comptable

tax professional

commis à l'accueil

réceptionniste de bureau

client services

H&R Block

The wages are low and you take some staff have rather extensive backgrounds and deserve more. Anyone can be taught to input data but to truly understand what it means is something else.

Training is minimal once you are at the office which yes, you gahve your course but to have clients thrown at you tout suite is not good business practice. This gives both the client who is paying TOP dollar for the service and the poor schmuck employee a bad experience right off the get go. Most senior staff have no use for the newbies and even though new employees are guaranteed that the senior staff are the to help out, nobody is watching and it rarely happens. I' ve seen both endas of the spectrum on that one. New staff looking for assistance because they aren't well trained and the senior staff fed up with doing the training for no extra money.

The DM for the area I worked actually threatened to have employees arrested because they were giving out the student discount too often... Even though the clients were indeed students. I actually kept an email that was circulated by him and it was threatening and in very poor taste. Funny thing was, a copy went to his boss and the staff never received an apology so that meant that she agreed with this... get real people! The DM was from a far eastern province and the English used and language spoken was improper. We used to laugh when a new message came through from him, it was full of grammatical errors, slang and the tone was always rude.

Good luck to anyone that made more than $10 bucks an hour! I have financial experience and I could roll out 3 pr 4 per hour and wasn't paid accordingly. Much less get a thank you or fair compensation!

I wouldn't recommend H&R Block to even the most desperate employee.

This was the job that helped me pivot out of restaurants and into the world of office admin. It is fast paced and I am never bored. I love helping clients (yes, even some of the challenging ones), I adore my coworkers and it's nice to work with people who care about what they do and respect one another. The management is extremely hard working and willing to help every employee out every time, and come over to coach us when we are challenged/need retraining. Initial training was online self learning, and the material was confusing at times but management was forgiving and made sure we had the confidence to learn and move forward. I got thrown into the fire a bit at first, but it only felt that way because it was so vastly different from restaurant work (I could serve in my sleep, a fast paced office job is very different). I love that the company cares about safety and kept asking employees and clients to mask in our office. You will never see work/life balance like this, it is very very rare. This company respects your time. It doesn't pay a lot, but that is to be expected for seasonal, and it's a great way to break out of a restaurant job rut and learn a lot from really positive management and coworkers. I plan on doing my first year of tax prep training so I'm cross trained for next year at front desk. I'm going to miss everyone so much when the season ends... such a good team!!

I loved working there. The staff were like family after just a few days into the season. 
I learned all kind of things about how an office is run, learned how to use an atm for receiving payments, and how to use an electronic software for managing clientelle and storing there info etc.
But I felt that some of the things that were expected were unethical, and certainly put off customers, many of whom went else where the following year. and expected were unethical, and many of my bonuses were lost because of the receptionist, not on purpose however....
We were not trained well on the software, which made us look bad to clients, and caused a waste of time correcting errors.
I am a single mom, and asked to never work on Sundays because it is my family day, but had to work every Sunday. 
Also I have a handicapped son and need to be able to plan well each week for people to take care of him , but we were never given a schedule for the next week until the day before, which caused much trouble for me. 
On the other hand, when he had to go to hospital, or had seizures they let me go as needed. 
I enjoy this kind of work immensely and would go back except for these things. 
The fellow workers were wonderful. We had been taught how to handle office politics and such but there was none. 
The Receptionist were great. 
The hardest part of the job, dealing with people whose price was raised before pick up

You bring a client into your office ask some questions, give some advice, and enter their information in the tax software that you would learn about in the course they run and you have to take before you can be hired as a Tax Pro.

Other tax pros can usually answer questions you may have both for tax concerns or concerns with the software. Management is against overtime for the most part and will respect your availability and desired hours of work each week(so long as its 40 or under).

There are bonuses based on how many returns you do, how much revenue those returns brought H&R Block, the extra services you get client to buy, and how many years you've been with them. This does little to improve the lackluster pay for the first year but gets much better for the next two.

Advancement(at least to higher level of tax pro) is as easy as taking further courses through H&R Block but only one can be taken before each tax season and an 80% mark is needed to pass. Training on office procedures is lacking compared to the training on the software and tax knowledge.

Best part of the job is giving clients good news with the worst being giving them bad news or when software problems bring the office to a halt (happened a few times in my time there). 

Almost exclusively seasonal with only a few part time positions for the off season. Overall a great place to gain some office experience.

The learning curve was independently driven and steep. Workflows were self-taught with some random aid. Overall, the experience was enjoyable, clients were interesting and each had a story, and the job provided a sense of accomplishment so therefore was a gratifying experience.

I enjoyed the personal challenge of processing independently and accurately an individual's or family's return. HR Block kept record of personal metrics: in my first year,  I completed 110 returns while working 20 hours per week over 6-8 week period. Decent results for a first year while working part time.

The office manager was exceptional at her job and available when circumstances permitted or deemed important enough. Priority was always relevant to everyone. And when necessary, problem solving became an effective interdepartmental team effort. Truly, HR Block has good people. 

I did not wholely enjoy the shift work. Due to the seasonal nature, it was fine for 6-8 weeks. 

On a corporate level, and at the first year level,  on the job training/ corporate software/ corporate workflows might be considered for future first year HR Blockers. That said, I do understand the nature of rapid seasonal corporate expansion/contraction and the resulting challenges/limitations. People before task to get the job done well.

A typical day at work:
Greeting Clients
Answering telephones, taking messages, booking and scheduling appointments. Faxing and receiving faxes. Photocopying information, filing-- retrieving files, and filing them after no-longer needed.  Receiving drop off`s dating them when they are to be ready for clients.  Updating client`s information.  Taking new client`s information.  Putting them in order of date to be completed.  Receiving payments, through moneris.  Printing and issuing receipts. Stapling our copies of method of payment inside client`s files.  Doing end of day balancing.  Making out deposit slips and putting cash amounts in bag along with deposit slips, sealing it, dating it, then depositing it in the night depository at the bank. Doing light cleaning of work area.  Taking out the garbage on garbage days at end of shift.  Pretty general and straight forward.  Co-workers are great, team spirited and helpful.  Harmonious. Management or office leader are great.  We had an awesome office leader.  Hardest part of the job, is equipment malfunctioning, example when computer crashes, or moneris isn`t working at the most crucial times or when they are all down.  The most enjoyable part of the job is customer satisfaction and happy office leaders.

Thorough training that starts in the Fall with minimal hours is great for my schedule.

There are many long term colleagues that truly make you feel like you're part of a team and are there to help you when you need it.

There is room for advancement (and it is encouraged), with your fellow team members working thru everything with you which makes it easier.

The freedom of setting the hours you work is a great bonus as I can work as much or as little as I choose.  If I want to take the summer off and only work during tax season, this job affords me that luxury.

Every return is reviewed by management for accuracy so I can talk with my client and have great confidence the return I have prepared has been done correctly.  This gives great Peace of Mind to me and my clients.

One of the hard parts about the job is you have to be quite detail oriented and you have to like working with numbers.

The most enjoyable part of the job is A:) my co-workers and B:) making a difference in people's lives.  My accuracy with their tax return and finding that extra $100 credit for them could be the difference in having the funds to cover their bills or not.

I attended the tax academy class and finished it with a score of 98. The tuition fee is over 300 plus tax. The passing score is 80. In the interview during the class, they told us even you failed the exam they would trying to offer you a position like front desk. But I didn't get a job at last. Less than 20% of the students who passed the exam actually got the job, not me, even though I think 98 is much better than 80. I was told if I want to work for them, I need to take the tax course again in the next year, and there is no guarantee for a job offer after you pass it. No one will be fooled twice, right? 

So it's not surprise for me to find so many complaints of their customers,'s reviews, most reasons are related to errors and mistakes they made on client's tax file. They don't care whether the tax they did is right or wrong, they only care about your money, no matter it is paid to your tax or tax courses.

Don't take their tax courses. It takes you over 300 dollars and over two months study, but they choose people randomly from five minutes interview. Does it really worth for a job only last 3 months a year (Feb to Apr, so called tax season) and almost minimum wage? If you want to be a tax pro, study by yourself or in a college is a better choice.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Best part was the employees and connecting with a lot of the customers that came in to get their taxes done.  Only the friendly customers were worth the time.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Most stressful part is having to scan files, and actually deal with complaints when customers get irate over the phone or in person.  Even been called racist even though we shouldn't have to put up with that.  The company is too soft in regards to that, and I've already submitted a report about it.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Work environment is pretty stressful when it gets busy, but the culture is very open-minded.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day for me at the company is basically signing in, get everything up and ready in the morning.  Then I make sure all appointments have been checked in and/or called in case one of the tax professionals is sick since I worked front desk when I was there.  Then if there was nothing else to do during the day, I'd pull files from the back and scan them into the computer so we had them on file for later before we store them elsewhere.

When I was initially hired for this position I was really excited! I thought I would make a difference through my community. I started out as a single mother. So my  schedule was all over the place, Because of this I wasn't able to attend year end meeting to claim my stores recognition for Northgate centre in edmonton, instead one of the tax workers took my recognition for our store numbers and my management and training for the season, i found this out 2 years later, through my hard work planning training and scheduling another tax  Associate took over my office. All Because I was not able to attend year end 
meeting  for that season due to my son  being sick,  I had missed out on everything that I work so hard for.  I had worked hard for this company every season dealing with rude customers and staff for a very long time, And for many years and  with no recognition that I deserved, infact they even put me in as a new hire to demote me?  for all the hard work?  instead they called me in July, the season ends in April with the rare occasion  of going into May to let me go and couldn't give me any reasons why???. I took the effort to work at as many locations as possible.  I am so disheartened 😔 please use turbo tax don't support this chain..  

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Comptable 59 salaries reported	$18.69 per hour
Tax professional 18 salaries reported	$19.53 per hour
Commis à l'accueil 28 salaries reported	$18.36 per hour
Réceptionniste de bureau 18 salaries reported	$18.83 per hour
Client services 14 salaries reported	$17.96 per hour

Working at H&R Block: company overview and reviews

H&R Block

H&R Block ratings

Popular jobs at H&R Block

Salary satisfaction

Job seeker tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected