pharmacist

department manager

technician

cashier/sales

service technician

London Drugs

Management is hit and miss. The Quality of how you are treated depends on the person(s) managing your dept or store. 

Some of my managers were awesome, others do not treat you with dignity or respect. 

There is room for advancement as long as your manager does not play favorites which was my personal experience. 

I originally was hired for the Audio/Visual Dept. my manager was awesome and I had the opportunity to pick up extra shifts and even had a week or two of opening shifts when management was not available from time to time. 

The store moves managers around and mine got transferred to a busier location. The new manager in the Audio/Visual dept. did not treat me with any dignity or respect and thought I was for lack of a better word an idiot. They tried to phase me out by cutting down my shifts, which is when I transferred to the camera dept. 

In Cameras I had respect from my Assistant manager but not from the head manager who has been rumored to irrationally get upset at employees, write them up for insignificant mistakes even if it wasn't your fault but it happened on your shift, and who would constantly throw anyone who went against their word under the bus. All which I experience and happened to be true. 

I worked in the Audio/Visual dept. around 3 years then moved on to Cameras, hoping to split shifts between the two especially since I wasn't particularly crazy about photography.  I was forcefully transferred to the camera dept. 

If you want full time hours and full benefits you have to move up to the management position. I asked for advancement opportunities yet my manager would not provide proper answers nor showed the willingness to further my training for a management position. 
You need your managers approval for the go ahead before you can even apply for a position in management which you will receive emails about all the time. 

Hours and Pay are Garbage, almost 40 hours one week, it's  shift work, The following week you might have 20 to 25 hours.

Summer it slows down, Holidays it gets busy, you will be considered part time and receive partial benefits unless you can move into a management position.

I've stayed at London Drugs for 10 years up until this year, about 8 years longer than I originally planned...

Good company, good values, good culture, honest leaders, but a golden cage.

Terrible pay for new hires and even management, but their sales reflect the fact that they can't compete against some bigger players and also can't afford more competitive salaries. Almost non-existent commission structure so there is little to no incentive to sell.

Work days are typical 8 hours shifts with two 30 minute breaks. Electronics departments are the most interesting, you're always playing with new toys or talking to the most interesting customers. Ultimately head office demands more and more from the same people without touching their salaries, which have been frozen for years. Median age of the head office staff is easily in the late 40s or 50s and are growing increasingly out of touch with where the market will be. Clear example: London Drugs has some of the most terrible cellular activation execution I've ever seen. Some stores have almost no staff capable of activating a cellphone and for the staff that are good at it, the commission at competing companies is lucrative enough to get them to leave, it's absolute pennies to activate customers at LD and hardly worth the effort.

Meanwhile, companies like Amazon are really putting the squeeze on your classic box retailers like London Drugs and you can see it in the faces of the staff and the slowing customer traffic.

Older staff are on the old pay scale and make as much as a Masters graduate yet are often less effective than the kid getting paid half their salary... The company doesn't let people go, which is generally nice, but it certainly doesn't pressure them to keep up with the times as much as it should.

I wish the company the best going forward, but something drastic will need to change if they plan on growing. Otherwise it's a slow, agonizing death march for a truly great Canadian company.

It's a good basic "dead-end" job as there is barely any to no advancement in the career. I liked working with some of my managers and colleagues as they care about working with you and are very friendly even when the job is not the best; I cannot say the same with the rest of the management as they only care about making numbers and making themselves look good for the head office people. I mean, it's a bureaucratic work environment with a lot of favouritism for employees who show off how well they are to other employees; I guess you can take that as how you advance in this company. What makes the job feel like this is a dead-end job is the amount of work you do compared to how much you are getting paid. My experience working for this company in my department (TECH) is that it is more mentally demanding than physically demanding. You are and will have to keep pushing to satisfy management and rude customers. The computer terminals are like your best friend, but it is so old, and the software and applications give you a '90s computer's feel and run terribly slow and would crash very often. 
Lastly, expect no boundaries with your position if you ever advance. If you were sales, then move up a position you are expected to fill in for the salespeople if they need help. So you can think of it as being in two positions simultaneously for very little, I mean a little wage bump. So far, the worst decision I made working for this company when they offered me the technician position, coming from the sales floor. Unless you are hired specifically for a technician position without sales training/experience you will be left alone. (This is how it works for this location and I cannot say about other locations) 

I worked at London Drugs for over a year in 3 different departments, also assisting with aisle staff duties. I was a Cashier, a Beauty Advisor, and I worked in the E-commerce department as a stock handler and an "unofficial" team lead. The only reason I stayed as long as I did were the amazing people I got to work with every day. However, in cosmetics, my coworkers and I had to deal with attitude from the department manager, a lack of assistance in completing any number of tasks, bullying to the point of an employee quitting, and even being called at home to have the department manager get upset with us for something or other. Upper management on a storewide level was the reason I had to resign twice. There was unnecessary micromanaging, lack of support when dealing with difficult employees, very limited knowledge on how departments run (yet always trying to tell departments how to do things), and often limited knowledge of company procedures. Very frustrating environment, especially considering I was being underpaid for half of my time there because they claimed the position they gave me "didn't exist" right up until I was replaced by a new hire who is now being paid the wage I deserved. I was unable to work any shifts I was scheduled for during my last month of employment as they repeatedly scheduled me for shifts I explicitly told them (both in person and email, multiple times) I couldn't be available for due to my second job, then claimed I "didn't communicate well enough". It was very disappointing to see that the company I had dedicated the entire 17th year of my life to treat me so poorly despite the work I did for them.

Moving around departments was often quite easy and the more willing you were to learn more the more you saw appreciation and advancement. Go in with some knowledge of your prospective department so you aren't blind-sided. 

Management was willing to help teach, and on slow days we were encouraged to review tech gear like phones, cameras, music, computers, TVs, headphones etc after department tasks were met. Some gear was hands on - cameras and audio-visual equipment. Warranty info and resources on the equipment you sold was readily available through a myriad of info streams.

Management encouraged passing on your own skills to newer staff. Department morale was good, safety culture is good, training is incredible, and the team worked together seamlessly but you always need to do your part. Recognition from customers and head office is frequent if you show your strengths, and show them often. The majority of customers are awesome and when you get a GREAT customer you KNOW how much they appreciate you. Don't take a bad experience to heart or bring it home - those are a dime a dozen.

The hardest part I found was simply the fact that it was retail and many days it was go-go-go on your feet all day; if you don't absorb info like a sponge this may not be the job for you. Front-facing employees can be treated poorly by the dime a dozen grumpy customers but management has your back if things are really bad. 

I liked the job and returned to the same position because the company culture is excellent in so many ways.

Apparently most of the low level staff are great to work for. Just regular folks trying to scratch out a living like anyone else, but not long after starting I began noticing them having problems getting their performance reviews and raises. 

The same thing started happening to my friend. She started asking questions and was told by the regional manager to "keep her head down and do her job". 

Things continued to get worse when the supervisors and managers began lying about her performance. Then they demanded that some employees ( another person ) enter into legal contracts that would make them liable for lawsuits against their product suppliers, or else face dismissal. 

An independent report was done that indicated extraordinarily low trust in management, and after these results came out they had a "study group" in one store to come up with ideas to improve the image of management. Participants were not allowed to discuss wages as any part of the solution, and another employee I knew was fired because he was deemed to be a "union threat'.

The list goes on and on and on. From the way returned products are repacked and resold to the constant shuffling of low level management from location to location and unfulfilled promises. Their policies and hiring practises sound great, but they're largely lip-service.

They say they hire from within but I've seen new employees parachuted in over existing ones into positions they didn't even apply for. They say hours are flexible, but when you want flexibility you might suddenly find you have fewer hours. What they really mean is flexible for them.

a typical day at work included making sure every surface in the department was dusted and "faced", making sure all products were restocked as needed, all customers in the department were greeted or aknowledged. making sure that customers were assisted with everything possible from our department so they did not have to return to the area "because they forgot an item" maing sure all display units are functional and clean. all photo orders are processed as they are recieved, and sorted alphabetically and by date as they are completed. making sure all orders are completed to our customers satisfaction.

i learned alot from this job as it was my first. i learned how to be punctual, how to manage my time, to make sure all tasks were completed before my shift ened, to communicate with peope in the departments, how to be efficient, and become profficient.

the management was not very functional.... it was like they did not take their jobs seriously. they would wander off after loading you up with numerous tasks and be found off somewhere chatting away. they werent very helpful either. they expected you to know the answer to everything, and did not treat you with much respect. 

the hardest part of my job was trying to upsell to customers, at the time i was new to the working life and did not know how to ask customers open ended questions or make suggestions based on knowledge. 

the most enjoyable part of my job was talking with customers about thieir photographs that would come in. a few regular customers had stunning photographs and would give pointers on how to take flawless photos.

The London Drugs name is a decent "brand" name in the community. Products tend to be reliable, selection decent however pricing can, sometimes, be a tad high.
A typical day at work includes a focus on customer services with paper work that assists in the tracking of customer purchases and some that appears to allow cut backs at head office by off loading the paper work on to floor personal.
Cleaning typically left till the end of the day unless it affects the public image (such as dirty floors in winter time) or is a critical safety issue.
Senior management is, unfortunately,  the one of the major reasons London Drugs is not a top tier employer. Directing stores to increase profitability by a minimum developed around the last year's profits senior management tend to adopt superannuated behaviour that leads to unpredictable hours of employment, few to no positions for job advancement & behaviour that may be contrary to best practice (such as missing equipment, lack of training, etc.).
The saving grace of the company is individuals manning the store locations tend to be a good fit for the departments they work in. This brings a passion to the store that is not met in other competitors.
However with guaranteed hours hard to obtain consistent  customer service is hard to judge as customers attending store locations will nearly always have a different point of contact with each visit.

Working as an electronics associate, a typical day of work usually consists of merchandising product throughout the department and consistently making sure every customers needs are met whether it's with helping them find the right product or troubleshooting problems with a product they may already own.
Being able to work hands on with a lot of new technology has taught me a lot about all the upcoming advancements in technology as well as giving me the tools to sell and teach others about it.
Management is fairly lackluster considering the fact that employee happiness is last on the priorities list.
The workplace culture is decent, encouraging teamwork among all who work there.
The hardest part of the job is having to sell and showcase high end tech while only being provided with the bare minimum of hardware on the store level. Most if not all the hardware and sales tools are 5-10 years old and really hamper the experience a customer deserves when spending hard earned money on high end technology.
The best part of working there has been being able to work with all the new hardware and technology that comes out every year and immersing myself in all that world has to offer.
The biggest problem is that the company offers no room for advancement. Wage scales are capped and any increase while within those boundaries is based on hours worked rather than performance.

Normally i'm at the front desk, handling customer needs that our cashiers and stock team are unable to deal with. This includes checking stock, ordering products in, selling bus fair, lottery tickets, cigarettes and dealing with refunds.

Management is hit and miss, worked with great supervisors and managers but also dealt with selfish and lazy ones as well. 

Hardest part of the job is dealing with customers, no one likes to be rejected and sometimes situations escalate quickly. Also being newer to the company i often got stuck with closing shifts which had a very heavy impact on my personal life. i would often close 3-4 times a week since most of the people working in my position been with the company for 10 years+.

Most enjoyable part of the job is staff, being in the front desk i tend to micro manage the cashiers and stock team to help certain needs (helping customers find products, carry out, checking stock). The ones i worked with always had a good attitudes and were team players. Especially during the night when the floor staff only have 2-3 members to close the store (excluding departments).

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Pharmacist 402 salaries reported	$54.26 per hour
Department manager 86 salaries reported	$49.22 per hour
Technician 71 salaries reported	$19.59 per hour
Cashier/sales 65 salaries reported	$19.72 per hour
Service technician 47 salaries reported	$20.04 per hour

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