assistant manager

shift manager

crew member

general manager

manager

Five Guys

I worked at five guys for just over a year back in 2015 and my god I wouldn’t go back if someone paid me all the money in the world. There were 3 different lots of managers in the time I was there, none which cared about their employees. I had some sort of reaction on my hand to the chemicals they use for washing up and it left my hand red raw, sore, bleeding.. and they still kept making me wash up until I refused. They were bothered if your shift is supposed to end at 1am and you have to rely on being picked up.. my mum had to wait in the city centre for over an hour for me on more than one occasion because the work wasn’t done and no one was allowed to leave. They clock you out before your actually done so you end up working for however long and don’t get paid for it. They also didn’t care that because I had to rely on someone t pick me up at stupid hours.. I couldn’t do those hours more than twice a week. The staff they brought in for training are useless.. one of them was very touchy feely with the girls and asked multiple ones to go back to his hotel room with him.. this same person decided to pinch my arm as hard as he could because I wasn’t reacting to his idiotic behaviour.. I was bruised for about 2 weeks and all that happened with him after was a little chat. When it first opened it was busy but after that it was pretty pointless being open. I’d be on my way.. after paying for a bus.. only to find my shift time had been swapped, or completely taken away. I even got there once and ended up being sent home SEVEN minutes after I clocked in because they had too many staff in. Also when it first opened I had lots of people to talk too.. the last few months I was there I was the only English one, all the others were foreign and family so just spoke between themselves. There is more but I’d go on for ages.
Only good thing was free food.. but even then you end up putting on a ton of weight

Overall it is a great place, although the job itself is very demanding, even more so as a male because you get to do more physical work that requires lifting etc., the salary is very good especially considering that everyone is paid the same entry salary no matter the age. Moreover, a lot of possibilities to move forward and develop, from Crew Member to QC, then Shift Manager and so on... They do however lack employees and more then often you would be called to come to work (on your time off) and your day-plan is ruined. Same goes for rota that is getting ready and posted on Saturday and start on Monday, you cannot plan anything. Another issue, secret shoppers - incentive that is very dependent on team performance and there are weeks when you get only the basic salary because someone else keeps messing up. Nonetheless, very flexible hours, GREAT team, the best I have ever worked with, management that is very understanding and helpful. I would 100% recommend the job for a student but be aware, this job can get extremely physical, arguably much more then compared to other fast-food (casual-food) chains. All in all, no matter the job, with a good team literally everything is doable and even if the job itself is hard, with good people a work-day goes smoothly and that's what you will find in Five Guys, they do pay a lot of attention to being a right person for the team.

At five guys you are not usually stuck with the same task so it doesn't get boring due to the repetitiveness of the job. However, management does seem to favour particular people at certain things and at times this means you don't get the opportunity to do other tasks and often find yourself doing a certain task repetitively. There are a lot of staff and thus a lot of time to interact and enjoy the company of new people. This has helped only further improve my teamwork. But, this often lead to people becoming distracted as they deemed it more important to focus on themselves and their colleague rather than their job. The job pays well and their is a great opportunity to increase your wage. Although to do this you need the opportunity to test your skills on the other stations and if management doesn't give you that, which on a lot of occasions they didn't, then this opportunity means absolutely nothing for you. The job hours can also be rather tiresome as it is open till late hours and the close down procedure takes a while. You also do not get paid after a certain time, so you could work a lot more hours than is necessary but get nothing for it. Another issue is the rota. One night you could be doing an evening shift and not get home until 2 in the morning and then be expected to be in work at 6.

Five Guys is a really good place to develop and enhance your skills. You continuously learn to work on multiple stations and multitasking. 
On your typical day at work you basically have to provide excellent customer service and cook food up to Five Guys standards. Apart from that you have to keep the restaurant clean and well maintained. 

The culture in the workplace is very nice. We try to be like one big family and we support each other in difficult times.

Five Guys gives you a great opportunity to grow. You can get promoted from a crew member to a manager if you show loyalty, passion for work and care about your colleagues and customers. 
As a manager you have to run busy shifts, delegate small and large groups of people, maintain the store cleanliness, deal with customer's feedback, work in the kitchen,  be responsible for cash handling and be responsible for the stock rotation/taking. You also have to be accountable for you crew progress and provide them essential training for their development. 

For me the most difficult is to work long hours or stay up late. The working hours can be very exhausting. 

The most enjoyable part is that it is a very fun workplace that provides you constant training.

I started on part time only working weekends. It was fun at first, extremely fast paced on busy days (pre-pandemic) there’s different job roles you can be trained on, however it’s hard to be trained when on part-time cause it seems like no one in particular cares about you if you’re part time. Barely anyone would say hello to me even though i made such an effort to get to know everyone.

 Management was so poor, no one ever got back to any of my emails. I was only comfortable around two of the managers (there are about 8 managers and supervisors). The other managers would barely acknowledge you unless it was to tell you to sweep the floor, go on lunch or leave. If you were part of the clique that managers spoke to i’m sure it was a great time for you. 

Shifts were long, about 9 or 10 hours. It was hard to stay motivated when managers would only speak to a select few employees, but they were mostly the supervisors. When i handed my notice in, had about 2 employees say goodbye to me, the managers did not care one bit. Disheartening as I worked there part time for over half a year. 



Honestly this is quite sad. When going through the hiring process it was advertised amazingly and they said all the right things; which isn't a surprise. It's what any company does. Yet they said it would be like working alongside family and I was even hired BECAUSE I was a student starting at the local university. Yet when I signed a 24 hour contract they put me to do 52 hours, then the next week I was down for 34, the next week was the same- yet when I argued that I couldn't do it and that my contract is specifically a 24 hour contract they had a go at me and were very spiteful with the way they handled it. I'm one out of many that have left the Worcester branch for this reason. They hold no sincere regard for your contract and they most definitely breach legal working times as they've made people who work 12 hours at night and finish at approx. 2am to come in again at 7am? Outrageous. They also haven't kept their word on pay. I never received a pay-check despite following it up countless times.

Honestly, the way they prepare food? Fantastic. The work is high stress and that's whats to be expected. But they deal with staff and their lives? Disgusting organisation.

I like working at Five Guys as I'm a student and work twice a week. It's usually quite busy but does depend on the time of the day and day in the week. You have to be doing something pretty much all the time, i.e cleaning something, restocking drinks, and you get a paid 30-minute break with free food. The managers are very nice and there's some leniency for not being able to work a shift but you must find cover for it. The culture is quite relaxed, fun, and collaborative but everyone knows when it's busy you must be efficient and productive and put your head down; no time to mess about. There's a lot of room for progression in terms of hierarchy and moving up the ladder. As well as that, there are easy weekly opportunities for everyone to earn bonuses via secret shoppers that come in roughly twice a week to see if Five Guys are keeping up to their high standards. The only cons I would put are standing on your feet for the majority of the shift (except when on break) and it's quite hard to do on-the-job training when very busy, and no staff discounts outside of work. Also, depending on which store, close shifts require a lot of cleaning.

The job overall was fairly simple in most areas. If anything the job made you do exercise because you were always working and rarely had nothing to do. If you did, then you would have to find something to do. The shop was always busy. 
You get free meals during your shifts and get a bonus for every time you do well when the mystery shopper comes by. 
The manager is awesome, and  although at first he looks scary, he isn't at all.
It is a good place to work at if you need money since it pays well, and it makes you feel part of the Five Guys team. During festivities such as christmas or halloween they give you gifts and they have a secret santa. 
It is pretty awesome.

Uniform-wise, it''s pretty simple, you don't pay for anything except the shoes. 
During the meetings they do fun things such as quizzes where you can get prizes.
If you do a good job, you get treated well.

If there is anything that's wrong with the job it would be the unsocial hours you have to work at night and the varying shifts which they don't let you know of in advance, but one day before... And also the fact that you can gain weight if you over eat, but otherwise its a fun job to do, if that's what suits you.

The best thing about working in this place is the staff, they're just genuine nice people.  Most of the Crew, Team Leaders and Managers are a delight to be around as both friends and to raise concerns to which makes the long hours feel less dull.  When it comes to the shifts, there's a certain lack of social life that comes with working here even outside of busy periods; especially as Crew Members are often left to do several closing shifts a week with little shift variety for weeks on end and can often find themselves being asked to do extra hours. Those shifts also become tedious as there seems to be no current opportunities to cycle through stations and improve skills that they may not be fully confident in which makes motivation go a bit stale. For what we get paid, I think too much is expected of us more often than not, but this place has definitely come a long way forward since when I started and has solid staff I know I can depend on each shift, so I hope it continues to push forward to give more enrichment to the staff as it's so easy to get burnt out doing the same hours and station on loop.

In all honest, it was a very tiresome job mentally and physically. Typically, you clock in and you're placed where ever you're needed. It is a very intense job depending on the hours. I personally worked with a great team but my pov may differ from others.  I've learned a lot throughout my three years at five guys, especially in terms of my teamwork, interpersonal and time management skills. Upper management was quite poor, expecting sales targets that are unrealistic, especially with the current living crisis what can you expect? The hardest part of the role was getting shifts/hours. I informed upper management that I would like to change my contract to full-time and nothing was done except a period of 3-4 months of being in a "full-time" role which later switched back to minimum. Easily manipulated due to the fact that my contract was never changed to full time and they took advantage of that when it suited the company's low sales. In all honesty the best part of the role was the free meals and paid breaks. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Assistant manager 10 salaries reported	£31,140 per year
Shift manager 6 salaries reported	£29,673 per year
Crew member 4 salaries reported	£13.00 per hour
General manager 7 salaries reported	£38,143 per year
Manager 4 salaries reported	£34,083 per year

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