Stuart great. Middle management dreadful - Buyer Marks & Spencer Employee Review

1.0
Nov 30, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

All outweighed by the cons

Cons

Toxic, bullying, gaslighting, abusive. Buyers do the work, those above use it to progress themselves with literally no regard for their teams who’ve put in all the hard work. Deeply hierarchical. There are certain middle managers at TM and HOT level who use the hard work of the buyers to make themselves look good, blatantly taking credit, getting ‘well dones’ from Directors which they don’t credit to the people who literally produced the work!! And this is repeated!! Deep demotivation and erosion of high performance through ever worsening management. Truly the worst place I have ever worked. To quote a fellow buyer - working here feels like being in an abusive relationship.

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Marks & Spencer Response
2y
Hi, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. As the issues you've raised are serious, we'd hope that our Colleagues know that they can raise such matters with our Policy Specialists team who’ll thoroughly investigate any formal grievances raised. It would be great if you could contact our Line Manager Advisory Team (LMAS) via LMAS@marks-and-spencer.com, so that they can review this further. Thank you for bringing these matters to our attention. Marks and Spencer

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5.0
Aug 5, 2025
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Pros

I love how positive the working environment

Cons

I dont like some of the names of the bread

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Marks & Spencer Response
11mo
Hi there, thanks so much for leaving such a great review – it’s lovely to hear that you enjoyed working for us! We're so grateful for your kind words, so thanks for sharing your review with us and the Glassdoor community. Our success relies on the dedication of employees like yourself, so we thank you for all your hard work! Wishing you all the best, Marks and Spencer
1.0
Jul 27, 2025
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Pros

-20% discount -I must enter 5 words

Cons

Never before have I worked for a company where the threat of gross misconduct is thrown around constantly by management. Senior members of staff have been given wrriten warnings over sudden changes in policy. Instead of carrot and stick you're just given the stick. A sudden change in policy comes in and immediately a TM or TSM will tell you "if you can't do this you will recieve a written warning or disciplinary." That is a best case scenario, the alternative is nobody tells you and you continue to do everything as normal and you get punished for an absolute absence of communication. Regional managers pressure Store Managers to hand out punishments like quotas. Worst of all, the company promotes immature and lazy managers for the most part, who will happily stand around doing absolutely nothing, but drive workers aged 60+ like a cart horse. Sorting basic worker's rights like annual leave is a chore to them, and they act as though they are doing you a favour when you do the bare minimum. Favouritism in my store is endemic. Not all managers are like this, my store manager just happens to like a handful of staff and puts down everyone else.

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Marks & Spencer Response
11mo
Thanks for raising your concerns. We're really sorry to hear you’re unhappy and we want you to know that at M&S, we care deeply about doing the right thing and acting with integrity, building trust, supporting one another and taking the time to listen. You have already addressed the first step of voicing your views on here, and now we encourage you to talk to your Line Manager. If you feel you cannot approach your Line Manager, then tell a more senior person or someone who you feel most at ease with, for example your BIG rep or your HR Business Partner. Thanks again for sharing, - Marks and Spencer
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