sales advisor

assistant store manager

store manager

machine operator

stocking associate

Hotel Chocolat

I worked for the company for a year and a half and did a lot of covers in stores all over London.
Working at Hotel Chocolat is relatively easy - depending on the location of your store. High street and station shops are incredibly busy. Non-stop all day. Brutal. Smaller stores are really quiet most of the time.
The customers are easy to deal with - they're usually shopping for an occasion or for a present for someone and as such are usually in a good mood. Especially when you give them a free sample. You ask them what they're looking for, they tell you roughly what they want, you show them the relevant stock - they grab the item that suits them best and head towards the checkout. Easy-peasy.
You sell a few products, restock the shelves and clean up before you leave. Average day is not very challenging. The busiest times are holidays (Christmas, Easter Halloween), that's only when things really pick up.
Shift patterns are relatively okay - again depending on which store you end up at. Most stores operate roughly 9-19:00, so work-life balance in manageable.
The main problem with the job is only management get salaries and set work hours (40hrs a week) everyone else (sales advisers, supervisors) only get 8 hour contracts which means you are not guaranteed more than 8 hours a week (contractually that's all the company has to give you) and as such you get basically no paid holidays (if you take a week off, you will get paid for one 8 hour shift).
There is a possibility of doing covers in other stores to pick up some extra hours, but this is not guaranteed.
Another problem I personally witnessed was poor management, which is company wide. There is a big turnover of staff on all levels in this company, which leads to inconsistent management. Bad management was the main reason I left - I wasn't getting the hours or the training that I needed, I wasn't made aware of opportunities for career progression and that made me feel unappreciated and ignored by my manager and district manager. It was disappointing and frustrating as I put more than a year into the company and I wanted to go further and grow, but the poor management and poor communication got in the way of my career progression, so I felt like I had no choice but to leave.
From what I witnessed I feel like the company doesn't care about/or is not able to keep staff that's already trained, give people a reason to stay. So people come and go very quickly. People get passed over for promotions and instead of supporting trained staff they already have, the company hires externally, which leads to a drop in quality of service and ruins the teams morale, leaving the workplace culture in shambles.
In summary, I would ONLY recommend this job if you're looking for part-time employment. Full-time is NOT worth the hassle and the benefits are just not there.

It is a good place to work and enjoyable job and i worked with some great people and the company itself is good with what they do but some of stuff that goes on isn't great.

I Started out in stock room at xmas. you sorted through stock and organised everything through type and code fairly easy to do stock, only issue its small stockroom its hard find places for items. the deliveries are a mess. distribution clearly have no understanding of what they doing, you get sent stuff you already got loads and you struggle to put away.

Shop floor is ok lots of greeting with guests and asking if they need help fairly easy to do but you have to pretty much throw yourself at the guests which hard to do as some guest just want to shop.

one of my first shifts on the shop floor, there was something going on and had meeting with area manager getting accused fraud with reward cards during a time i didn't even work there all because i had the same name as someone who used to work there no apology was given.

They are expecting you to be fake, you can't just have a job and sell the product to the best you can, you have be like OH MY GOD i love this stuff so much even if you don't. i believe i got let go of my role because i didn't get on with management and not being overly enthusiastic about the product.

Management of the place is typical bad management...they favour certain people who get away with scott free to other who do one simple thing wrong....capital crime. work place culture is bad and one person from other store said i never seen a place with such a toxic atmosphere and that starts at top with the store manager.

loyalty is not respect you do favours for them cover shifts, not even a thank you. Keep your cards to your chest. trust no one.



A typical day includes cashing up or opening the shop, meaning counting large quantities of money and making sure everything is in check in time to open. Part of my job includes approaching people to offer them a sample of chocolate, and I've never struggled with this. I usually engage in various conversations that last until the transaction is complete. No two days are the same either, there are always different people wanting different things. It is important to know the products to help the guest make a perfect decision, and I regularly go out of my way to help.
The work environment is amazing. I am more than happy to talk with both management and my co-workers, but we all have a firm understanding on when we have some time chat and when things need to be done. We share out tasks evenly and fairly, and I've never had an issue with the way things are run.
The job cannot be done halfheartedly, you need to put your all into the work. It can be tiring at times, but it is rewarding seeing guests so happy just by providing excellent service. It is also heavy in knowledge, as each staff member is required to know a lot of information about cocoa and the process of making it into our chocolate. However this came easy to me, as I enjoy learning new information and sharing my knowledge.
It is highly rewarding communicating with so many different people, and I often engage in conversation about a wide range of topics. Guests have given me advice on various lifestyle tips, and one has even become a fan of my art work. I've had multiple guests compliment me on my service and enthusiasm, and it's lovely to know your making a small difference to their day.

I was employed by a recruitment agency who worked within the hotel chocolat factory. 
Mostly picking and packing work, packing was fast paced and you had to make sure you put all the sufficient labels and packing in the parcels. Packing could be hard work as you had to establish how to pack things correctly without them getting damaged. 

The work ethic was good but the picking and packing staff were very clicky with one another. 

I was put on the commercial picking and packing line, the supervisor would disappear for 3 hours for a ciggarette leaving me and another person to pick and pack everything, the supervisor would come back and stress about how we’d packed everything. 

I also have to say there was a language barrier between me and the other person who was picking and packing and although we managed to hand signal to each other, it made the job that bit more difficult, however this is not down to management to train in the British language.

I would recommend as a stepping stone job to something better however the pay was enough to suffice. 

Dealing with the supervisors for both The commercial line and the sales line was difficult at times, keeping your head down and getting on with the job at hand is something this place has taught me. 
I felt at times staff were made to feel inadequate or guilty for doing something wrong or making a mistake. We were given a box of chocolates if we picked a certain amount of products in our shift, management seem to think this was fair game but it caused some commotion from the ladies in the packing area.

A typical day would be for me to carry on from where I had left off on an ongoing job the previous day. If I was facing challenges I would normally had worked it out in my head how to tackle it before coming into work. 

I have freelanced and have work for numerous design agencies both big and small, the workflow is normally different from agency to agency and that is always a good learning curve and a challenge that provides me the experience to be confident to be able to adapt quite quickly to any working environment.

Managing my time is very important especially when there is a lot of images to work with. I normally try to get the most urgent and ones that require more work first out of the way before tackling the easier jobs.

Most of the time the working environment is relaxed, airy with a music in the background, people with a down-to-earth friendly attitude also does contribute to the day going quickly without feeling the pressure of the work but still being able to keep to the deadline.

For me the hardest part of the job is having to wait for jobs to be signed off when facing a tight deadline. Once the job has been presented, it is no longer within my control - so waiting on the other party is always the challenge as changes can be made in the last min.

The most enjoyable part is to be able to complete a job well before the deadline is up. Once approved I can look forward to the next job and get started. Being kept busy is good after all I do this job because I love it and enjoy working with images.

the pay is decent, but they don't give out contracts of more than 8-12 hours for most sales advisors, then still expect overtime (essentially mandatory) despite refusing to increase your contracted hours.  obvs depending on your manager, it can be a fun or a terrible job. I almost never get to try the products tho i know some managers are much more generous with this. Management in head office are totally out of touch, they set arbitrary too-high targets for sales, ATV and loyalty scheme sign-ups/transactions. When I started working here I got two weeks of 'training' in a different store, where i wasn't really trained at all and was forced to sit through hours of pointless online learning about how great the company is and how wonderful Angus Thirlwell is. Management prioritise targets, pestering customers and 'looking good' to actually providing good customer service that people actually want. I am also expected to act as a security guard particularly when sole trading or working with just one other person  (which is the majority of the time), as shoplifting is a problem and sales advisors are expected to help prevent it and to 'be vocal' and try to stop shoplifters - i have been sworn at, pushed and threatened by shoplifters as a result of this policy. 

It's an ok place to work depending on your manager, but the longer i stay here the more these smaller things build up to paint a bigger picture of a company that doesn't give a 'ship' about its lowest employees and expects you to work a lot harder than they pay you to. 

This is a good first job especially for those who are looking to work less hours for a short period of time. The overall environment with fellow workers is good most of the time, along with some perks (the same pay for all age groups, staff discount, first dibs at sale stock etc). 

Management however is unpleasant and set unrealistic goals causing unnecessary pressure. Extensive product knowledge is expected no matter how new you are and you will be told off repeatedly if you show any signs of knowledge gap, some of which only comes with time. The pressure to gain product knowledge in such a short amount of time can become stressful.

Often there’s little to no room for mistakes as you will get ‘shut down’ by snarky supervisors who despite working for years feel pride in bullying new sales assistants to climb the rankings of the store manager. Store managers will watch your interactions like a hawk and the second you change the ‘script’ (stop upselling, talking in a natural tone instead of the fake overly excited ‘customer service’ voice management expect from you for your full shift) you get blamed for ‘driving customers away’ and get given a verbal warning. 
  
The job overall is heavily dependent on the staff and especially the management present. As I’ve seen in a few local stores the sales staff is polite and great in general. The good staff does not mask the terrible management and there should be more steps taken to ensure management is up to par. 

When I first started it was a great place to work all the staff I visited in stores were professional and were never a problem.
That was the same as the staff in headoffice and the London office all the staff were friendly and professional.
Then it all changed when the company when the company sold some shares the management structure changed but not in a good way.
They employed manages that can talk the talk but could not do the walk.
I was asked to train the new manager in her role after the chose to hire from outside the company and I was not even a manager.
 I was just one of the two maintenance persons that had to look after all the shops and cafes and head offices.
They had no idea on times from one store to the next I was once told it’s only a cm on a map between one store and the next. 
That cm on a map was 70mils on the road.
I would spend 3-4h driving to one shop to Change a light bulb and then 3-4h back if you asked if there was any jobs on the way back it was generally a no.
Once you back you get an email asking if you can go to a store you had passed 2h ago.
No organisation skills at all.
I was treated so little when the company changed.
They have much to learn.

The owners peter and Agnes are great people
To talk to they always make time to listen.

A typical day at work was a Team meeting at the beginning of each and every day, setting up shop and finishing off jobs we'd left the night before if there was any. 
We would then open the shop and if it was a busy day we would stay in our sections of the shop. 
The store was highly focused on customer service and would expect you to always ask the customer the right questions on the floor and while the customer is purchasing the product. 
I felt the management and my co workers were always listening to what I was saying to my customers in the first few months which was quite off putting and made me feel very uneasy.
They would take me to a corner or ask me to the office and keep telling me what I am doing wrong - I never felt they had time for constructive compliments it was always negative feedback. 
They would always show me a list of there Top employees , Star of the week and go on about how wonderful they are and it wasn't very fair on the other staff who had only been working there a short amount of time... 

The most enjoyable part of the job was learning about Chocolate and what ingredient's, how much sugars, etc they use, as the store sells a lot of diabetic chocolate we had much more of a variety of customers.
I felt like I was more at Chocolate school.

There’s no time off from the job, with a facebook page constantly sending notifications from management, with the expectation to read and respond as soon as possible. Management have bullied many people out of the job, with little regard for mental health, managers will also chose their own personal friendships over the well being of their team. Staff are utterly expendable, with staff members who have worked for the company for many years being disregarded. Staff members are expected to pick up many of the managerial tasks, whilst not receiving extra pay, whilst managers receive promotions and pay rises. The job is incredibly fast paced and management never train up new starts, with the expectation of other staff members to train them, particularly on the cafe. If you’re wanting to apply as a christmas temp I would recommend against it, as the manager will constantly belittle you and talk behind your back that you don’t know how to do the job, despite them not training you up. Very little reward for what at sometimes can be a very stressful job. It’s a shame because the company it’s self is a good company to work for, fair pay, good discounts, good ethics, however this branch in particular has many issues, rooted in management.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Sales advisor 612 salaries reported	£13.08 per hour
Assistant store manager 19 salaries reported	£27,934 per year
Store manager 3 salaries reported	£31,860 per year
Machine operator 13 salaries reported	£33,727 per year
Stocking associate 21 salaries reported	£13.07 per hour

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