sales representative

truck driver

camionneur

assistant store manager

gérant de commerce de détail

Kent Building Supplies

Everything you read about this place is true. You are told to be a part of a "wonderful" team and aren't given uniforms or proper training to make you a part of that team. Their "shadow" program is a total joke and you are paired with employees who have been there a month. You will be made to feel awkward for wanting to work hard because other employees will get jealous and make derogatory comments. The staff feels above pandemic mask guidelines and will be seen with masks off when not around customers. You are not given access to computers to serve customers but are told to "be on the floor and help" by running around finding other rude employees who act stand offish to new employees. 

This is a cult and you are not apart of it. They callously fire those who don't fit the Irving way which is a cover up for ignoring safety. Make no mistake their safety culture is a lie and it covers up their desire for laziness and inactivity. You are forced to use dangerous broken equipment when orientation tells you that you don't have to. They will say "this is broken but we still have to use it so don't cut yourself". I have witnessed managers tell paid customers that they will not get their order down because its too hard to get. Management will contradict themselves and you are the donkey that moves things around for them aimlessly. Management men make condescending remarks about their store manager after she assigns tasks and then will fake injuries if the task is too large. I've been asked to help customers out of the store with heavy product with obstructions at the exit causing fire hazards and inability to follow through with customer service. This is a dangerous workplace at the best of times and during a pandemic their behavior and attitude is shameful. 

Keep looking

This is a workplace from the 50's and you will hate it. Most definitely the least welcoming staff to new employees as well. This is not worth your soul.

Talking to the people who work there, you would think this is the worst company ever to work for. But I really think it's not that bad at all compared to other companies. They have a lot of benefits that other companies don't, like getting full-time hours and benefits. They go out of their way to appreciate and thank their staff. They regularly have BBQ's and free food. There are a lot of great people who work there. You get to know your coworkers really well because you often have to work together to get the job done. The company has gone out of its way to improve employee satisfaction and I respect that.

The worst part is they won't terminate staff who have violated company policies on numerous occasions, particularly if they are in some kind of management position, because they don't want to have to replace them. The flip side of this is, you don't have to walk on eggshells feeling like they're going to fire you or take your hours away if someone doesn't like you or you make a mistake. 

The second worst part is listening to staff gossip and complain about everything but also not do anything to fix the problem. It's a stressful job, for sure, but with the right attitude it's pure comedy. I think if you decide to not care what anyone thinks, it's actually not that bad and is a lot better than other retail jobs. I'm confident if the people I know that hate it there, worked somewhere else for a while, they would realize it's better than they thought. If you don't take it or yourself too seriously, it's a good choice if your only choice is retail.

I worked with Kent for over 5 years. Hours can be flexible, but practically everyone works 3 day shifts and 2 evening shifts a week. You get every 3rd weekend off. A good discount on most store items, discounts throughout the city in various restaurants or hotels if you travel, discount on mobile with Bell, full time benefits after 1 yr. When I was asked to take a supervisor position, I was extremely happy and did very well in it. I had trained and coached several people and was well respected, but when I tried to advance because really, the pay was not there and they refused to pay me much above minimum wage for the amount of work I did, the job was always given to someone who was 1) with the company for under a year 2) had much less experience 3) younger than myself, which is odd considering I would still be considered young or 4) favourited by management despite poor work ethics. People who work there will be expected to do the job of 10. We were given opportunities to give input through an Irving survey on an annual basis and nothing ever seemed to be taken seriously.. We even had someone come in to coach and get input and nothing changed.. Peoples concerns were dismissed, and all wrong doings justified. Just no consideration for the employees. The technology is not there. The systems used are from the 80’s and you literally learn how to do something new there daily due to the old technology, although there is supposed to be a roll out for a new system “soon”. All in all, if you don’t care about pay, easily understand technology, are good at manually inputting data, or just want to find friends, it is a great place.. It is literally just a management issue.

I worked at the Distribution Center in Moncton. They preach safety first, but they really want you to go as fast as possible when picking orders. Would consistently add things for you to do while you were order picking, like cleaning the warehouse or making sure pallets were not back heavy, but if you stopped to do those things they would complain about the amount of lines you pick while also increasing the amount of lines they expect you to pick. It was never an overly difficult job, but could get repetitive and boring, since you are most always working alone. 

You are suppose to start with a 3 month probation, with a small pay increase and some perks after it ends. They never took me off probation the whole time I was there, and would constantly push it and push it, which led me to believe when they hired me they just wanted someone as a seasonal employee instead of a full time, which was what was advertised and I applied to. 

One time I was on the 3rd floor in the mezzanine area, and a supervisor from the receiving section came up to me and said that his worker, who was in the same section as me, told him that I was one of the best they had ever seen work that section. Not 30 minutes later my supervisor came and told me I wasn't doing a good job and needed to do better. That is a true story and about the time I realized I probably wasn't going to be employed much longer. 

When I finally left, it felt like getting out of an abusive relationship.

2021
There's a lot of stress working at a supervisory or management level, and the main source is lack of staff/people calling in sick. When I first started we had lots of staff and it was a fun place to work. Now, I cry at least once a week due to being over stressed. MOST of the people are great to work with, I just personally feel as though I don't get enough pay or credit for what I do. 

**UPDATE 2025**
Our store manager has checked out. I overheard someone ask him a question and he said that he didn't care since he's supposed to be getting transferred to a different location. I've had 4 staff members from my department leave in the span of 2 months. Our switchboard operator retired, and now customer service is in charge of the phones, and us cash supervisors are also in charge of in house account refunds. Everyone here is miserable no matter which department they're in. The company is trying to save money by not hiring full time employees anymore so they don't have to give them hours or benefits. The benefits and guaranteed hours are the only thing keeping me here. They also took away my department manager bonus because "I'm a supervisor and not a department manager" even though I've been getting this bonus since I was promoted in 2021.

Be mentally prepared to work with little to none training.I e been in several areas and consistently the theme is lack of training and support. Most frustrating is that Head office thinks we have enough staff, but we are shorthanded every day and all doing the job of more than one or three people. One person frequently has to handle half of the store because they refuse to hire staff to just work in one area! Not unusual to work, plumbing, electrical, lighting, seasonal, paint, blinds, and home decor all in one shift! All for $13.90 an hour! Physically be prepared to work on hard concrete floors for 9 to 10 hours and for your body to feel destroyed at the end of every shift. Expect to feel completely taken advantage of with beyond pathetic wages, lack of training, long hours, unpaid lunches, no benefits or sick days for at least a year, even with bereavement or onsite injury. It’s on your own dime. Be aware that they can decide to hire you “full-time” but can renege on that at any point they want to cut hours and THEN decide to tell you that oops, you’re not actually officially hired full-time until you’ve worked with this company for a year. So too bad for you, even though you’ve worked full-time hours since you started. I really don’t have much good to say about working for the Irving company except for the people who work there are friendly and make it tolerable. 

Training was poor, everyone is too busy with their own job. You try and learn but not able to stick to a task. Front end staff are cashiers, sectaries, receptionists, door greeters. If you don't try to apply all at once, you always get criticized if one slacks. One person cannot do all at once, while you are ringing people though cash, then trying to pay attention to the people walking in (or out) the door to greet. Or taking non stop calls, redirecting the calls to departments, some of the time they just don't want to answer. You see them at times not busy with a customer and they just ignore their phone. Customers get angry with the cashiers that their phone calls are not answered. They are expected to take messages but can't leave their work post, when the messages are delivered a lot of the time, they don't call them back. Then the cashiers are to blame their calls are not returned. Not saying this happens at all Kent's but the experience working there is not great. Some workers feel they are intitled to more breaks or take 30 min breaks that are supposed to be 15. Or just walk around the store when they should be working. This puts more strain on the people who have strong work ethics. Kent needs to change the phone system, perhaps hire a door greeter. Poor structure. 

The company is garbage. From management constantly scrutinizing you, to Co workers who are blissfully ignorant and supported by management in that ignorance, it is not a good place to work. A typical day for me in my first year included driving the forklift around to move stock, putting stock on shelves in the store, and helping customers. After my first year, a typical day became management breathing down my neck for personal reasons, cutting my hours back because they didn't like one medical diagnosis, being denied a promotion I was more than qualified for and was also the only applicant for. In the end I had to go to HR about the harassment from management, and even that process was ridiculous as management attempted to prevent me from calling HR, telling me the issue was all in my head. Management also did nothing to help me when a former employee showed up and pulled a hunting knife on me, they were upset that I had called the police. 

Management has a saying, 'don't make things complicated in my store' but it was clearly a one way street as they sought to make my life there very complicated.

I come in and do a walk through of my department, put things away, fill holes. Help customers as needed. Management is nice but often doesn't follow policy when it comes to returns and giving out sale prices after the sales so they usually say yes after you already said no to the customer which sucks. Management changes a lot though, they're all constantly changing stores. The hardest part is the bad customers who come in screaming at you. I've been cursed out by customers before and called down to the dirt all because I wouldn't let them return something they didn't even get at Kent or because I wouldn't put the money they're owed from a return on visa when they bought it on MasterCard (its against our policy to put it back on a different type card then what they paid it on, I'd get wrote up if I did). But the employees are the absolute best part. Everyone is so kind and it really does feel like one big family. And theres a lot you can learn at a place like Kent. A lot of good life skills and work skills. It does sound bad but once you're there you won't want to leave because of the incredible people you meet.

nobody tells you within your first year you don’t technically qualify for “full-time”, even though you can work 40+ hours a week, you don’t get any type of insurance. pay is mediocre, around my first year mark i got a 21 cent increase, & the whole store is SEVERELY UNDERSTAFFED (regardless of the many many people who apply). management is either a hit or miss, and when you get hired they should be required to warm you about the yearly product count (in which they require you to work 12+ hours if it falls on your scheduled weekend, and if you say you are unavailable or simply do not want to go, they threaten to fire you). EVERYONE should be able to make commissions (not just project desk/contractors), and/or tips, as we were not allowed to accept them. everything is required to go through head office, the head manager can’t make the decisions for hiring/changes to the store, and can’t increase pay. lastly, if you are a student looking to make money throughout the school year, i would NOT recommend kent due to their hours of operation. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Sales representative 6 salaries reported	$19.96 per hour
Truck driver 6 salaries reported	$23.76 per hour
Camionneur 37 salaries reported	$26.50 per hour
Assistant store manager 1 salary reported	$21.55 per hour
Gérant de commerce de détail 28 salaries reported	$48.50 per hour

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