beauty advisor

pharmacist

client advisor

optometrist

customer service representative

Boots UK

Where do I begin...

I worked for Boots for almost 6 Years, and every year since I joined that specific branch, it has declined, worse and worse each year.
I'll go over some points from previous years, but will try to stick to how it was as I left, as this is what you should expect if you join now.

Management -

Over the years there has been some friendly and helpful managers, unfortunately most of which have moved on. Since I started in this specific branch it has gone through 4 Store managers, most of which seem to not care about their staff, just the numbers. 
Most of the management team (Besides a few) Would rarely show their faces on the shop floor. Busy tills? Good luck getting help from one of them. Got an issue management can help you with? Think again, it's your problem now. Oh the lift has broken again and maintenance need calling? Well you're on your own, but you can call them, serve, do other things and take customers up and down in the staff lift all by yourself. The amount of times it was overwhelmingly busy on my department, and often they would just walk past on their phone, or in a rush with no eye contact. Yet the second you're done serving, don't take a breath or you'll be told off for not doing any work! 

Management never communicated well with each other, things would get crossed over, confused, lost. Rotas were often planned badly, with say one person on the entire upstairs department, Baby, Photo lab, stock, etc. Yet there would be 4-5 people just on the main tills and they'd be stood with nothing to do. Don't even ask about the beauty department... 
Where is everyone? Oh they're stood chatting in a tight nit group whilst you bust your butt on your own. 
You can ask for help but you'll just be made to feel like a criminal for asking. Even if someone passed by and jumped on, they, and you will be made to feel like trash for even thinking about helping customers! 

There would be times where I would dread going in, Christmas time, colleagues on holiday, or just most days to be honest. I'm not an overly emotional person, but there were times I broke down from pure stress. Or I'd be pulled into a meeting to see what's going wrong, I would explain about stress and angst and, as some managers are genuinely caring, they would be concerned, but it didn't lead to much, in fact sometimes you could try to get across how hard it is and they'd brush it off. Nothing changed, nothing ever will. 

I could go on but you get the idea.

Working Environment -

I know from all the staff at boots over the years, no department is easy, and sure why would it be "easy" You need a challenge it's work not play, but what you don't want is to feel the need to rip your hair out day in, day out.
Upstairs, main tills, shop floor and Pharmacy were all poorly run, and not by the staff themselves, we all did the best job we could possibly do with the resources/knowledge we had. The main focus was always on Pharmacy, understandably; but even that was going downhill. Because of that all other departments were thrown to the curb. My department specifically was often ignored, it was run by me and a few others, and because it was so daunting, nobody wanted to go near that place, yet they'd happily tell us how to do our jobs if we didn't look like we were sweating enough. 

Every single day was hard, on my own or with people, some days were too much regardless. The photo lab was a FULL time job in itself, let alone dealing with customers, kiosks, maintenance men, the loading bay, stock control, phone calls, angry customers who management would let you deal with, and more. Customers would often comment on the lack of staff, some would moan, some would feel bad for me and get angry at management, but it all came back onto me and my colleagues either way. 

Training was... Oh wait what training.
It's a good job the staff members before me taught me what to do in general. But I practically had to figure everything else out myself. I taught a few members who worked closely with me, but management would think it was a one day job, as i'd get moaned at for not training a random member up who hadn't even read the safety rules yet. Maybe if they arranged a time to train people like I had mentioned many times, this wouldn't be an issue. But it is, and now with me leaving, being the only one to train people, well, good luck...

The air-con often didn't work, other things broke all the time, and these were things customers would constantly complain about, and again it would always come back at us. Your baby is too hot, crying and you had to be dragged up in the staff lift? Oh sorry head office won't allow us to change the temperature... Apparently. 
Things break, things get old, sure, but if they're this often, you'd think something would have been done by now.

The staff morale is always low, they/we would often be penalized. One member of staff could do something wrong and get praise, and you do something right and get a grilling. You could be walking around looking for a customer and oh what's that? You're being sneered at for 'not working' 

I hope you like your views and beliefs being mocked too. 
Your family member died? Sorry take it as holiday.
Don't get sick either, doesn't matter that you interact closely with people who have colds often, seeing as it's a pharmaceutical company, you'll still be made to feel like a criminal.

Customers hate you, doesn't matter if they're beyond wrong, they could bring in a product from two years ago to refund, and if they moan enough, the management will demand YOU do it for them.
Then you do one small thing using your own initiative, that is genuinely helpful, and you get pulled aside and interrogated.

Everyday consumables you need don't get ordered because nobody knows who's done what so it would often get left and forgotten. A week later you have no materials to use, and have to makeshift things for customers. I mean seriously, we had to use bin bags at one point. What a disgrace. 

If "head office" were to visit, a huge facade would be put on, and as a result nothing would actually change for the better.

Again I could go on for hours.
 

Pay/Benefits -

The pay was good, 4 years ago. The rewards and benefits were good, a few years ago also. 
They removed the Bonus scheme and rewards for attendance etc when Walgreens took over. Who knew more money in a business meant cutbacks ey? The staff also dropped off like flies after that.
 
You could get praised by customers all day, me and my team often did, but if it's not on the official survey, which would pop out at RANDOM; then you'd get a slap on the wrist for not having any good feedback! 
This would then alter your performance review, with other meaningless things, and as a result, you'd get bashed for not performing well, and not get any pay rise either, which is never good anyway. 

Summary -

There were the odd things I loved about working at Boots, friendly staff that were like a family (for the most part) The odd event that used to be fun. Some customers appreciated you so much it would make your day, as a department we had a lot of loyal loving customers that relied on us and gave us gifts. I'm just incredibly glad I had my close team who I can say were amazing support and friends for me and each other for years. 

However, Boots as a company may be alright to work for, they do have good internal role advancement, and pay isn't terrible. But this particular branch is just a disappointment. It will only go down hill if something doesn't change.
Management needs a serious looking over.
This will help with morale, with staff issues, with how things are put into place.
Other departments ARE important. Don't push them aside before it's too late.
Don't let your staff become a husk of themselves because of the working environment, if they're doing a bad job, talk to them don't snap at them. If they're doing a good job, give them praise, it really does make you work harder when you're appreciated.

This is my personal experience. Yours may be different. I've tried to stay true and fair to how MY experience was at THIS store. Most of this information I have given is all info customers can see the result of. 

I will be surprised if Boots as a physical shop, other than the Pharmacy, last much longer.

I applied for a Christmas temp position which was listed as 25 hours monday to friday, interview was very thorough and fair and gave the chance to prove yourself very much and show your best abilities. On my induction day however i was introduced to staff as 'the sunday temp' i was confused by this throughout the day and wondered if i had other hours, i got told my hours were sunday (5.5 hours) and asked if these were the only hours as i had applied for 25 and was told they were for now,i did get to work late night thursday evening shifts but still did not get offered the hours advertised for weeks and weeks after starting, i do feel this shouldve been explained on the post or at interview as it is misleading and unfair. I also had to ask several managers several times for more hours as they kept advertising and hiring more and more part time staff even though i kept asking for more hours and getting ignored (cheaper for the company to hire part timers) i feel the discount at this company was ok, i was very grateful to recieve any discount as a temp and it was handy on sale purchases and expensive perfume etc! Another issue i have with Boots is that as the staff are seperated into 'tills' and 'putting stock out' and a lot of the staff have been there a long time it was very cliquey and i felt out of place if i had to cover on tills as other till staff clearly didnt want me there and were that stuck in their habits that they even had their own till they liked and would be offended if you used that till and would wait for you to swap tills much to xmas temps amusement! (No i am not joking) i did get offered a shift at another store which was good and i did like this store and shift a lot and if i had worked for them i would have a different view of Boots probably. The work could be very tedious if you were on stock rather than tills as opening boxes all day is very unvaried. A positive is breaks were good and the rest of the xmas temps were lovely and i very much enjoyed them being my colleagues. I do think they are very creative with the hours and opportunity of permanant jobs as we were encouraged a lot about permanant jobs just before the mega busy xmas eve&boxing day sale but it was just something to try get us eager to work more, i was told a few weeks before xmas by my team manager that they would get me trained up on photo so there could be a job for me if i was interested i said id love to learn something new etc and she even talked about it to the photo team however a while later i had not heard anything more said about it and just before xmas i asked if the opportunity was still there she said it deffo was they just needed to find the right time to train me, later that day she came back to me again with a different story and said she didnt think she could do that anymore as they would need me for boxing day (:s) and they couldnt train me in time for that, the last week vacancies were posted which were all part time to apply we had to write a letter stating why they should keep us a few days later we hadnt heard anything but several staff got kept on an extra week as the managers 'didnt know what they were doing yet' i assumed this was the case with me but wasnt sure and i showed for my shift to be told 2 hours before the end of my shift that i wasnt being kept on and it was my last day, v.disappointed! I know it was temp but i was basically told i was getting a permanant position then that i couldnt, if she hadnt of claimed i was i wouldnt have minded as much. Not much regard for staff welfare and i felt very looked down on, i can understand it as a young woman only in my 3rd job etc but my 50 and 30 year old colleagues were also treat this way, not a friendly place to work at all unfortunately and i think the managers are very misleading with the hours they claim you can get and the chances for promotion and different roles but its good breaks/pay and if it was a smaller store such as brighouse or different staff id recommend! The hardest part- long day and if store was quiet then you arejust pulling stock on a shelf forward which is very very boring, the best part- tills- goes quick and get to be more hands on with customers, weekend shifts- go quick and store is busy and enjoyable.

45 years of work Boots were far and away the worst company to work for. I worked In a Greater Manchester branch and right from the start, it was clear it was going to be a challenge. The store I worked at did not even have a pharmacy attached, so that made for interesting times when there were the inevitable issues.

As with all employers, Boots had their slogans which as ever amounted to empty promises to remain unfulfilled. What was clear, the 2 incompetents running the operation could not schedule their way out of a paper bag. Boots promised you would always have 4 weeks of rota shifts in advance. This was a downright lie, it was usually 72 hours or less. The manager was useless. Always leaving scheduling to the end of the week. On occasion I had to resort to ringing her the day before to find out what shifts I was on. One time I challenged her politely but firmly on rota schedule, her response was, I should go and look for a job elsewhere. I still have that in writing on an email! Fortunately she left after 6 months, she claims voluntarily but I detect, due to the speed and nature of her demise, it was jump or be pushed.

We had a brief period where a manager from another branch took over and covered both sites. She was the complete opposite, knew what she was doing and steadied the operation at the same time reigning in the complete and utter balloon that had stepped into the breach as team leader. However as already mentioned, Boots seem to specialise in incompetence. The good manager left, as you would under the circumstances she had been placed. An extra unit to run, more staff, more stores, more responsibility, etc. More money? Ha ha ha. 

So as the second manager left, the aforementioned seriously deficient team leader was left to ‘run’ the operation. Suffice to say, he carved up the routes for himself and his mates while the rest were dumped upon. It got even worse as time passed. 

Whilst the work was never too hard, when dealing with care home deliveries, on occasion the workload could be heavy in respect of delivering a large quantity of monthly medication in large tote trays. It was made much harder than it needed to be though as Boots simply refused to provide anything like the right equipment to transport said tote trays. Thus every time you made such a delivery you risked injury. What made matters even worse though was where I worked, there were a number of co-drivers that had various ailments, bad back, the usual lifting and carrying issues so they were excused care home work. Not too hard to figure out what happened. The team leading balloon manipulated the routes, so the “lame/frail” had easy 2 hour routes, while the couple of guys that were still in good health, me and 1 other, got dumped on every single shift with full loads and maximum hours. To compound the issue the team leader even admitted the practice.

In time we ended up with yet another manager, he seemed to have a bit more about him. He acknowledged the problem over workload issues but said his hands were tied somewhat as he needed occupational health support to resolve the issues as the workload modifications had not been handled correctly.

During my time at Boots the job did get steadily worse, which was a shame. I worked mainly two stores in Wythenshawe and they were  a great bunch of people. Working regular routes you also got to know your customers and built a relationship. That was lost on Boots though, they used the mealy mouth words to try to demonstrate they cared but believe me they did not. Profit was everything. Over the 2 and a bit years I was there, the public  pharmacy delivery service was scaled back massively. Indeed just before I left they introduced a charge for said deliveries.

The final nail in the coffin was when they tried to introduce working at other units. You have to remember that this is a company that pays just over minimum wage. The latest proposal was to make drivers work at other sites at their own expense. So for example, I lived 15 minutes from work and had a free parking space. Boots thought it acceptable to pay me £5.50 per hour after tax, then expect me to be sent to another site, trebling my travel time and paying for a full shifts car  parking at my own expense.

I retired.

I worked in the call centre. Alarm bells began to ring on day one when I was told that the days I had been told at interview were in fact incorrect and that we work 2/3 Saturdays a month and one Sunday (I had been told 1 Saturday a month and no Sundays.)
I was then refused one day off during training for something my partner and I had booked previously but had forgot to mention in the interview. This cost us around £200. Other people were allowed days off and were simply held back in training for an extra week, I was told this wouldn't be possible for me and that if I attempted to take the day off, I'd be fired.
I was ill during training (for 1 day) and was pulled aside the day I returned and was told you can only be ill 3 times before disciplinery action would be taken and I was threatened with being fired again. 

The training itself was too fast and many of us left the classroom feeling like we didn't understand things properly. We were put on the phones on day 4 which was too much for some who had never worked in a call centre before. One girl actually left that day.
The manager of the call centre made a speech before we went on the phones and talked about how we were more than just call centre agents as sometimes you will speak to people who are having hard times and proceeded to give an example of a victim from Grenfell Tower calling. We of course are not trained for speaking to people in this manner as it is a call centre job, not a therapy position. 

People who were supposed to help us were often sloppy, ignored us and were rude if we didn't understand which is awful to a newbie and really crushes confidence and makes you feel like people aren't willing to help despite it being their job.
Many people in the call centre had not been working there long, most people I spoke to had been there around 4 months or so which is quite worrying as high turn over rates generally aren't good. A few people had been offered promotions etc when they had only been there for 3/4 months which was sold to us as being progression however, I soon realised the reason people were being offered these roles is because there's no one else there to take them. 

Something that I hated was the fact that it's a hotdesking environment which in my opinion spreads germs (especially as the desks and computers do not get cleaned). I became ill within a week of working there. The computers also can take a long time to start up so you ideally need to be at your computer at least half an hour before you're due to start because of this otherwise you can get marked as late. 

You get two 15 minute breaks and lunch is half an hour. The call centre building does not have a canteen so prepare your lunch beforehand otherwise you will not have time to go and buy lunch, eat it and do whatever else you want to do in that time. 

The calls themselves are OK. Mainly people upset over their parcel not arriving, wanting returns or refunds so if you've worked in a call centre before then it's not that bad if you're used to objection handling. People are very quick to say that there's nothing you can do for a customer which seems counter productive and made me question what the point of the job was if we weren't able to do many things for them. This was frustrating as you spend the majority of calls just apologising to customers because you can't help them. 

Overall, 5 of us left from my training group within the first month of starting the job. 
Management is poor and often managers and supervisors can be found standing around chatting. Many things are either exaggerated or not mentioned until it's too late. People are quick to brush off any questions you have and some are reluctant to help you at all. Breaks are too short in comparison to other call centres and the pay is lower than other call centers with similar hours. The computer systems are ancient, convoluted and computers need updating. 
Almost every person I spoke to who was not involved in training hated their job and expressed wanting to leave. 

I'd think hard before taking this job if offered to you and look for alternatives where possible.

I have never had such a bad experience as this one, I didn’t even last the week, I have been employed for several years and was extremely excited to be doing something in my field. 
Firstly the interview was virtual, which I was fine with. The interview itself was a lot more complicated that need me compared to the actual job in itself. While the pay is higher than most, it wasn’t worth it to me. 

I had never been invited to come for a look around after I had my job offer, you are made to do a great amount of online tests once receiving the job offer and this is all online and expected to be done before your first day.  However there is such a great amount that also do not have anything to do with your job role at all, I had completed a fair few and expected that if I needed help I would be able to talk to my manager or trainer to help. I was made to sit in freezing cold room for 4+ hours finishing the tests. I asked for help which the manager flat out refused to help me with and over 45 minutes later sent the trainer in. 

I was then thrown onto the shop floor, without any sort of training, the person allocated to train me did not train me at all. Even though I am capable working with little instruction I expected formally fitted allocated training hours to be able to learn what is required of a BBS. I wasn’t told where to get products from, I wasn’t shown around the counters. I walked to the stands and from there I was on my own and instead of the experienced staff dealing with customers so I could learn, they would ask me to do client after client, yet I hardly knew where anything was. I sold many products but they were always out of stock, again I was not told by any staff members or my trainer, I received no help whatsoever. 

The manager who hired me seemed nice and helpful however didn’t work the days I started, I was met by an a management team member who was absolutely awful, she was extremely unprofessional. Not approachable, expected me to know a lot more than one would know on their first shift even more so without being trained. She was a huge part of the reason why I left, she did not treat her colleagues nicely and many of the employees I met complained to me about her on my very first day. Her training for fire training were ‘just follow everyone else and hopefully you won’t get burnt’ - this to me is a disgusting unprofessional lack of care in her role. She also made the remark that I shouldn’t be allowed to have another job even though I had explained that to the person who hired me and she was fine with it. 

You are unable to leave the store until everyone is ready after the main doors shut, so you do not clock off until everyone is done doing their bits for the next day you can be there for longer than half an hour. You will see most who finish just before the doors shut running to the doors so they don’t get ‘trapped in’. Breaks are not monitored you get two half an hour breaks on long shifts, however most employees take advantage of this and aren’t back on time so a lot of the time you are on the stand alone. They also disappear for an hour or so, just sitting in the break room or staying away from their work again you are left alone a lot of the time. Your sales aren’t tracked well, you have to write it on a sheet of paper. If you don’t have a till which I didn’t because of course my stuff wasn’t set up, the others will take your sales and you look as though you’ve sold nothing at all. 

It is a lot of standing around and just foundation colour matching. You are just a number you aren’t treated as an employee, they genuinely couldn’t care less. So if you want to be bored out of your head and not treated well this is the job for you, but I do not recommend. The pay really isn’t worth the stuff you have to deal with there. 



My personal experience as an employee at Boots has been a mixed bag. There has been some real highs but also lots of very low lows. I will touch on a few improvement areas with a constructive viewpoint and I hope it helps if you’re considering a role within this company. I can’t say enough that the absolute highlight for me about working here are the teams you will become a part of. My team was hands down the best part about working here. I’ve made life long friends and the culture we had was like family. The ups and downs we went through together, and the laughs and bonds made, I will never forgot. I’ve never found a team culture that’s been quite the same elsewhere (yet!) I used to LOVE working here and was so proud of what we achieved as a team and took pride in our store. The larger stores seem to be more of the focus aesthetically and are amazing, from the variety of products to the layout, they can be exciting to work in to gain knowledge and move areas within the store (vacancy/manager permitting of course). Smaller stores have been neglected over the years. This is a fast paced environment which I personally loved, and the varied role and the customers you meet and are able to help is also a highlight. I found my role really rewarding until recent years, especially since Covid, where issues started to arise with staff cuts and lack of resources and support in various areas. The demands and pressures  within role are more difficult than ever, with no signs of improving. Professional development is also lacking now, with little to no opportunity to experience growth. One huge issue is lack of consistency. Managers change like the wind, and want to change ways of working when they were absolutely fine in the first place to benefit their own progression.  Bullying behaviour has been witnessed and lack of empathy for staff members when they need support with work or personal issues. Managers lack knowledge in basic and important areas such a maternity and parental rights (if you’re a single parent you will have to fight for flexible working) and breaching employees confidentiality. I have, however, worked with some incredible managers who’ve really made a positive difference. Also don’t understand how employees cannot contact HR directly when they have a concern, it has to go through your line manager. The sad thing is you are now just a number, fighting with targets left right and centre and left feeling unseen and unappreciated. This company talks about “the patient behind the prescription”, but managers/area managers and the hierarchy also need to see the “employees within the environment”. I urge them to make some massive changes and listen to their employees and see them as being just as important as their customers, because they work so incredibly hard. If you value your mental health I would advise you to go into here with an open mind. Boots has contributed in my career and personal development in both positive and negative ways, but at the end of the day you have to be happy in your workplace. Everyone’s situation is different and only an employee can decide what that looks like for them. 

Pharmacy Technician
As a Pharmacy Technician in a retail setting, apart from labelling, ordering, dispensing, checking and collection of assembled prescriptions, I also give advice to customers on prescription medicines and over-the-counter products. I also give advice on healthy living and how to deal with minor illness. I am also in charge of checking endorsed prescriptions for errors and making sure exemption claims are correctly completed before being sent to the Prescription Pricing Authority. Depending on the rota and what I have been put down to do that day, my duties in the pharmacy vary but every week I will cover all duties and responsibilities from disposal of medicines to unpacking the order to filing prescriptions to updating patient medication records. 

Management
I manage a team of 13 members of staff to include 4 Healthcare Advisors, 1 Accuracy Checking Technician, 6 Dispensers and 2 Pharmacists.  Every morning before I start work, I have a quick huddle with the team to see how everyone is feeling, what the plans for the day are and how we are going to achieve it. Apart from the Pharmacists, the other members of staff are all part-time and time management and planning is of the essence. Recently, I had to re-profile the store to make sure the store had the right people in the right place at the right time. This therefore involved having conversations with members of staff whose working hours were affected and making sure they understood why the changes needed to be made. I also held a meeting to make sure every member of staff was made aware of the business plans for 2014/15 so that together as a team we will be able to deliver what the company requires of us. Delegation is key to making sure all the tasks are completed. I am also responsible for making sure the shop floor is correctly merchandised and report any discrepancies to my store manager.  Cashing up of the daily takings and the banking once a week is shared between me and the Healthcare Advisors. 

Administration
I am responsible for making sure staff rotas are in place and holidays are covered. I also update payroll information to make sure staff are paid correctly when they are absent or on holiday. I am also in charge of purchasing sundry items for the store and making sure everything that is ordered is within the budget.

Co-Activities
 I am currently training and supervising two pre-registration pharmacy technicians. Every week I check-in with my colleagues to see how they are doing and ask what support I can give them. Recently I was involved in training the dispensary staff on how to use the Electronic Prescription Service as it is due to go live in the next few weeks in the area. It is vital to get the procedure correct or else as a store we could lose hundreds of customers as they may nominate a different pharmacy to receive their prescriptions. The store was due to receive training from the Area Expert; however she was unable to come and so I visited another store to learn how to use the system and then I came back to my store and trained the staff.

I have worked for Boots for almost three years and as a student the company hired me on the basis that I was a student, could only work part-time and would have a large work load. At first I loved the company, though at the age of 16 any job would have appealed to me, and all staff were welcoming and friendly. However as I matured and grew more familiar with the company, I realised that it wasn't as great as it first seemed. Because I was the youngest in the store, I was treated as the youngest, rather unfairly if you ask me. They assumed because I was younger, I didn't quite understand the working world or knew how to carry out 'difficult' tasks. Bear in mind the managers couldn't even count to ten without using their fingers. They put me in for numerous shifts that were not on my contract without consulting me. They just assumed I would not complain and would do anything they asked me to, running behind them with my tail between my legs. They refused to acknowledge my workload, even as I was sitting my highers, and constantly demanded more of my time and put me in for more hours. This did not just happen to myself. They promised opportunity within the company, they promised to treat us all fairly and equally but do they? No they do not. If you are an 'ars*-licker' you will do well in Boots. All 'ars*-lickers' are given better opportunities and better tasks than those who are not. It doesn't depend upon how smart you are, how well you carry out tasks or what you know, it is all about who you know. Recently all new assistant managers that have been assigned to my particular store have become younger, more stupid, and severely lack people skills. They judge your work ethic and how good you are with customers by looking at how many customers you can sign up to an advantage card per shift and how many mentions in customer care surveys you receive in a week. To me, this is the most ridiculous thing ever. First of all, by constantly asking and trying to get customers to sign up to an advantage card, or by trying to encourage them to fill in a survey for you (bear in mind only three surveys come out of the tills an hour), is possibly one of the most frustrating things for both employees and customers. Customers don't want to waste their time filling out an irritating online survey, and that's even if they remember they have the 'golden and wonderful' opportunity to do so. If a customer doesn't want an advantage card, they DO NOT WANT AN ADVANTAGE CARD, but for some reason management fail to understand this. Trying to get a transfer to another store is also very difficult to do, because management don't want to 'waste' their time in sorting out the paperwork for their employee to do so. I have also had experience in this. Boots will try and keep you on a temporary contract as long as possible and in doing so you end up not getting your proper discount card for around 6 months after you join. This can also be very frustrating. All in all I wouldn't recommend this company, but then again, we have to get money from somewhere...

Pros: generous staff discount, double discount, occasional freebies, staff sales, lovely team of people (excl. some members of management), good pay rate.

Cons

UNDERSTAFFED - I worked in one of Boots' flagship stores yet it was grossly understaffed. The shop would open at 8 and no one would be rota'd in on the tills until 9, no cover for people's sick days / days off and 3 - 4 people on the delivery team (less when people had days off + everyone kept leaving.) Staff turnover was high as it was, but after the staff reprofiling it was a mass exodus of people resigning due to unsociable working hours and an unwillingness to compromise. The departing staff were not replaced, which put even more pressure on remaining staff in all departments to pick up the work that couldn't be done. This issue was not addressed and instead management repeatedly attempted to cover it up by scheduling everyone to work when official visits from Head Office were happening, then leaving very few people to work until close (1 person on the tills for 3+ hours alone until closing.)

TERRIBLE MANAGEMENT - Managers talk to their staff with absolutely no respect. Store manager does nothing but hide away in their office with no awareness of what happens in their own store, only appearing when there's a visit from the higher ups in Head Office. Most of management make 0 effort to know their staff and instead have endless meetings that elicit no positive change in the store.

The management team overall do not communicate with each other, with several managers asking you to do different jobs within minutes of each other. They don't listen to any concerns you have, disregard any personal circumstances which may affect your ability to work, (eg. mental illness, bereavement etc) and contact you when you're signed off work. Massive focus on the negative, customer complaints and everything you aren't doing with no recognition or appreciation of the hard work you do each day.

Once staff announce they're leaving, most of the management team proceed to mistreat them. They micromanage departing members of staff, demanding to know where they are every time they've gone off the shop floor and I have even been asked to tell them what time I went to the toilet. There have been times where my shifts have been changed and I haven't been notified, so when I turn up at the time I believe I'm meant to I got into trouble.

RIDICULOUS COMPANY POLICIES - CEO didn't want to pay for security, so removed them which led to more theft = bigger losses. Staff were exposed to abusive, violent and threatening behaviour from shoplifters on a regular basis with no protection.

No mental health support (aside from one training module.)
So much emphasis on the new beauty halls and hiring beauty advisors that other departments (pharmacy especially) are neglected.

More generally, the store I worked at always ran out of loo roll and paper towels, the toilets were disgusting and unhygienic. The floors were raised with bubbles and the sanitary bins were always overflowing and smelly.

Started as a christmas temp many years ago. Working at a large store, was then given temporary hours. ( was contracted less than 10 hours a week) but would always be in store 25+ hours a week. They would always say there was no money in the budget. Management nearly ALWAYS got pay wrong because they had to add the extra hours on, I would have to tell my line manager what hours i had done (even though they had the rota to look at). Would get me to go on the no7 counter, give advice and do makeovers. Managers would always ask what i wanted to do for career progression (makeup counter) but would not give me a position (so no pay increase or perm hours) this carried on for about a year, as they kept telling me something would come up and I did not want to leave. 

i was then asked to help another store out (a very busy pharmacy where i had NO training whatsoever) but i wanted the extra hours. I was then taken on by the pharmacy as full time as i had said i wanted to do all the training to work in the pharmacy as the big store as a beauty consult was not going to happen. I have done all my training (hca and dispenser).

over the years i have noticed- staffing levels have dramatically decreased, the work load has increased to the point of ridiculousness. Pushing services to make money has become a priority and is not always in the patients interest but to meet targets.

co-workers can be incredibly rude (some not all) customers are incredibly rude, and expect more and more.When customers personally insult you or a colleague i feel boots' policies do not assist in protecting staff, but that customers or patients can get away with treating staff how they like. Customers know they cannot be refused their medications and that we need their custom. Yet we should just calm the situation and resolve it by getting them whatever they want as quick as possible. However customers who do not kick up a fuss,  who always wait patiently, receive basic service in comparison because staff are too busy catering to angry customers/patients, ITS WRONG.

Some customers are so nice and really make you feel like you are doing the best you can, as they always tell us that we are working hard and make their experience enjoyable but a lot point out that they can see we are understaffed, and i personally find it unprofessional to be so short staffed.

I come home most days very stressed and have recently dread going to work because of the work load, co-workers and customers attitudes. 

Boots, overall as a company, has and continues to do incredibly well as a business. However staff are forgotten, customers get away with just about anything, and its main focus is on targeting services and making money rather than the patient themselves and their well being. 

I used to enjoy working for boots and would recommend it to friends, i cannot say the same now. I hope that it improves, otherwise I will leave.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Beauty advisor 3 salaries reported	£13.33 per hour
Pharmacist 18 salaries reported	£46,300 per year
Client advisor 8 salaries reported	£13.13 per hour
Optometrist 1 salary reported	£52,500 per year
Customer service representative 12 salaries reported	£22,474 per year

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