Please read before you apply. - Sales Assistant Lidl Employee Review

- Only offer 10, 20 or 30hr contracts. But you will be working at least 8hrs above this, so be wary. Full time staff rarely get a full weekend off. - Shifts are long (10hrs average), often unsociable and shifts rarely follow a pattern so it's hard to plan ahead. Very inflexible. - Do NOT apply if you are a student (you will be given up to ten hours more than the contract says and you will be put on closing shifts, see below) - One unpaid break of 20mins if you work 6hrs or longer. Whether it be a 6hr or 12+hr shift, you get one 20min unpaid break. - You don't know when you can leave on a closing shift. You can be written for a 2-11pm, but don't dare try to leave at 11 or you will be written up. You go home when the work is done, which is never 11. Try 1am onwards. Nothing you can do about it. Management laugh when you complain about this. If someone rings in sick for a closing shift, that's you staying another couple of hours. - Archaic system on the tills - fruit, veg and bakery products have a code to be manually input into the till instead of a barcode to scan. You will get tested on whether you know these often. There is no logic or pattern to learn these, you just do, and you are expected to study these in your free time at home. Good luck trying to explain why you didn't get full marks in your first few weeks on the job, because management don't want to hear excuses. - Management frequently gossip about staff over the headsets worn by all staff. They will insult and laugh at sales assistants over these headsets fully aware that all can hear. - High staff unhappiness and turnover, results in clear favouritism of some staff over others by management. - Rotas are meant to be released 3 weeks in advance, but usually it's one week in advance.