Guardian Reviews

3.4

61% would recommend to a friend

(74 total reviews)

Andrew Wong

84% approve of CEO

53% positive business outlook

Guardian has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 74 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Guardian employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail and wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

74 reviews
1.0
25 Jun 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You get to meet all kinds of customers from all walks of life. Work hours are largely fixed. 44 hours a week.

Cons

Management is incompetent and egoistic. They have forced many pharmacists to quit just because they have unfair biases against certain people. For example, negative but truthful feedback about the company is taken personally, and is not tolerated. Employees who give negative feedback will be 'blacklisted' and 'forced' to quit eventually. They do not have pharmacists interests at heart. They think they can easily hire new pharmacists but are struggling to do so. When an unreasonable customer complains, management tends to side with customers, instead of protecting employees. This led to low morale and more people quitting the company. Pay and work hours are average for the industry. Other similar companies have higher pay or less work hours. Lack of career progression. I remember some colleagues did not get promoted even after 7 years of good performance. Promotions seem to depend if the managers like you or not, rather than actual objective performance.

1.0
14 Dec 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You can work independently, there's some freedom of deciding your own dispensary inventory.

Cons

1) Low pay and long hours. 44 hours a week. Basic pay is low, performance bonus is low 2) Bad cluster managers who only nitpick on small things that do not matter. Managers visit for the sake of it as they are forced to do so, rather than out of genuine care and concern. 3) Work culture is toxic. KPIs are not revealed until November. Managers shrug this off by saying: "It's just like that" 4) Cannot work from home and have to work one Saturday every two weeks and one Sunday every 4 weeks. Not enough work life balance

1.0
29 Mar 2023

Toxic work culture, please avoid

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Meeting all kinds of customers, the good ones and bad ones, really opened my eyes about the society.

Cons

The pay is average at best, other companies can offer more. Annual pay increment is extremely low, no negotiation allowed. Cluster managers do not provide value to the company, earning a high amount but not contributing much. They love to micro-manage, but at the same time, do not know what exact they want, it was quite laughable. Cluster managers show zero empathy, they are only interested in giving whatever HQ wants, do not care about pharmacists' well-being. Manpower is short but cluster managers still go about doing their store visits, when they could have been better stationed at their stores to dispense medication. Store visits provide no value or benefits to pharmacists as well. Feedback was given but time and again fallen onto deaf ears. Work culture is toxic, pharmacists become scapegoats when business is not doing well. HQ only see us as robots who dispense medicine to bring in the money. If sales are not good, be prepared to lose appraisal points, as the KPI is heavily skewed towards sales. Pharmacists cannot really control sales anyway, as we have to be ethical in the products we recommend. I felt being gaslighted whenever I gave constructive feedback.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 74 Reviews

Glassdoor has 87 Guardian reviews submitted anonymously by Guardian employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Guardian is right for you.