Pros
- 20% discount on M&S and branded items also includes reduced items (food&clothing sale) - Sometimes get a gift card at Christmas up to £100 depending on contract hours
Cons
- Expected to work 5-10 extra hours every Christmas, 5 hours Christmas week or 10 hours split into 2 so 5 hours at the start of December and 5 hours Christmas week and bullied into it (even if you work full time) - no pay for not working on store closes, you have to make up those hours or go unpaid even though the store has decided to close - holiday is 22 days pro rata (acquired over the year 2 days a month) - sickness policy is 3% (3 days) before you trigger company policy, if you happen to be sick twice within 6 months of first sickness you will then be placed on a warning. If you are sick again within the next 6 months from second absence you will be given a disciplinary and go down the route of being sacked - only give you pay rises when they sack other people (and yes have been told that, 2023 pay rise was because “we got rid of office staff to give you a pay rise”) - a lot of managers don’t know what they’re doing, not interested in you as a person - no such thing as “work life balance” like they advertise, you are overworked and under appreciated - if you are made redundant because your store has closed they will lie and tell you they will retrain and give you jobs but they don’t they just move their staff around in the other stores so jobs become unavailable and staff are stretched - no progress to go higher with company such as management and even if you are able to in your region they only “reward” their own loyal staff by paying you £2/3 more as a manager than a Customer Assistant. But if you left the business for another company (example Tesco) for a year and then rejoined M&S they would give you 2x the salary… - Gave staff a week off for EID but wouldn’t let Christian/Catholic staff have Christmas off
