Generally Rubbish - Retail Operative Primark Employee Review

1.0
Nov 17, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of overtime available, Nice supervisors, Gave me experience before moving onto better things

Cons

Not sure where to start here.... The work was horribly mundane, repetitive, dull and unsatisfying. Folding a tables of underwear was far from how I wanted to spend my weekends, especially when the customers would mess the table up about five minutes later. Working at tills was equally boring. My fellow employees were nice but everyone seriously lacked motivation and had no interest in performing their jobs well, which seemed to have a domino effect. The main topic of conversation seemed to be how rubbish working there was and all the places they were applying to work at. Consequently, the labour turnover was ridiculous, and anyone that I actually liked left in a very short period of time. As someone who likes to be challenged by their work and is generally a motivated person, Primark was not the place to work, and I felt very out of place. Employees are not trusted at all and given no independence - on tills you had to call the supervisor over to do anything but take money, which became very irritating. You are constantly bossed around rather than being able to use your own initiative. Working in a business where customers show no respect or appreciation for its employees was depressing, but unsurprising considering the way we were told to deal with customers. On several occasions customers asked if we had items of clothing up in the stock room; I went to go and have a look but was told by my supervisor (and colleagues) to just say that we did not have any up there because it would waste time. Being under 18, the pay was pretty terrible. There are also NO benefits for employees: No uniform, no bonuses, no paid breaks, no discount (apart from 10% off for two weeks at the beginning of December, which hardly counts). Absolutely nothing going on in terms of socialising with the other employees - a christmas party would be unheard of. The staff room consisted of a really shoddy sink area and fridges, with several (uncomfortable) wooden tables and chairs, so nobody ever stayed in there to chat. As a weekend worker, my shifts were usually only four hours long so I didn't get any breaks anyway.... When I came to write my resignation letter, it struck me that I didn't actually know the name of the store manager, due to having so little involvement in the company. You get the picture

Explore other reviews about Primark

5.0
Mar 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

reasonable, low stress, good PTO practices, consistent schedule

Cons

leadership was not the best

2.0
May 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You get lots of PTO up front as a part timer and can gain flex hours overtime. Get a 50 cent raise every six months.

Cons

Was told during onboarding that if a Christian comes into the store spreading the gospel, I have to kick them out. This includes the mention of the Jesus without the church invite. Managers claim its rude and if a customer does it, they get booted. Faced harassment from a customer and management didn't let me switch too a different department. Extremely high turnover rate and managers don't replace them, making your job more stressful during peak hours. Hard to use PTO. Little to no training. Too many bachelor and master holding part timers who get lucked out of moving up in the company. Managers give some people no task while pilling on multiple tasks on one person. Too many managers to deal with (and usually never find) and the full timers make you do the dirty work while they "unpack boxes". Its a pro-LGBT anti christian company. If they want to be pro-LGBT, than more power to them. But anti-Christian is discriminatory and unnecessary.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All