store manager

barista

engineering team leader

assistant store manager

team leader

Costa Coffee

"After being singed off work due to stress  migraines that rendered me temporarily unable see, I was 15 minuets away from having to put the family dog down. This is when, a fully aware of the situation,  area manager who waited for this to take place, decided to fire me" 

I was manager of a store that should have had 10 members of staff. It never had more than 4. Each one of us had been there for less than 6 weeks, myself included. 

During my time there we made over our expected amount of profit, had minimal wastage, came under on hours and had no cash loss. (Just to set the scene). 
Also, I passed a Costa check on my third day of managing. I thought this was good 85% (target of 80%) but I didn't realise this means they stopped caring about supporting me as " the official check wouldn't be back for a year" this was the beginning of the end. 


I was frequently required to work over 55 hours only paid for 45, I used a holiday day and that week I worked 6 days not the 4 I should and they still took my Holiday off me. 

My staff whom were hired as part time and 30 hour staff respectively, were forced to work 35 - 45 hour every week. Want to or  not because we had no other staff. 

My shifts were changed with less than 24 hours notice. I never knew what we were working one week to the next as we never had the staff or cover in advance to rota properly and the area managers didn't care at all. 

The second I raised objections about working with half our staff on a busy Saturday, (3 instead of the 6 they had the year prior, I checked). I was told to get on with it. 

When the stress made me so ill that I could bearly get out of bed, I told my area manager I need a half day off to go to the Dr's and she replied its not her problem. 

See, in order to get days off I would have to drive in (on my day off) and work 2 hours unpaid in order to hand over the keys to whoever cover was and then drive back at the end of the shift to collect them. 

After being singed off work due to migraines that were so extreme they rendered me temporarily unable see. My Area manager told me to phone her the second I was given the all clear to go back to work. Not a "get well soon" in sight. 

I left her a voice mail explaining that we had to put down the family dog at 5:00 that day, but I was clear for work the next day. (my Dr's were keen to keep me off for longer but I wanted to help the team). 

She phoned me back at 4:45, I answered crying as we were close to our doggo and my step daughter was upset. Greeted me with a extremely fake "Hiiiii" asked if "now is a good time" when I replied not right now and against explained we were moments away from taking the doggo to the vets,  she said, OK, well, this won't take long and fired me (ended my probation). 

I was given no reason initially , and when pushed my Area manager  said "performance". I asked her to elaborate and was told they don't need to give a reason. It probably had something do with the seasonal busy period coming to an end...

I was also compared to another manager who works 6 days, and 60 hours minimum every week. As she is only Paid for 45 hours her actually hourly rate is £7.64, less than minimum wage.  

I was on multiple occasions told to hire people knowing we could not afford them when peak season ends. So we would hire them, only to be told to let them go later in, keep in mind its a 9 month probation period.  They never put temporary in the job advert but make no mistakes, you are surplus to requirement. Like me. 

Finally I put in a complaint and HR contacted me to arranged a hearing. They cancelled the hour before and that's the last contact I ever had from them. 

QFM. A franchise of Costa have forever tainted my view of what once was my favourite coffee establishment.

Costa coffee should be very weary of a company that operates with their brand, superficially represent their standards but behind closed doors treats people like dirt.

To be clear, the managers are nice, overly worked people. The area managers are disgraceful.

If you apply for Costa, make sure it is not QFM. 

I worked for costa for 5 years, from a barista, to a supervisor. This company has changed for the worse since being bought by Coca Cola. Pay increased, just for hours to be cut so you are no better off. Long hours, with staff sometimes working 10 or 12 hours at a time. The job is constant, you rarely have time to even have a drink. Problems with barely any hours for the week meant only 2 people closing the shop from 2pm onwards, so you are constantly rushed off your feet and unable to clean down as you are constantly serving customers with only one other person to help you, as well as having the floor, back room and bar to clean and stock up. As a supervisor, the pay is not worth it. You are only paid about 50p more than a barista for so much more responsibility; cash handling( cashing up, filling out banking book, safe count, change orders), opening and closing the shop and working alone in the mornings, having to arrange cover on your shifts in the case of absences, filling out a huge and outdated logbook..I could go on. All when Coca Cola are absolutely rolling in it; area managers barely lifting a finger and watching staff and managers struggle in their stores yet pushing for higher customer feedback and sales targets. All of which is impossible if you do not have sufficient staff on. Shift work means you are not working same hours each day or each week, they all differ. If you are on a close you will rarely leave the shop on time, you cannot leave until that place is spotless and ready for the open. Yet on so many mornings I opened the shop it would be a tip as the staff had struggled just the two of them the night before. Which meant the opener has to do the jobs of the evening staff from the night before as well as stock up, measure the coffee, daydot cakes, fill out the logbook and sort the till drawers and safe before opening the shop. I was a supervisor barely working 3 shifts a week due to hours being cut which was an absolute joke, it’s not enough to live on. The constant stress of customer complaints, the cleaning, the admin, the lone working…it is not worth it. I will say the pay is decent for a barista and this is an ideal job for students in between jobs. I know that it is incredibly hard to climb the ladder in this company. Store managers have been waiting years for an area manager post and are left to work in outdated stores with little to no hours for their staff. Since costa cut the assistant manger position, this just means more workload for supervisors and managers. My team was fun to work with, as I knew them for years but it was frustrating that some people didn’t put in the same effort. You end up thinking what’s the point and just do the bare minimum when cleaning down the store because that’s just generally acceptable. Costa checks were a joke; constantly changing SOP’s and introducing so many new drinks on the menu at one time…it is impossible to keep up with. Not to mention drinks were handmade and you could end up making several different drinks at one time, which is not a quick process. Like I said, I had worked there for 5 years and was used to quickly learning these but you cannot aim to serve a queue effectively with barely any staff and having to make a million new drinks that take a while to make. I could go on and on and on, but the reality is that this job was not worth it anymore. The lack of social life, being too tired after a long shift to go out or spend time with your partner, the constant worry of having to make sure things were perfect in the mornings and evenings…don’t do it. I wish I had left a long time ago. 

Working at Costa is a straightforward job made difficult. Head office seem to place a huge amount of pressure on their store managers, who then transfer this level of stress onto their team. High staff turnover & lack of quality staff is normal in hospitality, and is difficult to manage in most businesses.

However at Costa this is made more difficult due to obsession with detail (and checks on this) & pressure placed on managers by the company. New staff get trained very slowly & feel undermined, and in the short term does not solve the huge workload of more experienced staff members.

I was hired as a Team Leader & have previous general management experience, but due to the way this company operates (very tight audits, & resulting obsession with detail) have gained little supervisory experience in almost a month. 

Additionally, Costa don’t seem to take into account that their units in transport locations may have extremely different operational needs versus say, a relatively quiet store in a small town. The amount of space in the unit we have to work in is too limited & the distance we have to carry stock is not acceptable. Costa should be employing stores staff for these locations.

The shift patterns at Costa are terrible if you have children or a spouse/household to run. Early opens and late closes are part of business needs, but not everybody is part time staff. In many similar businesses, full time or supervisory staff would get priority on the day time shifts with part timers filling in for the earlys and lates. That is completely reasonable due to the fact your shifts will be spaced out.

Store managers can’t seem to run things this way due to requirements like manual cashing up procedures, which part time more casual staff can’t be reasonably expected to complete accurately.

If I took these factors out of the equation this should be a really fun job. The people I work with are all nice & pretty smart too. The drinks and food we serve are great. The customers are mostly very nice. But as things stand all of this fades into the background, due to over work, lack of consideration for store manager’s workloads and terrible shift patterns.

Come on Costa - you can do better than this for your staff. I’d rather stay in the business, but you’re not making it an easy decision for me.

If you're considering please read, if you're an employee already: definitely read.

Cons:

Understaffed, underpaid, highly stressful, difficult to progress, biased management for the most part (not all, I know some great ones, but they get treat badly from higher up so..)

If you're peppy and are fine with following orders and not asking questions you'll be fine. Otherwise avoid. 

It used to be great and management/upper management would actually care about you as an an individual, sadly those days are gone. 

Long shifts, 19p pay rises (to match in line with minimum wage payrise and we all know how great that is), stunted personal growth and two faced-ness across the board.

They hire out of necessity, they promote out of necessity, leaving very little skill required to a) join the company and b) climb that corporate ladder! Sadly this also means that everyone is the same, even those above you, and if they don't like you or have a favourite, or if you have mental health problems; they potentially won't promote for the most part under the guise of "we don't think you're ready".

 If they make sales then nothing will be done about issues raised about staff members/management, grievances issued with little evidence or circumstansial at best.

Bonus as a team member requires passing sales targets for the month, net promoter scores (how happy the customer is) and checks that test the state of the store and ability of staff to produce coffee to a specific standard, the bonus isn't much, not is it monetary based. Instead they have there own online store and you gain points to spend in said store. Points equate to monetary value but they won't just give you an extra £30 a month in your bank or whatever it equates to.

Company reward your hard work with a free lunch now and again..which equates to about £3.50 and by now and again I mean once; maybe twice a year..they see this as generous.

Some of your coworkers are insufferable. These will be the ones likely to progress through the company and be revered; no matter how horrible they are as human beings.

Customers. Some are the loveliest people most are entitled, rude and obnoxious and some will try and fight you for whatever reason. No there is no security guard, some stores have a panic button.

Pros:
I didn't think I'd love coffee as much as I did before working here. I still do, so it breaks my heart to see the company declining like this over the past 10 years.

Some of your coworkers are actually fantastic people and the horrors of having to deal with others who are less so will make your bonds with them stronger.

That's about it.

I have worked for Costa for over three years now, I am comfortable in my job, knowing that I have learnt all that I need to learn in the company for the position that I hold. I have various experience in dealing with customer complaints both in writing and verbally whilst on shift and I am not worried about dealing with a pressured environment however I would like to find a job that is more flexible and less tiring/tedious, something that I am going to enjoy whilst doing my final year of university. 

A typical day at work means I could start from 5am and finish no later than 9:30pm (shift variations). The job for me includes managing the other team members, which is usually no more than four members as I work in a small store. This includes managing break times, administering jobs such as making the coffee, till work and cleaning, all of which I have to do myself as well. If I am closing the shop then I have to count the till at the end of the day and then fill out the appropriate paper work which I then have to take to the bank depending on what day I am working. A day at work is always fast-paced, as I work in a train station I have to serve a lot of impatient commuters. Over the two years I have worked at the station and the one year I worked at a service station Costa, I have developed the appropriate manner in which to deal with aggravated customers. 

The team I currently work with are great, every member of staff is hard-working and as a team we use our initiative to make our job easier for ourselves and for each other. My current Manager is flexible with all of the employee needs and works extremely hard to make sure that we all enjoy the job as much as possible. Unfortunately a lot of my colleagues are going to be leaving soon, as I have been at the store the longest now and feel I've nothing left to learn I strongly feel it is time for me to do something new as well. 

The job provides difficulties in impatient and often aggressive customers however this is nothing I fear to deal with. The hardest part of this job is the hours, the early starts/late finishes on top of my university commitments mean the job has become draining and tedious for me, henceforth why I need to find something where I will have something to learn. 

The most enjoyable part of my job is that I get to work with a lovely team, and speak to customers every now and then that obviously appreciate what I have done for them. Sometimes a coffee is all they need to make their day that much better and when they see how hard I work and comment on it, it makes my day a whole lot easier too.

I worked at a few stores in stockport and each did not pay for any hours worked an hour after closing time - but they kept this quiet untill a few weeks into the job when i realised i was underpaid for the hours i did and asked them. 

I would work 3 or 4 hours past closing time (6pm at the time when i worked there - it closes earlier now) because they only had 2 people on shift from 4pm (its busiest time!) where you had to both do everything - serve the endless customers, make drinks, do the tables, fill up/empty the dishwasher, clean the store, clean the toilets, restock, clean the machines at the end, was chaos and there was no chance of ever finishing at 7pm before you stop getting paid.

Staff were inconsistent - one person would ask you to do one thing and next minute another member of staff would be asking why your doing that or to hurry up or complain at you. 
I'm a very hard worker yet they would complain regardless - i was still a new member of staff so wasnt as fast on the till or making drinks - due to their lack of training (putting you on table cleaning when the store got busier so you had no experience of how to handle busy times) and so not knowing how to make all the drinks fast enough.

Sometimes i would get a call about 10 mins before my shift started to ask if i can come in later -  thats ok if you live a 2 min walk away but i had to get 2 buses (about 40 mins) to get to the store (which they knew) and i was almost there, which was unacceptable and an appalling way to treat staff. 

I moved to a different store because i wasnt willing to work for free which wasn't as bad - nobody stayed past non-wage time (as i call it) but the store was often a shambles - manager couldn't handle a busy store and so took it out on all the staff and usually went and hid in his office instead while all the baristas ran the store and tried their best to serve customers and everything else. 

Staff here rarely helped each other out - so if someone was on pot wash, and they had no pots but the que was miles long at the till they wouldn't come and help the till staff. This happened as there was no manager to direct anyone.

Staff would complain that the manager never promoted anyone to barista maestro (senior baristas)  and there were none there so morale was extremely low which made most of the staff not care about their job or how much work they put in.

I would definitely not recommended working at costa unless your desperate for money i tried 2 stores and both were extremely stressful for different reasons. I suppose it all depends what kind of manager you have  - can make or break the job.

Great place to start if you want to get experience in hospitality. Where I worked was very busy and understaffed, which meant there would often be a constant queue, backlog of dishes and coffee-trained staff expected to remember very long lists of drink orders.  This could be fun but also exhausting, and fairly unrewarding as you don’t have the chance or mental capacity to properly speak to customers, and it often felt out of control. It could take over 2 hours to close and working until 9pm some days, which isn’t ideal when you’re expecting a day job, or if you were scheduled for a 6 hour closing shift and didn’t get a lunch break despite working 7+ hours in total.

Had two managers in the time I worked there, the first of which was rude, negative, unsupportive and very unhelpful regarding availability, holidays and such. They wouldn’t allocate any time to training me to make coffees so for the first two months I had no training and spent every day collecting and cleaning dishes or occasionally serving customers. The second was much more positive, supportive and helpful and brought the team together as a group of friends, which was a lovely turnaround. On the day they took over they got me started on coffee training immediately and it didn’t take long until I was a competent barista. With a good store manager, I would recommend starting at costa to anyone without coffee experience. If you have coffee experience, you can probably find a similarly paid role in an independent cafe which would be more relaxed. In a big chain cafe, there will always be a lot of pressure on the management from above to cut costs (including staff hours) and maximise productivity of their staff, and an independent cafe generally feels a lot less pressured in comparison.

On my contract I was supposed to work 21 hours per week part time, but this varied a lot between probably about 14 and 45.

Some of the staff are people who have worked there for years, and these are mainly the barista maestros (a.k.a. supervisors) and managers. The others are usually students working part time  or recent graduates. They were all lovely, generally welcoming to newcomers and there was a good amount of social interaction and group activities outside of work, which was great because there generally wasn’t much time to chat and get to know your colleagues in the workplace, especially as everybody would start and end shifts at different times of day and breaks would be taken one at a time.

If you’re starting out, I would still recommend.

The first few months feel like you have no idea what you’re doing. I’ve shattered glass, spilled drinks the lot. I even wanted to leave ‘cause I thought I was bad at the job. But I stuck through it and now I’m one of the fastest employees and have been working for 2 years now part time.

In my store, a typical morning shift would start at 6am (ready to open for half 6). There would be me (barista) and a maestro or a manager. My role would be to fill up the sandwich and drinks fridge, check the toilets, make sure the chairs and tables look good and also help fill up the cakes. The supervisor will make sure the tills are set up, check the coffee grind and fill up cakes. This shift will last till 2.30pm with a half hour break.

Then you have mid shifters, who are literally an extra pair of hands throughout the day. They don’t open or close. They can either be a long shift (with a break) or a short one (6hrs or less). 

Every store works differently, but in my store, there are different stations you’re on: Machine (making drinks), Till (taking orders), floor/pots (making sure the tables are clear and clean, checking the toilets), floating (you’re an extra pair of hands who help everyone whether it’s sorting food, making a drink or helping to collect loads of pots).

Finally, the closers. There are usually 2 people, just like the AM shift. My manager does the rotas really well, so that the mid shifter has enough time to clean the toilets before clocking out and bringing furniture from outside. Once that’s done, the supervisor will clean behind the bar and coffee machine whilst serving customers, and stock up snacks and check dates of food. I have multiple things to do: Sweep and mop floor and the back room, collect pots and put them through dishwasher then clean the dishwasher (which is easy).

The reason why we do a lot before we close is because we have half an hour to finish cleaning the store after we close. So, if we shut at half 7, you’ll get paid till 8pm. However, most stores are kind so if you were busy they’ll pay you if you stay late. 

It sounds intimidating but you NEED multi tasking skills when joining Costa. It’s not just serving coffee. What I do when I first closed was make a mental list of what I wanna do, and be organised with your time. And tbh don’t be scared of customer, they can be mean sometimes but my store are really good with those situations.

Anyway hope this helps! It does get easier and my team are such a laugh ! xxx

When i firsted started here i loved the job loved the teams, loved the people above. They couldnt do any more to appreciate and help there staff. But slowly cracks started to show and this was before COVID. Piling More and more targets to try and achieve with little to none when it came to resources e.g. Labour. I know this is a business but as a Manager paid to enforce your team to perform to the best of their abilities you can only do so much before they break. Barely any support from regional management when you are given a store to repair which has been damaged by unexperienced/lazy staff. Costa has changed since i started. Just expecting more and more but not giving us resources we need. I feel so so sorry for my team members sometimes that i have. As i pressure them so much to achieve targets that are genuienly unwinnable in current situations during the pandemic. The only thing i genuienly have admiration for is that they paid their team members and managers 100% through the first ever lockdown so hats off. Bonus achievements for some stores are literally unattainable due to harsh and high sales targets finance set based off pre covid sales/LFL. Higher up Costa executives need to appreciate the pressure staff are under currently with the pandemic and instead of a poxy email sent out to all staff members typed by their assistant. Actually do a proper heartfelt message to actually thank them for keeping the business a float. Its not just Coca-cola financing them but the teams that work 12-14 hour shifts in some stores just to keep it open and money coming through the tills. The Assistant Manager reudancy has been handled absolutley disgutingly. Some made redudant which i had to do myself and i will say is single handley the worst experience for any manager to ever have to deal with. But demoting the succesful Assistant Managers that managed to secure a Barista Maestro position. The said position of Maestro is still to perform and do the role of an Assistant Manager with less pay per hour, Basically forced to take lower hour contracts due to probably losing their jobs completly otherwise. Is Absolutley disgusting. I know they are a business but Costa from a Store Manager stop and think about your staff please. We are not robots, we are human. 

I worked here for 6 months. As someone with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and learning difficulties, i will not reccomend this to anyone even people who are neurotypical. 
Daily unpaid overtime, and in exceptional circumstances you might 15 minuets added pay. Several times I had incidents that made me up to 2 hours late and was repeatedly chastised for asking for pay, incidents including, but not limited to:
Faeces spread on bathroom walls,
Continuously Overflowing toilets,
Waiting after hours for late company deliveries.
These unpaid overtime shifts regularly cut into my outside of work activities, such as making me late for my second job, evening classes outside work

Hours were also repeatedly reduced and cut without notice, and a few times on arrival at work. 

Flat refusal to have regular hours to accommodate for ASD and also to amend the timetable when given 2+ weeks notice.

Going from Costa to the Uk Pandemic Lockdown was stress relief. I left 9+ months ago and have only just felt ready to reconnect enough to leave a review to warn others against it. I left just before the lockdown began but wanted rid of it so badly i didn't apply for furlough. 

The management felt like they had something to prove, and it has a definite pecking order. 
Upper management are a disassociated nightmare and are apparently omnipotent and infallible.

I found the connecting with other staff no more difficult than i expected due to my ASD, and over time i gre to like alot of the people. They were kind and funny. A love of the people you work with can make a bad job bearable. I sometimes came in to work unpaid early in the mornings when i knew i liked the opening staff and would enjoy it. This made the refusal to be paid overtime in the evenings even more frustrating.

Making coffees is okay, as someone with ASD i loved the repetitivness, even if i was a slower worker.

 I always smelled bad but that is expected in a job like this as i previously worked as a potwash so there's no issue there.

Overall, if you work at costa that is all you do . There was no more to my life than that while i was there. When you work you work. When you don't you recover to work the next day. If needing regularity is something important, this is not for you.


Top Job Titles	Average salary
Store manager 34 salaries reported	£28,261 per year
Barista 29 salaries reported	£12.84 per hour
Engineering team leader 37 salaries reported	£12.67 per hour
Assistant store manager 1 salary reported	£23,900 per year
Team leader 5 salaries reported	£13.53 per hour

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