store manager

regional manager

payroll administrator

merchandiser

management accountant

Card Factory

Where do I start I hope you have some free time on your hands for this one!  7 years service and what did I get in return....treated like dirt and that's putting it mildly!
When I first started my employment at card factory I loved it, 6 years down the line a small minded man who hadn't a clue how to people manage, train or even respect his staff was employed to take over from a cracking area manager in which I had the pleasure of working for for some years and who was probably forced to step down due to higher management all because she ain't no brown noser. His merchandising skills are laughable, yeah let's put tape dispensers under big heavy roll wrap for it to all come crashing down when someone wants to purchase one for it to potentially fall on a child in a pram and the best thing about it is he blames somebody else for his wrong doing, typical,  brush up on your health and safety, instead of preaching it why dont you go and practice some.....he never was one for admitting faults! The truth is a liar always gets caught out and he did and not just on the one occasion. He is the definition of a moron who gets his E.R manager to do all his dirty work and even she can't do that properly, she would probably jump off a cliff if he told her to! She has the great satisfaction of putting fear in her employees and that's absolutely disgusting, one thing for certain is that she never scared or never will scare me! The area management like to visit your store mainly on your day off then blame you for everything that is going on that day so be expected to micro manage, not to mention trying to set you up! I had a cracking bunch of girls and they all know who they are and have become family to me and that's the only reason that pushed me to work in such a farce. The area manager did nothing but slate other area managers to me, so professional I must say, I think he thought he was something special coming from pound bakery! I think he should have stuck to selling sausage rolls.
Everything about this company is just wrong the health and safety, training staff you're expected to follow company procedures and show new starters the policies and expectations with no extra hours so it's not fully understood as you end up rushing it then you end up with your phone permanently glued to your ear on your day off by no fault of their own all because this company scrimps and scrapes on hours, dinner/breaks half an hour for what could potentially be a 10 hour shift, delivery procedures, store change overs are done by about 2 people because that's all you can afford with your budget and and incentives well there is none. You graft your backside off all year and especially the run up to Christmas and your rewarded with a voucher for Gregg's which after dishing it fairly out to staff your left with a £3 meal deal! The managers used to get a £25 One for all voucher but that was stopped due to cost yet they still insist on sending a massive p.o.s pack which half of it goes in the bin as it's not needed if not that it's all damaged!
You're running the store tredding on egg shells as the ordering system is a joke! God forbid you try and keep your store full as you will be in for a disciplinary!  The higher management are a joke and the area manager is nothing but a two faced liar who loves to bring down staff moral!
I really could go on but I've wasted enough of my time even writing this!
Please stay clear of working here if you value your sanity!

i worked for this company for 5 years, i started as a 4 hour part time sales assistant in bullring birmingham store, i was not allowed to progress any further as i had a member of family working within this company that they did not like and thought i would be like her. i didnt know this until i became 3rd key holder at a new store that opened a few years ago. I was excited when i came into management as i did enjoy my work, but when you are in management you realise how bad the company is and what they do to the staff who work for them. They pay you a terrible wage when other companies pay you more for a less position. And once you are manager and all the responsibilities are yours, then they will take you down, and they will have a member of staff who you work with bring you down too. If you make the one simple mistake that is not intentional, they will get rid of you and already make the decision before who have a meeting, they also wont accept your notice, they would rather dismiss you themselves, without you fighting your case. I put complaints in about a member of staff who wasnt doing their job properly and always left the store in a terrible state every morning, so i reported him to my area manager, and then when i had a week off which i was dreading since i started that store, i came back to a mess of paperwork and my area manager walked through the door and so did someone who wasnt supposed to be in that day, and to find out that i was being suspended as 2 members of staff reported me for allowing someone to leave with a load of stock, and i never gave authorization to do so.  So just to let everyone out there know before applying, DO NOT, they will take you down and it will stay on your record, the hours are terrible to run a store on especially when everyone is moaning at you for not giving them enough hours, which you cant, everything will end up being your fault. i am saying this to protect everyone, this is the worst company to work for, i wouldnt even apply here if it was my only option, its a dead end job and it will be the worst decision of your life if you able here. Also when there are bulletins every week, and there is jobs available in the company, you can see how many managers and assistant managers that dont work for the company either from their choices or the company's, there are always loads of management jobs available at card factory because the company just like to chuck you away like your some trash. If You Do Apply, Then Watch Your Steps Every Single Step Possible, And Cover Your Tracks - Do Not Let Them Use You For Anything At All - It Will Hurt And Crush You If You Let Them.

I can tell you now that Card Factory is and has been the worst job of my life and i will tell you why!

1. Your work hours will be written out and put on display in 3-4 weeks advance, then management will change your hours at the last minute without telling you resulting in a phone call from said management and then a complaint made against you towards the area manager. (I actually took photos of the rotas to use as defense when they would call up and ask where i was)

2. They have a reputation for not paying you what you have earned. I would constantly get underpaid, and they only gave me back what i was owed on one occasion. 

3. If they don't like the look of you you're done for. They are quick to judge (majority of the time on appearances) and as soon as they felt that way they would do whatever they could to push you out. I saw at least 6 people get pushed out by the manager and her 'minions'.

4.You were always expected to do more than you are capable of. Head Office expect so much to be done and in a certain time but there just isn't the hours or people to do so, resulting in it getting passed on to the next day, and the next and so on until you have a hundred deadlines and no time to do them. 

5. They don't understand what health and safety is. A girl who used to work there did nothing but sit on the toilet for hours on end and she actually blocked both male and female toilets. This led to all the pipes being blocked, and bare in mind the pipes are connected to the sinks too so just turning on a tap or flushing the toilet results in flooding and a constant smell of nothing but poo! We've asked head office to send down a plumber or something but they have always said "someone will be down soon", except nobody ever comes because they don't care about us.

6. We would always receive broken/damaged stock in our deliveries

7. The only people who get holidays are the manager and assistant manager so it seems. I booked  off holiday for June, and i booked it off in October the previous year. Management says "it's ok we can sort that out for you no problem". I reminded them every month so they put it on the system, i received the same response on the regular, then the week before i went on holiday they told me i cant go and that i have to cancel it. I told them it's not happening and continued to go on holiday. When i got back the area manager interviewed me and asked why i disappeared for 3 weeks with no notice.. The manager spewed nothing but lies!

If you want to work for CF, just remember, you are a number, a slave, nothing more! They will treat you poorly and will never care about you. I highly recommend avoiding that poor excuse of a company!

This is most definitely the worst company I have ever worked for. When I began this job 7 months ago I was told that it was great to work for with a lot of benefits. While I began as a sales assistant I was quickly 'promoted' to a 3rd Keyholder. I have regretted this decision ever since. If you become a 3rd Keyholder (aka: Supervisor) you have the same responsibilities as an assistant manager, however you will be paid minimum wage unless the manager and assistant manager are not working. In some cases you will have keyholding responsibilties while they are working so they will get paid for it - you won't but any problems fall back on you.

Also, you are required to come into work 15 minutes early, which is to allow time to count your till before beginning, however you can be made to work for free during those 15 minutes and will not get that back in any form of payment or break, as all breaks are unpaid. You will also be expected to stay in for 15 minutes (minimum) after you stop being paid if you are working the evening shift. This may be due to cashing up issues or because the manager/ assistant manager do not allow to you leave when you are meant to because they will continue to find jobs that need done, such as filling out gift bags or the card racks (which can be done the next if it is really necessary)

You are expected to dedicate your life to Card Factory, expect phone calls asking you to work on your day off and if you cannot then you should not expect your manager to be flexible with your rota. You should also not rely on your rota to keep track of your hours. In my store, the rota can be changed every week, however staff are often not informed of the change in their hours, get reprimanded for inevitably being late/ not showing up and the general attitude from the manager is "staff should keep track of their own hours, I can't phone them all up".

Another issue is with the impossibly high standards this bargain shop insists all stores must maintain, which more often than not is impossible. They do not take into consideration how busy your store might be and therefore expect the store to be sitting perfectly at all times. And even if you do maintain their standards it is never good enough, they will always find a fault in your store. The Card Factory is to constantly give negative feedback and break down the positive energy of all staff.

Overall I would highly recommend that unless you are easily brainwashed and can happily conform to the cold, corrupt company standards, do not work for them.

I began work as a Christmas temp seasonal worker which seemed fine at first. We were busy a lot but co-workers seemed ok. I enjoyed talking to customers and tidying and organising the store and cards. I liked going to the stock room on the request of the customers (though the stairs felt like a trip hazard waiting to happen when we had to carry boxes up and down it).

However, sometimes you'd work shift patterns that were 6 hours exactly so you weren't allowed a break (only break if you worked 6+ hours). If you were working on the till, you'd be standing up your whole shift, which was quite draining. Working on the till was really busy and sometimes there wasn't enough staff to help with things like blowing up balloons. Once I needed assistance in blowing a large balloon up so I asked for help and then was told off by a manager for doing so as I had taken them away from their post.

In general, some coworkers were not that nice. I worked one morning and it was maybe my first time after being trained on the till. The coworker next to me scowled at me repeatedly or told me off for being unsure on how to scan something. The customer i was serving even apologised to me and tried to help because it was such an uncomfortable atmosphere. The manager did stick up for me one time and tell the coworker to stop telling me off. 

However, after the xmas season, i felt the work environment become more hostile. My manager once shouted at me across the store for not smiling at customers. One of the key holder/supervisors would talk down to me or call me names, or smirk at me when I became stressed. The same keyholder commented inappropriate things about my personal life such as once telling me I had no way of progressing onto a different job saying it was above me. 

I left when I felt the work environment was becoming unbearable and after I got shouted at multiple times in one shift by a manager who was stressed about an inspection. I felt the amount of telling off i was getting was very disproportionate to any small mistake I'd even made in the first place.

I did make a few friends with some co-workers but the store had a generally hostile environment. I felt the job was not good for my mental health if I continued to stay. 

A typical day in this company at management level involves some basic paperwork and then generally getting stuck into keeping the store presentable, which is only to be expected in retail.  You are allowed one half hour break during an eight and a half hour shift, during which if you are the only keyholder you cannot leave the store premises.  The opportunity for learning and growth is abundant, however it is stunted by the fact that there are never enough hours or staff members present to allow any proper training to be completed.  You can expect to be thrown in at the deep end, which is often difficult as during seasonal times (Xmas/Valentines Day/Mothers Day etc) you are required to implement large scale shop moves, always out of hours.  This is frustrating if your store has late night opening hours and you are required to work unsociable hours to complete these moves, often to midnight and/or after.  Support from higher level management is not to be expected in this company, often stores are left without managers or assistant managers and those in charge are expected to cope with the strain on their own.  If you are struggling or need help, you will usually find that the answer you receive is simply that you have to find a way to get through it, without extra help or any extra hours to pull your team together.  Often as a manager you just have to work hours for free to get the job done.  This is the hardest part of the job, and it is often the cause of stress and illness for those in management in this company.  Co-workers on the shop floor are friendly but also express the frustration of a lack of staff during peak times, which is due to a low budget in hours.  You can expect to be treated unfairly and with lack of respect by area managers, who believe that shouting at you will get a better result than offering you the guidance you require to fulfill your role to the best of your ability.  The most enjoyable part of the job is during the quiet period (between July and August) when there are no shop moves and you can simply concentrate on making your shop look presentable.

I haven't even been able to make it up until payday that is how awful it is working there! A typical day at work for me was either a 6 hour shift or a 4 hour shift. I never got a break on the 6 hour shift at all as that is the company policy which is actually illegal. I felt uncomfortable in the place the only thing I liked was working on the till but I love doing that anyway. I learned nothing from it except that the staff were bullies and I never got trained to do the cards and I was expected to know what to do. Don't even get me started on management they were an absolute joke! I was being bullied by 2 staff members and constantly felt I was the talk of the place as staff always talked about eachother. I went to my manager and she told me to go to head office to deal with it so I did. Head office were a joke! they haven't done anything about it I asked for a transfer and they wouldn't let me have one and then had the cheek to ask me if I considered going back to the same store. My co-workers were horrible 2 girls were bullying me on one of the days I was in. Constantly watching over me and then going to each other about what I had done wrong. They had embarrassed me in front of customers by saying I needed to 'pick my c**p up and speed up' they never picked up on anything good that I did. There were 4 other staff members I liked which was 3 sales assistants and my assistant manager who was acting as manager for awhile. A lot of staff members complained about her but I had no problem with her at all. What I did find a little strange though when I left was a quote the manager said which was 'none of us are friends here we just have to work together' and also the other staff members weren't fantastic with customers neither they would get impatient with them and tell them where to go to find a card and not actually show them where to go. I thought most of the staff were terrible. The hardest part of the job was actually going in and working for them and being treat like rubbish all the time and the most enjoyable part of the job was home time. This was my first permanent job that I had and I was so happy when I got it now I am just full of regret that I even applied to work there and I have lost so much confidence because of it.

I worked as a Christmas temp for approx 4 months in the Ayr branch of card factory!  the staff were brill from day one including the manageress.   However one particular member of staff was 'ok' at the start, but soon decided she would make it apparent she favoured some staff among others. She told me on several occasions - ' I hate temps' and when asked why, I was given the feeble excuse that they are lazy, which I certainly wasn't!  In the following weeks this staff member ( who seemed to think she was the manager) became hostile towards me for no apparent reason, other staff members noticed this, as she would chat to them, but when I spoke to her, a scowl would appear on her face, and she would talk to me, or rather growl at me for something completely trivial in front of customers, which left customers shocked in more than one occasion. I often came in to cover shifts when staff were off sick and literally worked hard, but this made no difference to this horrible woman's attitude towards me!  After a few weeks I started to feel depressed about working here but got on with it as it was only on a temp basis.   On my last day here, I was asked by other staff members how I liked it in card factory, which I replied ' everyone has made me feel welcome except one person' to which all said ' we know who you mean' and was told by another older member of staff that she was actually suffered bad depression and was on anti depressants because of this woman and several other stories from other staff members!   When I left I decided to take this to head office and spoke to a member from the HR department and also wrote an email explaining the whole experience in detail. Apparently this woman was investigated but is actually still working here! Another young member of staff was basically forced to leave after she complained about racial comments towards her and the older staff member who suffered from depression whom I mentioned in my email was suddenly accused of theft and forced to leave! this is the kind of environment within this shop which head office obviously condone! 
I hope other staff members who have been a victim of this nasty staff member write a review here about her!

A job at Card Factory should only ever be the very bare minimum you can get away with. If you're 16 and need your first job as a Christmas temp then this is the perfect job for you. If you're wanting to work your way up into management then don't bother applying.

The hours are long (and feel longer), you work from 8:45 to 5:45 and are unspokenly expected to stay late if things haven't been done throughout the day. Breaks are unpaid and even if you're working a 10 hour day over the season you're still only entitled to half an hour.

As a co-location assistant manager you're on £9.04, a pound above other assistant managers who are not co-location, but still only £0.80p above a sales assistant who's over 25. 

Management is truly shocking and will turn on you at the drop of a hat and will bully those that don't fit into their clique. I know many members of staff who have overheard management saying nasty comments about other members of staff, including the area manager who will stand in store on the phone bad mouthing staff.

Training is non existent and training documents are often expected for you to sign even while both trainer and trainee are well aware no training has taken place and isn't going to be. New starters are more often than not shoved straight on the tills with minimal training and will stay there for their entire shift (this also goes for staff that management doesn't like, they will also be left on the till all day).

The area manager will come to your store every two weeks (ish) and will write you a list of things that need changing (90% of the list will be things he told you to change on his last visit but has now forgotten and decided he doesn't like). The area manager also tells you to put stock on the shop floor out of reach (against health and safety) just so it's out, have you go against company policy to change things to the way he likes (but will berate those that are caught by other managment for doing the things he tells them to do).

I could go on with all the things wrong with this company, this area in general and the shop in specific but I don't want to waste another minute of my life on Card Factory. Don't waste your time applying.

I've been in retail for over 12 years and I can categorically say that Card Factory is the worst company I've ever worked for. 

As Store Manager your constantly battling against the company expectations and the whims of your Area Manager who have their own ideas about how stuff should be run. They will routinely ignore health and safety directives or new company policies and change the store layout to match their own ideas, with no extra hours given to support the extra workload they generate. 

The onboarding process for staff is a complete mess, so it's an uphill battle to find the time and resources to train staff to a level where they can be relied upon, making their and your own life more difficult. 

In the last couple of years the company has been scrambling to modernise its internal processes, led by a man disliked by everyone on the store levels, and it's been a total disaster. New equipment and software designed to make the job easier is so badly implemented that entire processes are slowed to a crawl, and initiviates are often rushed out the door half completed, meaning you have to use both the old and new way of doing things until the development process can catch up. 

Deliveries are frequently late or missed all together from the Warehouse side of things and new product launches are never smooth. Either products arrive damaged or half missing, or a week after launch they out of stock at the warehouse and have to be substituted for old designs for months to come. Sale targets are already unrealistically high in the current high street climate and this only makes them harder to achieve. 

Pay as of 2019 for Store Managers is £9.40, with very few benefits to speak of. An absolute joke of an amount for the workload required. Frequent unpaid overtime is unspoken of but expected the meet the ever increasing admin demands of the company, so much so that realistically your wage falls below minimum and into slave labour. 

I strongly recommend that anyone thinking of working for Card Factory refrain from doing so, on any level of the company. It is simply put a deeply unpleasant experience with no reward at the end of it.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Store manager 18 salaries reported	£29,187 per year
Regional manager 1 salary reported	£46,500 per year
Payroll administrator 5 salaries reported	£20,600 per year
Merchandiser 4 salaries reported	£40,500 per year
Management accountant 6 salaries reported	£35,500 per year

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