I'm going to be be brutally honest here, reviewing my just-over-a-year experience of working at the Salmon Arm location: Store #975
I have been working at this location since December 2017, and took a break during July and August of 2018 to work at another job (with better compensation) so I cannot comment on the summertime experience, though co-workers said that it's hectically busy. I am about a month away from dwindling my full-time position down to about 8 hours per week, so I can give a general insight to working at this particular location.
I was trained on cash, produce, grocery, and deli;
Cash: Repetitive as always, and your attitude and how you're feeling that day will make or break it. The people in Salmon Arm are friendly, and seldom have I ever gotten a rude customer. You must be able to push their rudeness aside when it happens, and talk it out with the next few customers who will laugh along at that person's atrocity. Most cashiers are very nice people, but there's those who've been with the company for many years who feel entitled to push you around and order you to do whatever they want. Often times, there's a cashier who will phone the "runaround" person to do stuff like collect baskets - even on a busy day - while they're "busy" (slowly) re-filling the till-side chocolates and other last-minute decisions, or gathering around the customer service desk to chat with people.
Grocery: stocking shelves and facing them, sorting out the mass amounts o
ProsJobs themselves aren't bad, you move around a lot (exercise) and the people are generally good
ConsAbysmal compensation, hypocritical co-workers, back-talking and backstabbing
I cannot say this enough: This place is SO STRESSFUL. Worked here before and during Covid and ended up reporting company for failure to comply with health/ safety standards for the pandemic.
Let me point form sum up my experience:
-I was teased for my gender and sexuality.
-I was offered promotion only for it to be pulled away as a 'means of ferreting out gossips'.
-I was told I had to take my breaks but was given a work load that didn't allow them.
-I was forced to literally run half of my shifts due to poor scheduling leaving us under staffed.
-Managers rarely if ever stepped in to deal with harrassment, safety issues, health concerns, or scheduling issues.
-Direct supervisor often pushed his responsibility onto others and barely trained anyone (myself included).
-I was forced to train newcomers despite not being fully trained myself; supervisor and managers claimed they weren't fully trained either or said they were too busy too help OR claimed the newcomers were 'already trained'.
-PPE wasn't provided and therefore had to be forced out of them by OHS when I was there.
-I was contacted almost daily when offshift to come fill in. Many others were too.
-Pests aren't properly dealt with: The entire time I worked at my location there were wild birds in the store that ate the produce; the company had people come in to try and SHOOT THEM while we were working the night shift. There was no covering on the product in the event they hit the birds so had they been successful there
ProsBasically none.
ConsPoor management, harrassment, pests, horrible work-life balance, nepotism, the list goes on and on.
Read it all. Be your own judge
Okay. First off. The schedule. Everyone wants to know is hours. So you start at the bottom of the food chain. Yep. You get whatever hours are available after everyone who was hired before you. Gets the hours maxed out based on their availability.
For example if someone is available 16 and 24 hrs. Those two people would get 16/24 before you’d get your 16.
Which is fine…. Except for the next part. The schedule is rolling.
So. Like. If one week you worked Sunday to Thursday. Next week you’d work Monday to Friday. Then Tuesday to Saturday. Then Wednesday to Sunday. Then Thursday to Monday. You get the idea.
Well. On night shift they don’t follow this rule. You get scheduled just whenever. For those of us “as this is not a full time position” you get to work every Sunday Monday Friday Saturday. So if you have anything happening in your own life. You can’t even count on getting any days off that you needed.
For me? I requested a two week period. As I had some things happening. Leading to a lot of stress. So. Just asked for Friday Saturday Sundays for two weeks. None of the FRIDAY TO MONDAY which is what I had been on. It was just two weeks. Schedule lady approved it. Got it on email. Etc. And then what you know. Manager calls one morning saying I no showed. Explained we said. Friday. Saturday. Sunday.
He says well that’s Thursday night to Friday morning. Friday night to Saturday morning. And Saturday night to Sunday morning.
The p
ProsFree fruit
ConsComplete disregard for minor schedule requests, managers can’t speak clearly about which day we are referring to for scheduling night shifts.
Fort and Foul Bay location's scheduling was awful, wages too low to make it worth it
I pride myself on my work ethic, but I couldn't deal with how they managed things there. People don't leave jobs, they leave poor managers.
I worked in the coffee shop in the Save On. My problem wasn't with the job itself, although I can't say I liked the work (the day's felt long, especially when I had to spend hours in the freezer getting supplies and freezing my toes and fingers until they legitimately hurt. The gloves and coat they give you are nothing, and I come from a place famous for its snow and ski hill so I'm used to the cold. It sucked, but it was part of the job so I did it without complaining). My main issue was the terrible scheduling, and I finally got fed up and quit because of it.
The first shift I had after my orientation, I wasn't put on the schedule at all. They called one morning asking where I was and when I said I looked at the schedule and didn't see a shift, they said it was because I was still in training. Sure, but how am I supposed to know to show up when no one tells me? It made no sense, and I spent my training constantly checking and asking when I would work next to make sure. I thought it was the end of the constant changes when I started seeing my schedules online.
They were good enough to not schedule me on the days I wasn't available, but on the days I was they would change my shifts two or three times so it would be extremely difficult for me to make any sort of plans around my shifts. Since I had two jobs this was very frustrati
ProsFree fruit and etc. in break room
ConsPoor scheduling, long days, others
2.0
E-commerce Specialist | Victoria, BC | Feb 9, 2021
Nice employees, extremely frustrating workplace
are you looking for a workplace that will not only give you some new friends but also stress you out until you want to cry? then this is the job for you! it's not the fact that the work is particularly difficult, nor is it the pace of things. the issue lies within the management and organization of the workplace. it feels as if you don't really matter to the higher ups and in my experience people really don't matter to them. they will be nice to you but you can't be surprised when they throw you out. i was hired and i was told i would be perfect for my job. i was excited about this! this was my first job and i did what i was told and worked to the best of my abilities. this was not enough. at the end of my 'probation' period or whatever it's called i was ''let go''. i was not told a proper, professional reason for this. i was told that it was like 'trying to fit a square peg in a circular hole' and then i was offered to finish the online order i was completing at the time i was called into the office. even worse i was told that i could try again in six months time. the work is simple really, just follow the instructions and you should get by just fine. the difficult part about this job is the constant on-edge-ness you have to feel when around people who start drama with each other or when you see people you were hired with being let go. i had probably 1 good shift in the 3 months i worked there (i worked around 4 shifts a week usually, three 4hr shifts and one 8hr shift) and
Prosdiscount, nice people, ok food
Consunderstaffed in ecomm, stressful even when you aren't at work, disorganization and frustrating
People's experience with Save-On can vary widely from store to store, but a few things remain consistent:
The pay sucks - despite being unionized, you will make minimum wage when they hire you, and the regular raises (10 cents every 520hrs) aren't going to do much to change that.
The work is hard - whether its the endless hours of stocking shelves, unloading pallets, or anything else, you'll be working hard from the moment you punch in to the moment you punch out. I'd say it's not as bad as construction, but at least that pays well.
Workers that were hired pre 1997 are a class unto themselves - Due to a less than successful strike in the late 90s, the workers at Save On are divided between "grid A" and "grid B". A has good benefits meaningful wage increases, and a union that takes good care of them. B tend to last less than two months before quitting, they have nothing of note. The union cut a deal to split their workers in two, if you were hired before 1997 (with some exceptions) good for you! If not you're in for a bad time, for bad pay.
Benefits - Probation is 3 months, benefits kick in after one year, of the 16 people I was hired with, 1 aside from myself lasted long enough to be eligible... Good luck though.
Work Life Balance - Schedules are posted two weeks in advance, and are always a nightmare. You'd rather not close one night and open the next morning? Too bad. You'd like to have consecutive days off so you can feel like you have a weekend? Too bad. Y
I am currently an E-Commerce employee at Save On. My job consisted of taking online orders, shopping for the customers, and taking the orders out to the parking lot or ensuring they were delivered. Independent job, but at our location it sometimes can be dull when there's not much to do, or crazy when there's too much to do and not enough staff members to do it.
I have honestly mixed feelings on this job, especially because the department is horrendously understaffed, which has meant that multiple times I've had to pull nightmare shifts because there simply weren't enough people to get the job done, and twice when I tried to call in sick the answer that I got was "You can't do that, there's nobody else here to do your job". Several times, when there were many orders and no other staff members, I worked through all of my breaks (even though that's illegal). I wasn't forced to, but if I took even one break than I would have fallen even more behind, and even when I didn't take any breaks I was there from 6 am to 4:30 PM, one day. When the supervisor finally got there at three, he asked me to stay and work even longer and I reluctantly agreed.
When I told my other supervisor about these insane shifts, she laughed and told me that another coworker had to do the same thing a few days prior. In other words, they're bending the rules at best and breaking the law at worst.
The coworkers in most of the store as amiable, there's a decent break room, but the employees don't rec
Prosnice coworkers, low supervision
Consbad hours, long hours, boring shifts when slow, ridiculously hard shifts when busy, not flexible
Absolutely Horrible Place To Work For Those With An Ounce Of Work Ethic
This was my second job ever and I worked as a Produce Clerk. Super invasive work environment. I heavily value individual work over group work, so when I saw Produce Clerk, I thought that I was going to be stocking produce and could just be on my own, doing my own work that was necessary. That was the complete opposite. Co-workers were super lazy, would force me to do work they did not want to do, and would spend most of their shift talking instead of working, often trying to talk to me which led me to do less work. Managers on the same coin have favourites in the workplace, picking employees that they are friends with and employees they don't like. The amount of micro-managing that my manager did was unreal, nit-picking and over-managing every single thing I did. I would see a vacancy in produce, and the managers would tell me to do something completely different because the co-workers who spend all day talking were going to get to it eventually.
Not to mention, we are expected to be overly friendly to the customers. Clerks are expected to say hello and strike up conversations with every single customer that walks into the store. When I'm focusing on my work, I can't be checking up every five seconds to make sure I say hello to a new customer. Often times as well, customers would find it flat out annoying just by looking at their facial expression, as many are there to shop. It's hard for me to fake happiness in a complete moronic work environment.
The numerous amount
ProsHiring process is efficient.
ConsDistracting work place, no discounts, micro-managing power hungry managers, work doesn't get done.
- A typical day at work depended on the shift you were working, for example the 9-4 shift the team member working was responsible for the making of sandwiches and getting a start on salads, an 11-7 shift would be salads and then the finishing of department production and the beginning of the closing of the department. And any shift that went until 9 or 10 would be closing and the finishing of production. I myself worked all of those shifts, and completed them efficiently and effectively.
- I learned to work better in a team, and I actually came to enjoy it and look forward to it. I expanded my interpersonal skills and was always eager to help the customers, in fact it became one of my favourite things about the job!
- Management, in the beginning, was very nice and enjoyable to work with, however as my time in the department progressed I was placed in many situations that I should not have been that burdened me and affected the way I looked at work. This is what ultimately led to my decision to leave the company.
- I came to personally know all my co-workers and I made many new friends who I still talk to now! I got along extremely well with all of them, and this helped me even more to appreciate a team atmosphere.
- The hardest part of my job would have been the extremely busy days, when there was a lot of production to do and a lot of customers to help. However, this led me to the further development of my attentiveness and my ability to work quickly and efficiently
ProsFor the most part it was an amazing atmosphere that I almost always thoroughly enjoyed working in
ConsThe hours began to affect my grades and place strain on relationships outside of work
I've worked for Save-on-foods for several years and there are things that I wish someone would have told me before I started there, here is that list:
Good:
*The Staff you will work with becomes a second family, It's why I am still there.
*You get to learn tons of different things that will help you move up or move on in the future.
*The Customers of Save on foods are amazing, the company really does treat their customers with such respect and kindness.
*The company values the communities they are in, and that's not just because they say so, Save-on-foods supports local!
*The Benefits are fantastic, second to none.
*The Union support is amazing, first thing you should do is find out who your shop steward is.
Bad:
*Wages, Anytime a business says that their wages are "Competitive" it means that they suck but are comparable to other terrible wages offered around the same area.
*Management, It's bad, it's really bad.
*Back door deals, you remember that time when they said that "there is tons of room for advancement and growth in this fast paced company"? Well Management gets to pick whoever they want to put in those roles so even if you've done your time, proven yourself to be a complete asset of the company it wont matter because they will usually just transfer someone else into the position from another store or promote someone undeserving simply because they were promised a better role and the one you were the most deserving of happened to just come up. This will
ProsTeam Members, Customers, Union, Benefits, Community Oriented
ConsManagement, Wage, Favoritism, Training Methods
Questions and answers about Save on Foods
How often do you get a raise at Save On Foods?
Asked Nov 7, 2022
500 hours
Answered Mar 25, 2023
Yearly
Answered Mar 24, 2023
What should you wear to an interview at Save On Foods?
Asked Apr 11, 2017
Casual. I did a nice top and yoga pants. But. I mean. It was solid black. Looks like leggings. Wasn't showing off curve or anything and the job was groceries so businesss formal is overkill. Remember. To dress for the job you're applying for. You're not applying for management don't dress like one. It can make you feel awkward as well as set a different vibe during the interview. A relaxed candidate and relaxed interviewer is best. Things go smoothly and everyone is at ease. You'll click better with your prospective manager too if you're just yourself.
Answered Sept 27, 2022
Casual. I did a nice top and yoga pants. But. I mean. It was solid black. Looks like leggings. Wasn't showing off much butt curve or anything and the job was groceries so business formal is overkill. Remember. To dress for the job you're applying for. You're not applying for management don't dress like one. It can make you feel awkward as well as set a different vibe during the interview. A relaxed candidate and relaxed interviewer is best. Things go smoothly and everyone is at ease. You'll click better with your prospective manager too if you're just yourself.
Answered Sept 27, 2022
If you were to leave Save On Foods, what would be the reason?
Asked Mar 27, 2017
To pursue becoming a Police Officer.
Answered Feb 24, 2022
Management are bullies, mental health taking a serious decline after starting there. I thought it was just my store that was bad but after reading all the complaints on the team member website I will never work at another save on foods
Answered Aug 30, 2020
What would you suggest Save On Foods management do to prevent others from leaving?
Asked Mar 27, 2017
Learn some respect. You are working with people, not machines.
Answered Nov 6, 2021
Helpful and happy working environment hasten the team work.
Answered Aug 29, 2020
What is the promotion process like at Save On Foods?
