software engineer

assistant buyer

customer service representative

sales assistant

site reliability engineer

Dunelm

I was interviewed to work as a home consultant for their Dunelm at Home project visiting customers to sell Curtains and Blinds in peoples own homes.
My interview was conducted by a girl Dep Mgr from another store Shoreham and i was to work in Eastbourne..I had been in the blinds & Curtains industry for over 10 years with a god name and impeccable CV...she had very limited information on the job from the start and as i was to found out over a period of 3 months was in well over her head and only because of a bad Management structure she was not being found out with countless errors, i was informed should i get the job i would spend 1 week away from home in Leicester where i would receive training, i was told that i would need to share a room which in this day and age is unheard of (i should at this point of declined the job) i told the interviewer i had IBS and it would not be fair on myself or my room mate to share a bathroom and explained the nature of IBS...i was told "no sorry under no circumstances do we do single rooms"...I was offered the position on the understanding i would work 20 Hours a week in a part-time role which was what i wanted and told them this was fine as i had childcare responsibilities and would like the job as it fitted in well and i wasn't available more then 20 hours, i stated i wasn't really available weekends and was told "thats ok we can sort something out", i was then offered the rold a few days later after meeting with the branch manager who was already talking about sacking the the Home Consultant because she was being difficult(she wasn't she had been told the same as me ref weekends and late nights)...over the next few weeks i was informed i would be expected in Stoke not Leicester on a Sunday Evening! which didn't please me or my partner who had invited her family to visit that weekend, i duly worked my way around the issue and got to Stoke.
on our first day we were informed this training is for 5 weeks!!.."hld on i was told a week?"..you can imagine what the smokers area outside was like that day, everyone comparing notes and realising things seem to have no order and happen in an instant and you have to just grin and bare it..what then followed was 5 weeks of driving the whole country sleeping a Premier Inns that we only knew about 2 hours before we were due there and invariably were no where near where we needed to be the next day because they were booked the after we were due there so Premier did not have rooms near the Dunelm we were due to visit, we were due to claim a certain mileage back from Dunelm via a very confusing software package which we were not trained n till the 5th week when my group had all parted with between £500-£1,000 in fuel and were miffed to say the least, very often we had the wrong addresses for premier Inns and on more then one occasion turned up at the completely wrong blind manufacturer because the incompetent team leader had not checked and in all honesty was proficient enough in the job t think about checking, our wages were always wrong they paid us for 20 hours even though we were working 50 Hour weeks fr 5 weeks..we were sent out with rep who were already doing the job we were employed to do, that was fun as they slagged Dunelm off and told us a no point had they ever worked 20 hours a week they did 40 hours average and got paid for 20, the commission system was weighted in favour of dunelm on a number out of 10 the end user was asked to give at the end of dealing with us..anything below 7 you got nowt and 8/10 which the average human being picks you got about 30% of your stated commission..at the end of these days you would end up back at the Premier Inn thinking "I've been had here"..at one point i thought about doing a blog and the Daily Mail was interested in ding a piece on my exp with Dunelm...the job itself was a nightmare..as much as possible they had me in the store serving members of the public which wasn't part of my job and i was'nt comfortable with, using cutting machines with no training and no idea where anything was when asked not good with the public, I was accused of stealing £70 by a mad woman they sent me to see who wanted me to take her shopping and wait in Tesco's car park and then post some letters for her, I was bullied by a member of staff that i had been warned about by several people and when i stuck up for myself was told i had behaved badly and was on report..they think a discussion with a colleague is bad behaviour..their rules are stupid and lead to them employing people who have nowhere else to go, in general the store staff if they put as much effort into doing their jobs as they did avoiding the work they would be great. Avoid Dunelm the petty squabbling is not needed in your life and i doubt you want to do a Judith Chalmers style tour of the half the country(not the better half), it's Premier Inns and Dunelms..i could go on..but it's depressing me typing this..and i'm also thanking my lucky stars i'm gone and have retired early.

To begin with Your training will consist of some online quiz's and that is all. There are no real hands on training by anyone that is "trained to train" will provide you, it’s just bits and bobs of knowledge being passed down haphazardly by colleagues who may only be your superior by about 3 weeks. 

Management is a word I wouldn't use to describe what was going on, more people attempting to form a pale imitation of management to get a higher pay grade. To clock in you have to run around to find the clock in sheet to sign in, to which only a manager will possess, if the manager hasn't picked it up then you have to find where it was left wasting a lot of time. You won’t be given a till log in for a while after starting your job, making it impossible to serve customers without the use of someone else code (though this was just the case in the cafe, unsure of shop floor). the managements approach-ability for problems is very uninviting, the atmosphere created when most of the managers enters your work space is not a positive or reinforcing aura, it’s more of a, when will they moan about something obscene or about something that you are trying your best to do, but don't have the relevant training to do to "their standards". If you are new to the store you won’t be given any leniency, regardless of being trained or not, instead of a positive and supportive advice/discipline, it’s demeaning and negative. 

(This is a comment on the majority of management, not the minority, some are very pleasant and well deserving of the role but it’s a minority when it should be the majority.)

If you are working as a Barista then get ready to be thrown in the deep end with no hands on Food training, except a "this is the order, watch me do it, now your turn i got to serve customers" and just having to know food hygiene because they don't have enough staff to train or monitor it, except getting punished by management for not doing something you don' know how to do. Also, be prepared to be left alone after just a couple of shifts, due to the horrendously understaffed cafe, to which they cannot even provide reliable support from the shop floor because only management can support you and they can be "called away" at any time. You will be left alone to Either open or close the store almost immediately after being shown how to do it just once. As for how to make a coffee!? well you better hope the person you are working with had a good teacher/previous colleague show them how to do it or you are going to be making all the wrong coffee types (The only training on making coffee's you get is another online quiz that has no actual training material prior to it, it’s just multiple choice and you repeat until you get them right. it doesn't even tell you the difference between a latte, cappuccino and flat white. The quiz only tells you the amount of time you hold the nozzle high in the milk, which if you don't know how to make coffee, MEANS NOTHING TO YOU! On top of all of this, The Coffee shops inventory is ordered by a manager, not by a member of the coffee store, you know, the people who actually sell and know what they are missing in terms of inventory. This means there is a constant lack of products, poorly organised deliveries, and overstuffed fridges of products that aren't needed so frequently. Out of all of the issues the deliveries are very tolerable, annoying, but tolerable, it is just the icing on the "Poor organisation" cake.

Overall it is an absolute train wreck of a job to be in, I cannot say for any other point of the year or if they are going to get better or were better, but right now id defiantly say that the issue (management) isn't going to change for a while unless it is a radical change. 

I hope that this experience helps someone to make a more informed decision about if they warn to work here or not. Be prepared to work very hard for your hourly wage and to need to be very self-sufficient as a barista. I wouldn't advise this as a medium or long term job.

PROS

- Great (underappreciated!) non-management staff that made the days manageable. Clearly recruitment processes cannot be criticised.

- Fairly easy opportunities to work flexibly across the store as needed and gain a wealth of experience in various departments.

- So much is overlooked that it is possible to shine and identify good sales opportunities, and work well as an individual. Self-satisfaction with achievement.

- Good for the CV for Customer Service as this is the company's No. 1 principle when assisting customers.

- Many opportunities to work overtime (with no holiday of course) if desired.

CONS

Where do I start?

- Holiday withheld throughout the entire 3.5 years working there. Any holiday requested was a huge battle to get off, with managers having no time to work it out with you for weeks. Work/Life balance virtually impossible - Management expected staff to be in whenever they wanted. Told that holiday was linked to 'contracted hours' which were far less than we were expected to work (in my case, an 8 hour contract but working full time). Upon leaving I received almost £1,000 in back pay (after my final wage packet) for holiday I should have had.

- Part of the reason for this was totally unmanageable staff budgets from the top, where far more work was expected to be completed than budget allowed for. Hence management having to constantly withhold pay to fall within budget.

- Useless, lazy Asst. Managers. The Store Manager, thank goodness, was great but was constantly undermined by useless departmental managers who had no clue what would sell and constantly gave instructions out of line with her intuition (which was on the money). As such communication between management was broken.

- Abuse from Asst. Managers. This was so bad that one manager in particular made about 6 or 7 good staff leave/refuse to work with her and multiple complaints were sent to Head Office, none of which were acted upon.

- Pay forever just above minimum wage. No pay progression for loyalty.

- Fluctuating hours (vastly under-contracted) and therefore low security.

- Very few opportunities to progress. A few staff moved up into Team Leader roles during my time there but just as many did not have their efforts or potential recognised.

- Extremely long working hours around sale periods or stock takes, expected to work 13-15 hours/until the job was done. Zero gratitude for time given.

- Total lack of praise or gratitude. Extremely low morale across the store. The store's staff were excellent compared to my experience of other major store chains, but were constantly made to feel useless.

- Ridiculous policies from above on customer service and up-selling, which noticeably lost the store sales – for example, one major training instructed us to show customers asking for the cheapest of a particular product the most expensive option, which was obviously ridiculous. Training totally out of touch with what British customers want. Policy frequently had to be ignored to get anything done.

- Many colleagues (many in middle age) stated it was the worst place they had ever worked. I would second that.

I have worked for Dunelm for almost 10 years. The company over the last couple of years have become money obsessed. You don’t feel valued as a person you are purely just a number. The pay is very poor from each level with only over a £1 difference from Sales Assistant to Team Leader. As a Team Leader at Dunelm you are expected to do all the jobs of what you would expect an assistant manager to do. You have targets and responsibilities put on your shoulders and the stress levels are crazy. The workload is unachievable pretty much, most of the time. A day to day of a team leader is opening and setting the shop up, being left on your own sometimes for hours at a time, with no senior management. So you’re practically running the store for over a £1 more than any other colleague. You run multiple departments with pretty much no support or a team to speak of, as most staff are customer hosts, work on a till or are a delivery member. Every week there is something else that has a deadline that is pretty much unachievable. The store manager and the deputy managers pretty much have no people skills and don’t deal with problems straight on, they fester and become bigger deals. No support for staff suffering from work related stress, your told to get on with it. Working hours are unsociable most of the time, working until 9pm most nights and at Christmas expect to not see your family. Holidays are hard to get approved and are dined pretty much all of the time. Massive amounts of staff turnaround so don’t expect there to be anyone trained enough to do the job, no proper on the job training you just have to do it. The staff that are long term staff take on the job of 4 or 5 people because the staff are not trained enough to do the job to a good enough standard. Management is a massive problem, Team Leaders pretty much have to do all the Duty Managing and smoothing over colleague issues because the store and deputy don’t do it. Poor communication. The people you work with will get you though it, best part of the job. Other than that the place is toxic for the guilt your are made to feel when you can’t work extra. They change the rota daily so you don’t know if your coming or going. Expectation vs reality what is that? Sometimes they expect you to work especially if you are a Team Leader over your time for free. They just say that’s the expectation. The company say they offer a work life balance but you are required to work weekends late nights sometimes until 12am 5 days a week especially at Christmas. Not enough balance in shifts and some staff are given shifts that you stated you can’t work in availability. Your told to just deal with it.   

Manager hides from Public and is rarely seen by anyone but a handful of managers or close friends. 

Duty managers aren't well trained and have very poor communication skills. Team leaders no longer exist but you'll find yourself being told what to do by an ex-team leader as if they are in charge. 

Some till workers don't really care about the job and they'll tell you that when there aren't customers. You'll see them on their phones texting when no managers are around. But in the off chance a manager does see, its not like they really care. 

Managers have long meeting in the coffee shop talking about non-related work stuff. Calling it a 'meeting' doesn't justify anything. 

If you are new you will be treated differently until you join one of the gossip groups. If you rub someone the wrong way you'll be spoken about behind your back. Lots of drama with these folks. 

Scheduling is a mess. Although they post the schedule weeks in advance they will move you around randomly and won't bother to tell you to check the new changes to the newer schedule that they printed up. If you want a solid schedule, you'll need to CONSTANTLY remind the manager that you cannot work certain days. 

If you manage to get a till job then you'll most likely quit due to several things. Training seems simply but you soon find you will need approval for several things, this requires a manager around but they are not. There are no chairs at the tills and will find yourself standing there for 6-8 hours. Breaks start from the moment you leave the till station so that 3 minute walk upstairs and back equals 6 minutes of time used on your own break. Yes you will be timed. However some staff members are allowed several cigarette breaks throughout the day which exceed the break time given. 

If a manager likes you, you'll most likely get away with a lot. 

The return policy is a joke. 

Store theft happens a lot and it sometimes feels as if you are responsible. There are no staff watching the door most days so shop lifters walk in and out. There are no means of 'security' making the whole place feel unsettling knowing past shop lifters are still allowed inside the store even if they had been previously caught stealing. 

Unclean toilets both public and staff room. The toilets are cleaned once a day early in the morning and that's it. Disgusting.

My first ever job was at Dunelm in the customer service centre. I was extremely thankful for the opportunity since I had no previous work experience. However, after starting, I quickly realised why they offered me the job - turn over was massive! Losing staff quicker than they can hire them. They’re not bothered about who you are or what you do, you’re just a number at the end of the day. 
My mental health started to rapidly deteriorate. Considering I hadn’t had full training, I was expected to take phone calls I had no idea about and had no clue on how to solve the customers issues. I relied on the kind folks sat next to me to help me out on the call. Sometimes you’d get extremely verbally abusive customers (that’s a given I suppose) but management wouldn’t help you out with them. There were a few occasions where I physically couldn’t do anymore for the customer and my team manager refused to take the call because they couldn’t be arsed. They’d tell me to tell the customer they’d call them back but never would. Everything was resolved using gift vouchers, I’m not sure how the company is still making money. 
Everything was monitored... even how long it takes you to have a wee. If you take too long, you had someone on your back asking why. It was just too much. Rightfully so, my anxiety got out of control. I was having frequent panic attacks at work and was having to go to the bathroom multiple times throughout the day due to this. Except the managers didn’t care, all they were arsed about was why you’d only taken 40 calls that day instead of 50, and how if I cut my toilet breaks down, I could be taking more calls. In the end I had to leave, my mental health took a massive blow which resulted in me being very depressed. To this day, I get anxious just thinking about this job. 
I think it takes a strong willed person to work here. I always thought I was strong willed but obviously I couldn’t hack this one so obviously not.  I think more support needs to be provided from managers. The only support I received was from fellow colleagues who were always super nice and were the only reason I managed to make it through each shift. 
It is a job at the end of the day, however, it comes at a price of its own. For me, it was my mental health. 

There were a handful of colleagues there who were really lovely and I was genuinely pleased to see each day. However management wasn't great as the hours were all over the place and at very random times in the day, this made it hard to plan things and there was no consistency. I also wasn't told one week that all our hours had been cut, I thought I finished at 3 one day but then was told I was leaving at 1. I also often felt talked down to by the supervisors, you're not really treated like an individual, more like their little work horse. As well as this some of the other colleagues including supervisors could be quite patronising and talked to me as if I was a child or as if I didn't understand very basic things. There was one supervisor in particular who I felt could be very blunt and rude, as a new person at this job it just really put me off and I'm sure put some other people off too. In the short time I was there I saw six people leave, two of them started at the same time as me. Also, in the job description it mentions nothing about the fact that the Hosts have to stand on the door, however I was told in the interview. This being said when they're short staffed you're expected to stand on the door for three sometimes four hours at a time, I didn't sign up to be paid to do nothing but stand for hours. You also get comments from customers about how horrible it must be to just stand there for hours. Also Hosts who have been asked to stand on the door in the evenings have been threatened on multiple occasions, they're not paid to be security guards. Dunelm should either make the door shifts shorter or just do away with the door role altogether, it was a pretty unanimous agreement between the hosts that no one liked being on the door and that it's the worst part of the job. As well as this, probation is six months and they don't tolerate any sickness in that time which I think is completely unrealistic.

The managers in this store have the worst management style I have ever seen.  If you enjoy being manipulated into working extra time, changing shifts at the last minute and working the job of 6 people for 1 wage then this is the job for you! I have been sworn at and had my mistakes (lack of training) called out by the store management  on multiple occasions both to my face and over headsets for everyone to hear, as well as hearing other colleagues receive the same treatment over headsets. The store has only been open since December and there has been a turnover of over 30+ staff which doesn’t seem to be questioned. You will be scrutinised for your work but given no guidance on how to improve it. Dunelm’s charity partner is the mind mental health charity however If you tell them that you’re struggling with mental health you will not be asked if you are okay, you will not be asked how you can be supported, you will not be adapted for in any way, instead you are now a burden to them and will be managed out the door accordingly. You will be rostered in for midnight finishes during promo changes etc for the clock to strike midnight and be told you can’t leave.  On one occasion I was there until almost 2am (unpaid from 12) and was due to start again at 7am. I was not allowed to leave. Shift  patterns are not rotated so if your allocated shift is a Saturday late shift, you will work every single Saturday night with no option to swap or rotate with other colleagues. Colleagues can nominate each other for colleague or the month, but if you have the most votes on the board don’t think that you’ve won, management will fiddle around with the votes to make the winner a colleague of their choice. If you work in the cafe you will constantly be understaffed, you’ll have a queue of angry customers because of how long they’ve waited and management will respond to this by telling you to work faster rather than helping. If you confide in management with any health issues etc, this information will be shared with team leaders and passed on to colleagues who will come to you and ask you about it. 

Pros:
Share Save - Easy way of investing in Dunelm
Salary Advance/Finance - Early Paychecks
Buy Holidays 
Discounts on Home-Comforts (I've never had the chance to use them)

Cons:
Very stressful, you have a large number of tasks each hour + hourly reports that are needed to be ran.
You also must sort your picker issues out too. (Around 10 people with constant equipment issues, reporting empty locations)
You are encouraged to come in early to start your shift out, so you have an easier shift (Which is Unpaid)
Most of the time you’re staying over finishing your work (Which is Unpaid)
If there is no admin to handover to you, you must stay over until they find a replacement (Which is sometimes paid depending your manager)
You’re on the same wage as picker with not nearly as much time sensitive responsibility as you!


Overall:
You are told you get "opportunities", but I have been stuck in this job after multiple job interviews. With other colleagues with 'more experience' getting the job before me. I'm well educated in Software Engineering and ICT, yet I am still in a beginner computing position (Currently a step-up manager & still don't get junior manager positions over people who have 0 experience managing people)

I consider myself a quick & competent computer user and even I struggle working this job without layers of stress being piled on to not fail. I was part of the WEB team when the lockdowns hit, and the Website was the only source of income, and we were pushed to brink of stress. Being told that we saved the company but all we were given was £300 bonus and a chocolate bar... 

Unless they raise the pay (Which is what the managers have been attempting to do since way before I started this job) this job is not worth it! Just work as a picker; you’re on the same money and not nearly as much stress and responsibilities are piled on you. Avoid this job like the plague cause I've been stuck in this job for 2 years now with none of the progression they promised me; just a sour taste of my waste of time remains while I try to find another job elsewhere. 

There were a handful of colleagues there who were really lovely and I was genuinely pleased to see each day. However management wasn't great as the hours were all over the place and at very random times in the day, this made it hard to plan things and there was no consistency. I also wasn't told one week that all our hours had been cut, I thought I finished at 3 one day but then was told I was leaving at 1. I also often felt talked down to by the supervisors, you're not really treated like an individual, more like their little work horse. As well as this some of the other colleagues including supervisors could be quite patronising and talked to me as if I was a child or as if I didn't understand very basic things. There was one supervisor in particular who I felt could be very blunt and rude, as a new person at this job it just really put me off and I'm sure put some other people off too. In the short time I was there I saw six people leave, two of them started at the same time as me. Also, in the job description it mentions nothing about the fact that the Hosts have to stand on the door, however I was later told in the interview. This being said when they're short staffed you're expected to stand on the door for three sometimes four hours at a time, I didn't sign up to be paid to do nothing but stand for hours. You also get comments from customers about how horrible it must be to just stand there for hours. Also Hosts who have been asked to stand on the door in the evenings have been threatened on multiple occasions, they're not paid to be security guards. Dunelm should either make the door shifts shorter or just do away with the door role altogether, it was a pretty unanimous agreement between the hosts that no one liked being on the door and that it's the worst part of the job. As well as this, probation is six months and they don't tolerate any sickness in that time which I think is completely unrealistic.

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