOUR store to buy AT YOUR STORE, and not have to wait. It's very counter-productive.

Explore other reviews about Guitar Center

5.0
16 Jul 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Management takes good care of you

Cons

No complaints that I can think of

1.0
21 Apr 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Plenty of capable individual contributors doing real work. - The brand and the business itself are legitimate — the problems are organizational.

Cons

- Senior leadership is politically driven rather than outcome-driven. Strategic initiatives stall out, and leaders spend more energy assigning or shifting blame than actually diagnosing and fixing problems. - Some parts of the org operate on deference to the top. Honest assessments get softened into whatever narrative leadership wants to hear, which makes real cross-functional work difficult. - Senior leaders do not consistently advocate for their own teams. When things get political, self-preservation takes precedence over backing the people underneath, and capable managers end up exposed.

2
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