team leader

manager

team member

administrator

general manager

Cineworld

Thought it was great for a couple months, but just an overall terrible place to work. 
- rota is released at best 4 days before it starts, usually late with no explanation or warning 
- zero hours means they will give you one 5 hour shift a week if they want or no hours at all whenever and say it's a "low hours week" even though others still get 5 
- management & team leaders date the team members and their friends get favourable treatment e.g. extra hours, better shifts like posters, sitting in the office all day while everyone else has to deep clean 
- if you report any incidents like homophobia or saying horrible things about other people on shift, they have a "chat" with that team members and do nothing 
- but if you make a complaint about management, you'll get told off and they'll mess up your shifts by making you do crummy jobs, won't "trust you" on shift, stop you from working with your friends ect ect 
- they try and cut staff hours at every opportunity and don't care if this means you can't pay rent/afford to live 
- you get 5 sickness a year before they have a meeting with you and possibly investigate you so don't bother if you have poor health or mental health or if you're just a normal person who gets sick 
- management say they'll be flexible but you have to change your availability over 2 weeks in advance and book holiday weeks off in advance and most of the time it'll get declined anyway (the last 7 of mine have been declined for various different reasons even when I've followed the rules)
- yet management get their rota weeks in advance and the general manager makes sure each manager gets at least whole one weekend off per month
- if management make mistakes, they won't say sorry. It'll be an excuse and then if you're upset by unfair treatment they'll say you have an attitude problem
- there's no chance to progress, in almost 2 years there have been all new management (but externally hired from other sites and ours as supervisors) and out of the 2 of the people who have been on the supervisor programme for over a year, one made supervisor less than a month ago 
- they let people stay on shift working for hours without being clocked in to take advantage, with some unofficial promise of "one day becoming a team leader" but it never happens, it's just free labour 
- high turnover rate, and new people get 3 hours "training" shifts in certain areas (not enough times at all but saves actually paying people!) 
- the "have your say system" system which allows employees to discuss issues and comments is a joke. You get the chance to write a couple sentences as it's so limited and it takes 6 months to get the results and they don't even go through them! Just send out the next set and wait another 6 months for those results. It's just a way to get a statistics of "how well" they're doing, despite most of the people filling it in have been there for less than a couple months 
- even the suggestion box at our site was removed after people used it as a way to complain (as there was no other way to do it) and management don't want to hear any issues 
- when you are on shift, management spend all day watching the cameras to make sure you're constantly cleaning something or doing pointless tasks while they sit in the office,listening to music and chatting 
- Talking to HR is pointless because the whole team will know any problems that you have immediately, due to gossiping by managers and even little post it notes they leave in their office that anyone can see, with "private" and "confidential" information on it
- staff benefits of free movies and discount are great, but if you cannot attend the staff meeting at 9am on a weekend for whatever reason (i.e a second job, it's EASTER and you want to see your family) then it's immediately revoked for a month 
- they have pointless little competitions where you win nothing but some stupid name like "cinestar" to promote the idea that you're valued but really it's just a way to get their team to push sales so the company makes lots more money, and the team receive no actual benefits 
- you get a Christmas staff party, but most other "events" are cancelled or no one cares enough to plan then 
- the heating/air conditioning in our building for behind concessions has been broken for over a year. When it was minus temperatures, we all froze and weren't allowed to wear warmer clothes and in summer in 30°c+ we weren't even allowed to have water bottles out front by the tills. We had to wait for it to be quiet to go out back and drink some water.
- no student leave or Christmas holiday, staff members are mostly students so everyone has to work Christmas eve, boxing day and over news years
- the only reason most people work there (including myself) is because there are some lovely team members and also minimum wage is paid everywhere else 
- they only care about the customers, not the staff at all

PLEASE READ MY REVIEW BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO 
WORK FOR CINEWORLD!


After working here for almost 3 years as a team member I can say it was the worst place I have ever worked for!

The management only use to put certain staff members requested days off through and told the other staff members 'We'll see what we can do' And you'd know they wouldn't put your request through and unless you were one of the 'favourite' members of staff. 

Also the job is a zero hour contract job. And they expect you to work full time when a popular film comes out and then give you either no or very low hours the rest of the time.  From 0-20 hours if you were lucky I found. 

The management team including the supervisors made it clear to you your work as a team member was so 'beneath them' They always made a song and dance about asking them for some help if it was busy on the tills. They were even worse if you wanted to ask them to help you clean up a small spill. 
There should have been more of a 'team spirit' Yes they were our bosses but everyone still had an important role in keeping the company afloat and making money. There shouldn't have been such a clear divide between team members and the management team. 

Furthermore, there is no formal, structured training program for team members to progress to a supervisory role or further.  They either like you enough to train you up and give you the role or they simply don't. I knew great workers who worked for cineworld for over 10 years and they are still team members. Despite repeatedly telling the management they wanted to progress further in the role! Instead they fobbed them off with excuses like 'You haven't worked in a high pressured situation in your job yet' Which for someone who has worked there over 10 years is absolute rubbish. I'm sure they would have done given their ten years of service for the company, I believe they did not give that person training due to them not liking the person enough and having a mild learning disability. Which in no way affected their work.

The managers themselves in the Cineworld I worked at were an absolute joke themselves. Often they just sat in the office not responding to team members when we radioed for their help and then you'd see one or two sneak off outside to have a cigarette. Highly unprofessional. 

Since I left I know many more people I worked with have left too. The sad thing is, the cineworld I worked at had a great bunch of hardworking team members working for them. Who were capable of so much more and deserved to be treated with respect and should have been given the chance to progress their career if they wanted to. 

Every member of staff I worked with was unhappy working at Cineworld and everyone often discussed that if they had the chance to leave, that they would. 

Free films and a discount off the food and drink there, isn't worth being treated like a piece of muck on the bottom of Cineworld's shoe and feeling like you were a mindless, worthless slave to their corporation. Rather than a valued member of the team that you should have felt like. 

I now work for another big company and I am so much happier. It is a refreshing change to actually be spoken to politely by my superiors and actually feel like a valued part of their team, where everyone matters!

Worked for Cineworld in one of their biggest sites for about a year and a half. 

It's not a difficult job, so long as you actually do the work you need to, when it needs done. Lots of downtime punctuated by insanely busy periods. Like most jobs, it's your fellow co-workers that really make it especially as there is lots of time to socialise. A strong stomach is advised as you will have to routinely clean some of the worst man-made messes I've ever seen including but not limited to: all body fluids possible, nappies, needles, used condoms, sanitary products, etc (cinema customers are notoriously disgusting), and you will NOT be provided adequate PPE for any of this. 

My site was huge, but poorly managed (both physically and in a business sense). Toilets, escalators, all equipment at snacks, the tills, the projectors, the lights, etc broke down on an almost daily basis. They'd do the cheapest, laziest, quickest repairs so they'd break the next day again anyway. Several staff members were hospitalised from electric shocks.

Management were feckless nest of snakes, there were a lot of them and only the very newest ones seemed to give a toss and/or have a clue. They'd waste everyone's time having ridiculous "have your say" meetings, only to ignore almost every single concern raised and in some cases actually belittle and dismiss them. They would never, ever have staff's back in customer disputes (even when faced with physical and verbal abuse) but try and pretend to be your best friend in the staff room. Duplicitous enough to forge staff signatures on important documents on MULTIPLE occasions. 

Their treatment of staff during this COVID crisis is the icing on the the cake though. Staff at my site found out we were closing down...through a generic PR message for customers on the company's twitter. We found out we were re-opening the same way. They immediately offloaded as many staff as possible, then had to be coerced by unions into accepting furlough.  The staff then found out that Cineworld was closing indefinitely through a newspaper column. Staff are also kept on a zero hour contract despite the fact you will comfortably work the amount of hours you request (I asked for 30 and never worked less than that unless I gave away shifts) - this is ENTIRELY so you have less rights than contracted workers and they can dispose of you easily. 

Despite all this, I did actually have a good time working there, up to a certain point. The team members were a wonderfully varied group of people, there were free staff showings in the VIP suite of the most popular releases, and it was pretty common to leave at night with a goody bag of unopened sweets, snacks, etc left behind in screens. The hours could be extremely flexible as staff were permitted to swap almost any shift you wanted with anyone who would take it so it's a particularly good job for students or people with irregular commitments, or even if you just want more control of your work/life balance.

All in all, I enjoyed most of my time there but cannot in good conscience recommend working for this company to anyone. They do not care about staff, and they made that extremely clear. 

My Cineworld (Ipswich) has a very good management team, who are never above 'mucking in' during busy times, and they also work very hard, to help and support their staff as best they can, and run on an 'open door' policy, in which staff are encouraged to come and speak openly to their managers, about any worries, or concerns that they might have, and those concerns are always listened to, and acted upon (if action is needed) with an open mind. 
 A typical workday would depend on which department you are assigned to, and; as a Team Member, your work week is quite varied, and spread out between 3 departments: Concessions, Ice Cream, and Floor, which helps to keep the job from becoming too 'samey', and also means, that, even if you have a department that you are less fond of, you are never on there too often, and Cineworld runs a very comprehensive training system, to help staff to learn most of the things that they need to know, to do their job well, and they are also very open, to staff learning new things, outside of their usual duties, and actively encourage progression, for anyone who is willing and eager to do so. 
I've also found Cineworld, to be a very friendly, welcoming, and extremely inclusive workplace, and the staff are very social, both within the work environment, and outside of work too, and staff and management will often get together, for social events, such as dinners, day trips, quizzes, and parties, and all staff are welcome to put forward any thoughts, and new ideas, for fun things to do together, as Cineworld is very much a 'team' place to work, and you can be as involved (or not) as you want to be, its entirely up to you.
I do feel, that the hardest part of working for Cineworld, is that the job is run on a 0 hour contract, and as such, it can sometimes be difficult to budget well, as your hours per week vary, from one week to the next. Also, planning your social life can sometimes be a little difficult too, as you would get your rota on a Monday, and the new work week would start on the up-coming Friday, and your working hours could be anywhere, between 7am (though a 7am starts are very rare. Its usually 9am) and 3am the following morning (though again, 3am finishes are also rare, as the close is usually around midnight)  However, if you do need a particular day off, for a valid reason, and you give them a little notice (a minimum of a weeks notice is preferred) they will do their utmost to give you the day that you have requested.
You must also be aware that Cineworld Cinemas are open 364 days a year (they only close on Christmas Day) and you must be prepared to work at least 2 out of the 4 Christmas Shifts, but you are given the choice, of which of the 2 days you would prefer to work: Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Years Eve, and New Years Day (however, there is no guarantee that you will be given your choices, if too many staff members want the same 2 days off).
The only other downside to working for Cineworld, is that it is a job where you are standing up, and you only get to sit down during your break periods, which can be hard the feet, at first.

I worked at the Nottingham site  and in the time i worked there I saw what a horrible company Cineworld is to work for.

For starters, the site its self in Nottingham is in a horrible state everything needs replacing but management refuse to push for this and would rather sit in the office and not help. Which is the theme in cineworld, managers are that lazy that will try to radio you to bring them some milk up to the office so they can make a cup of tea even when the site is very busy. Then complain they have to get it themselves.

 The lack of things that don’t work, which surprisingly includes tills and even the screens, is a joke. For a company so earns so much money, you would think they would give the staff working tills and ice blast machines. The screens constantly break down and when customers come out of the screens, staff get all of the aggression and abuse from the customers while management avoids it. They also tell you to do one thing to handle customer complaints but when you do as told and the customer does not like it, they come down and do the complete opposite making you look like an idiot.

As far as rotas are concerned, they never come out on time and usually you are only given 2 days to plan your life around your shifts. When you ask them why the rota is late, they come up with the excuse of not having time to do it. When instead they are usually in the office laughing, joking around on face book and playing on the games consoles the staff won on certain company incentives. They often put you on a close followed by an open the next day and complain if you look tired or try and swap it. When on a close and having completed everything you have to, you then have to  wait for the manager/ team leader  to come down and check it. Some team leaders do come down within 2 minutes but most take an over an hour to come down. So you are sat around for an extra hour just waiting to be told you can go.

The overall level of abuse you take from both customers and certain team leaders and mangers is ridiculous and if you don’t stand up for yourself early on the abuse does not stop. as far as customers go, you are in a losing battle as you just have to smile and take the abuse as management do not care about staff well being.

This site and many others suffer with favouritism as certain staff members as they are friends or family with management. Get to avoid weekend work and never get put on closes and if you confront them about this, you are punished and get put on closes all weekend for the next 2 weeks. 

You are on a 0-hour contract, which they do not tell you until after you sign the contract, even though they advertise it as a minimum of 16 hours a week, which you are lucky to get. Also, they constantly hire new staff so the hours you can get are always are going down.
Only good thing is free cinema but they won’t allow you to see the big films on the first 2 weeks of release, which is totally unfair seeing as you work in the cinema.

I worked for the company for 5 years. I enjoyed it, even though it was stressful when it was busy and the hours were long you knew that you had shared the experience with a good team to have fun with during and after shift. 

I was luckily enough to progress to Team Leader but the process to become one can take years and then it depends on if there are vacancies for these positions at your site or somewhere you are willing to travel to. I was trained to become a supervisor for 2 years but then the company had a management change so that job role didn’t exist anymore, so I then had to retrain for another year for pretty much the same job. During all of this time, I was only being paid my TM wage with double the responsibilities. 

During the pandemic, the already problematic head office, their lack of communication skills became even worse. During the first lockdown, they pretty much laid all staff members off before furlough was announced. We found out all major developments of the company, closing etc, through the news and internet articles rather than directly from the company. (Friends who still work for the company, have found out that they are due back in May from sky news and still have not received information from the company). 

On the last day of us being open in October, before the 2nd lockdown. At 6:30 in the evening, I was sent an email on shift, that I had 3 days to decide if I wanted to take redundancy or unpaid leave until they reopened, which was clearly unknown. I decided to take the redundancy option as I needed to have some form of money to fall back on. When the government announced furlough was being extended at the end of October, I tried to return to the company as I was still in my notice period and still hadn’t received any money yet, but the company took a month to get back to me just to reply informing me that they had decided that they were not reversing their decision. 

Since then, I have had my redundancy payout, many friends in management and team members have informed me that they are now advertising TL and manager roles instead of promoting from with in the company as head office didn’t predict just how many people would take the redundancy option or leave during the pandemic. 

The job was originally enjoyable but this past year has shown just how out of touch and how ruthless the company is to its staff. The job role is challenging and enjoyable... just not with this company. 

It's an extremely demanding job with no benefits and no work-life balance. It's physically gruelling - running from screen to screen non-stop for up to 10 hours a day, dragging bins around. 
Or you'll be on the tills, serving a never ending queue of customers for 5 hours, without a break, no ability to go to the bathroom or have a drink of water. 
Or you'll be checking tickets at the entrance - another never ending queue - full of angry and impatient people who don't have their IDs or membership cards, which is obviously your fault.
The customers treat the staff terribly - I've been cursed and yelled at, I've seen my colleagues physically assaulted by customers and the management does nothing about this. They give such 'patrons' comp tickets and free food. It's disgusting how managers don't support or defend their staff at all. Management creates a very unsafe and hostile work environment.
The management is horrendous. Their demands are unfathomable and unrealistic. And whatever you do - it is never good enough. 
Management has no appreciation for staff, the workplace culture is horrible. 
There is no possibility of progress - Cineworld has a Team Member Be More Program, in which you work full time as a Supervisor, but you are not called a Supervisor, as you are technically 'in training' so you are not paid as a Supervisor and you cannot add this worthless experience to your CV. You will be on this TMBM program indefinitely (sometimes for years!) - possibly till the day you die - without graduating to any role progression or pay increase. It's a joke. The company takes advantage of people without rewarding them properly. It's disgusting.
The cinemas are constantly 'understaffed'. There will be a lack of staff for months and months at a time and this is because management get bonuses for serving a big number of people with a small number of staff at their cinema, so you - a low level team member - will do the job of 3 people while management collect big fat checks.
Most shifts are 5-00:00. Routinely you'll finish at 3 am.
Working at a cinema will make you hate the MARVEL/DISNEY corporations with a passion, so keep that in mind.
The horrible conditions lead to a huge turnover of staff so you won't make a lot of friends working at Cineworld. Big turnover leads to a drop in quality of service and abysmal team morale.
So join this company at your own peril. You've been warned.

Working at Cineworld as Operations Manager my roles and responsibilities were varied.  While opening and closing the business or managing shifts consisting of 14 screens and over 50 staff members my role is intensive yet rewarding.  Main roles are training step up managers, supervisors and staff in all areas of customer service, health and safety and standards.  A main challenge is ensuring the best customer journey, consistent service while keeping a focus on targets and constant improvement in all areas of the business.  Wastage, Shrinkage and Spend per person has always been a main focus.  Training staff on standards, customer service, sales techniques and keeping staff moral or motivation, my goals and responsibilities were focused on achieving the best service possible. Maintaining the best standards of cleanliness, while adhering to health and safety along with company goals and making sure all employees personal files are up to date.  Using KPI Trackers, Reports and communication with staff, enabled me to keep a focus, monitor progression, hit targets and improve any areas.  Also these methods highlight any issues, room for improvement and acknowledgment of effort or successes.  I also trained Supervisors and step up-managers on Audio Visual Training (A.V.) so that the can create playlists for film and be confident in problem solving while running the day to day business, retail and H.R.  I encouraged staff incentives and rewarded the top target hitters and Employee of the month with regular feedback.  This gains staff motivation and appreciation, while adding fun at work.  The use of Manager Walk round sheets/check list to check standards of operations, the previous close and to highlight any issues that otherwise may be missed was a daily task.  Plus the use of Department/Area check lists for open/close procedures also made sure all areas were checked and up to standards, while adding training and expectations to staff/team members.  Focusing on mystery shopper reports and promotions we are running is also a main focus as well as S.P.P (Spend per Person).  This was a daily focus and we always had daily/weekly targets which decided by our budget and forecasts for the Week/Month/year.  Due to my success I’ve also had two pay rises within my time at cineworld.  I enjoy a challenge and always look for improvements for future business and development.

I worked here for around a year and a half, I hated every minute of it. The management is awful, there's too much favouritism and if you're a good hardworking person like I am then they will take advantage of you and exploit you to the max. There's no extra pay if you're a hard worker so don't bother trying to please them they don't care about you. They only hire young people because they are the most vunlerable and so can easily be exploited due to their lack of work experience. It's a physically demanding job, Your on your feet all day and not allowed to sit down even just for a minute otherwise you'll get written up. It's a very easy job but because of this it quickly gets boring and repetitive which leads team members to resign. The pay had improved a lot but it's still not enough to keep their employees. The employees end up not caring anymore and end up either getting fired or they resign because the job is so bad. The high turnover leads to management exploiting the workers because they don't care if you leave, you're easily replaceable. Yep, that's right no job security here. I've seen people get fired over the most petty things. The Favouritism is very noticeable only those who are "friends" with management are able to get away with a lot even if they don't do any work, whilst good workers get in trouble for silly things. In order to progress you need to brown nose management. But don't bother trying to progress because full-time team leaders, TMBMs and team members all get the same pay. In fact you can earn more money as a team member by picking up a few extra shifts a month and doing overtime. So there's really no point in progressing unless you wanna be a manager but that's almost impossible due to the favouritism. Don't bother working here unless your looking for a part time job as a student or just want to temporarily make quick easy money and then move on. Working full time permanently is a death sentence. The only pros is that you'll make lots of friends and get free films but that's literally it. Don't even get me started on the 40% discount on the food. Haha I never even got my premierpass/cinepass.

Avoid this place like the plague!
You have been warned.

TL;DR - great for students, flexible and fair management, great staff, good benefits, good opportunities for progression, hours always avaliable, technical issues, unsavory customers higher than other places, great training, grubby work. 

Best job I could have asked for for a 1st job. I was a college student when I joined - Cineworld is perfect for students and young people. Lots of similar-aged staff to befriend, great culture for the staff (outings, getting together to watch new films, football team, etc.). Hired onto a 0 hour contract with a preferance for part-time hours. I regularly got 3 shifts a week minimum which suited well. Management responded well to request to only work on certain days due to college (other places can get difficult over this) and shift-swapping was allowed (until it was banned after some big confusions occurred). Management were usually fair, friendly. There are a few silly rules like how many items you 'delete' on a transaction, which can result in a disciplinary. Can't blame the individual managers for company policy, though. Workload was good - busy enough to keep occupied, not usually understaffed that staff are overloaded. There were some short staffing issues from time to time as well. The biggest problem is the customers - quite a lot of them are rude, self-entitled and unable to comprehend simple cinema rules/procedures. Plenty of nice customers, though. The other big problem was the amount of technical difficulties - screen failures, ticket machine failures, chip n pins take forever, Cineworld Unlimited card system crashes for hours at a time. Hopefully there technical issues are now fixed. Some of the work can be gross - slop buckets, deep cleaning, trash compacting are all quite grubby and leaves your uniform stained and stinking by the end of most shifts. Breaks mostly given at sensible times (a few instances of breaks being asked of staff way too early in the shift). Free films, food & drink discount, other reward schemes etc. Training was spot-on: team training for a week straight on-the-job and theoretical (classroom-style). Best training I've ever had in a job.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Team leader 6 salaries reported	£26,572 per year
Manager 5 salaries reported	£25,000 per year
Team member 3 salaries reported	£13,910 per year
Administrator 3 salaries reported	£25,800 per year
General manager 1 salary reported	£37,500 per year

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