customer service representative

general assistant

service assistant

shift leader

store manager

Chelmsford-Star-Co--operative-Society

Worst job I’ve ever worked for!!!! 
During covid 19 there’s been no protection to staff customers anyone all they care about is money.
Unless u are higher than an area manager expect to be treated as a bit of dirt on your shoe. 
All higher members get paid full rate of pay if any symptoms however employees working in the frontline where people have spit at you taken food from the food bank robbed shouted screamed and even been attacked with a bottle asking please can you leave two metres for your protection and the protection of others don’t expect to be thanked YOU WILL BE BLAMED.
They will expect you to work all the hours under the sun with no thanks no bonus but u might get 20% off mon-fri for one week sorry five days on there over priced products anyway.
No protection no gloves no sanitizers no screens were put up during all this time however other in the chain line were up in days and had protection .
Be told your not allowed to allocate a certain amount of people in a shop at a time however other shops were putting this is place five weeks ago to protect customers and employees. 
U will never be paid correctly and there attitude when ringing head office of worries during this worrying time is in there worse ‘deal with it!’ However the people telling you to deal with it are all working from home with full pay and the shops are struggling with no staff members and 9/10 time’s working one on one . If they believe they were safe environment for us then why would they not be working in the shops at the worry time at the moment . 
Honestly if anyone is thinking of working here please re think no money is worth the way they will treat you .
If u work in a shop expect not to be able to take your holiday in general but during this time it has been told u may not be allowed to but of course if your not in the shop your more than welcome to take your holiday .. if you work in the shop YOU DONT NEED IT  SURELY as you can’t go anywhere .. not that you might want to spend some time away from work from the stress of the world at the moment and spend time with your family . You only have that privilege if your important not a shop workers!! so glad I’ve left there and have nothing but bad things to say about the way the run there shops .. but I do believe in karma thank you

If you care about your mental health wave goodbye to that 

Bully culture to keep your store open if you have no management 

Cluster managers use bully tactics to manipulate you in to stupid hours and working days off and cancelling holiday Because they can’t cover your store

You are told “your store your problem” yet they are the ones who move your management out of your store permanently leaving you with no management for holidays/days off

Your holiday will be rejected if you don’t have enough management in your shop to cover your holiday as said before cluster managers can’t cover it because they can’t be bothered 

All the head office staff are far to Clicky and have no idea what they are doing or what actually goes on in store this company is run by the blind leading the blind

One very good member of the field team she comes and does your audits  and helps you with your plans and instore bakery she is brilliant! 

Security field team are made up of three people one of them goes around bullying your staff and over complicates things in your store throwing his weight around and intimidating woman at work with his petulant demands and bully tactics if he doesn’t get his own way 

There is nothing positive about this god awful company the best thing it can do is be brought out by Co-op group and they get rid off all the head office staff and terrible bosses around the company 

This isn’t just the problem in one shop this is ALL stores do not be fooled by the attractive wage it really isn’t worth it specially when your shop needs covering and your forced into doing sixteen hours shifts back to back because if your shop shuts even on your day off or holiday you get pulled for a disciplinary you might think to yourself surely it can’t be that bad TRUST me it’s horrendous you will never see a turn over of staff like this company it is honestly pathetic 

The people at the top can’t run a bath let alone a business 

I would desperately dissuade anyone from working for Chelmsford Star. Having worked in head office for a fair while, I learnt very quickly that the executive team are solely interested in themselves - i.e. their own salaries and bonuses. I would describe them, along with other members of staff, as bullies. They contractually try to enforce unlimited working hours with no overtime pay nor time off in lieu. They have no consideration for their staff's mental health. Their HR facility can only be described as a complete joke. Very incompetent management who will not deal with any grievances or incidences. There is a very small clique at the top who will try to reap every reward with no care for those working below.

Having had a lot of exposure to those working in stores, I can only feel extremely sympathetic for all who feel they are not listened to. Many store workers (myself included when I worked at a store for Chelmsford Star) feel like they are pushed and pushed with absolutely no reward. They are expected to take on extremely large workloads with fewer and fewer staff. Unfortunately, any complaints or suggestions fall upon deaf ears and sadly I can't see that ever changing.

Bonuses, rewards and career progression really don't exist at Chelmsford Star. No movement in positions occur in head office other than for the elite few. Very few opportunities arise within stores other than following a mass exit of managers and supervisors after strikes occurred a while back. 

All else I can say is that I've never quite worked anywhere like it.

It’s an easy place to work especially as a general assistant and it’s also an easy route to management however going any further than general assistant can be extremely stressful.

A lot of the staff in the shop are great and are so easy to get on with which did make the days easier at times.

Business needs are expected to come above your social life, the whole society is struggling with no staff because of the lack of support head office offers. Most of the head office staff I’ve spoken to are rude and unhelpful, they make you feel unimportant, like your just another number. Most of them are bullies, simple as that using manipulative behaviour to get what they want. All management staff in store are expected to work whenever the company needs.

Bonuses pretty much don’t exist you mostly get a measly extra 10% off when you shop there for a few days, even over the covid period, workers got very little thanks.

Thieves are common in this store and can disrupt the work day quite often. These experiences can sometimes be scary, again there’s very little support in these situations, after so many occurrences of thefts and abusive customer over the whole society head office’s solution was to give the stores cameras to strap to staffs chests… still trying to work out how that was supposed to prevent this from continuing but I can assure…it didn’t.

Pay started decent but became inadequate considering the work expected of you.

Convenient part time job I suppose but full time here is mentally draining.


If you enjoy doing 16 hour days with next to no staff on your shift, 1 on 1 alot of the time, then go ahead this would be your ideal place. You may aswell move your bed into store as seems that's what expected. Don't expect any form of a family life.
However saying that it is easy to progress to management, they are so desperate as they go through staff like there is no tomorrow. Due to the long hours your expected to work with no extra pay and no support.

In the bubble of our store staff were lovely. 
But outside the store from cluster managers up expect nothing. They are all out for themselves doing next to nothing, whilst expecting you to keep your store open from 6am to 10pm 7 days a week with only 2 members of management. Expect visits from 'security' who will come in and pick on any little thing to try and make his job look worthy. Dont expect any support from anyone in head office. Only people I would recommend this job to is someone who is 16 and wanting this as a little part time job as money isnt to bad but Just move on as soon as you get a chance to bigger and better things. 

Really flawed operating model means a complete lack of any work life balance.
Fine if your happy to work 70 hours a week with no breaks and constantly on edge that a part time student will phone in sick and you will have to do a 16 hour day.
Easy retailing made impossible by staffing levels and dreadful HR practices. 
Senior Retail operations field team were really on point and supportive but held back by a head office that believes the stores are simply there to service their easy life. Loss prevention team a complete joke and stuck in a 1980s retail mindset.
Shame as it could be a great business if it was run correctly. 
Don't  be fooled by salary as you will end up being on a worse hourly rate than supervisors due to the amount of hours you will be forced to do just to deliver a basic store operation.
Have never seen so much management turnover in a company and once you have worked there you can see why.

Been working at this company for over 3 years as a manager and it's safe to say it's the worst company you can work for. The money is good but it isn't worth the stress and anxiety of working here. Constantly have no staff and working with an under 18 who can't serve anything on the till. HR and head office always breathing down your neck wanting you to preform better even when it's impossible to do so. Had to go off with COVID and had constant emails and text messages telling me to lie and come back to work due to the lack of management in their stores. 

During my short time at the CS Co-operative, I found myself in many unprofessional situations and found that some of the management act very inappropriately. Human Resources are incapable of picking up the phone no matter what day or time it was. If something didn't go their way, Society found a way of manipulating the situation so it wasn't their fault. They did not do any of the staff Appraisals properly either. The only good thing about the job was the pay, but even then that wasn't worth the treatment from management. Save yourself the worry.

Interview was relaxed but the person was late with no apology. Senior Management are very rude and only think about themselves for us in the stores we worked long hours and weekends for nothing. HR would not answer any emails or calls and would just push you to the side and hope you forgot about it. you have no life working for these people will get a call at a moments notice and expected to give them the world. horrible place would not wish it on my worst enemies. i can only think the good reviews are fake and trying not to get a bad star ammount.

My colleagues at Chelmsford Star have mostly been here for a long time. Working for a company that does so much good in communities can get in your blood, and it either works for you or it doesn't. Most colleagues either go within a year or stick it out for life! 
Most people are required to have a broad range of knowledge and may 'leap in' to assist elsewhere if circumstances require it. This may prove challenging to some, but if you like to kjeep things interesting it could work for you as it does for me.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Customer service representative 230 salaries reported	£12.68 per hour
General assistant 119 salaries reported	£12.21 per hour
Service assistant 31 salaries reported	£13.30 per hour
Shift leader 12 salaries reported	£13.77 per hour
Store manager 2 salaries reported	£42,137 per year

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