Pros
Its warm and dry (unless you're working in the freezer, chillers, behind meat and fish/deli counters or out in 'the yard'. Food in the dining room/canteen is subsidised. Senior management are skilled but hampered by inept 'middle managers'.
Cons
Discount is not great considering the price of the food No union representation Poor rate of pay compared to other retail jobs (used to rely on the annual bonus to make it up - that bonus has been declining rapidly - this year chances are it will be between 0 and 3%) Pension fund is in a shambles Whole business being propped up by John Lewis sales They now expect you to do five jobs in the time given for one Section managers generally appear to have little training in leadership or management before being given an ipad, an air of authority and a total disregard for the welfare of their staff. They're implementing 'modern Waitrose' whereby you just keep getting pulled from doing a job on one section to do a job on another (whether you're trained or not) because the section managers can't plan. You then return to your original job (eventually) to find yourself getting a telling off for not having done it quickly enough (or at all). One branch rota. There isn't space for me to tell you all that's bad about that! Suffice to say, its not working. To save money they don't recruit until people leave (school age heading to Uni - happens every year at the same time and they know it does) so you end up short staffed, underpaid and overworked. Turnover is 80% plus in an industry where the average is 33% - and they wonder why?