store manager

multi-site property manager

retail store manager

retail sales associate

deputy manager

McColls Retail Group

I started at McColl's as a Sales Assistant, as I was desperate and it was the only suitable job that came up. I worked hard and I was promoted to a Supervisor.

A typical day at work for me involves:

Planning and leading the shift (I am usually the most senior member of staff on shift).

Serving customers when there is a queue. Sometimes I cover the till, so I can give the Sales Assistants a break from being on the till all day and get them to do something else, as they tend to get bored serving for hours at a time. I don't have to do that but I know what it's like and a good leader should be able to empathise with their team.

Banking, safe checks, cashing up.

Receiving deliveries.

Opening/closing the store as a key holder.

Trained to use the Post Office.

Deal with any queries that Sales Assistants escalate.

Not an exhaustive list.

As a Supervisor, I have been able to develop my leadership skills. I am grateful for the opportunity to gain this level of experience, as it will prove useful in my career.

However, McColl's are not a great company to work for (at least at my level). Sales Assistants are on minimum wage. As a Supervisor, you would be correct in assuming that I earn more per hour but I only earn 15p more per hour than a Sales Assistant. 15 pence. Let that sink in. The role of a Sales Assistant is to serve customers, stock shelves and clean once in a while. Compare that to the list above and tell me that 15p more per hour is fair. I am over 25, so that's £7.35 per hour. The minimum wage for over 25's is £7.20.

To put that into perspective, if a Sales Assistant and I work 40 hours a week, I will only be £6 better off than them and that's before tax. I can't say I feel adequately rewarded for the work I do. Can you blame me? 

I have seen Sales Assistant and Customer Service Advisor jobs that pay significantly more than what I am on and they are less senior than I am. It's crazy.

I work anywhere between 5 in the morning and 11 at night. At least that's the theory, as for Saturdays you have to get in earlier in order to have enough time to do everything before the shop opens (even my Manager has to do that) and you won't get paid for it. As the shop closes at 11, you are never out by 11, as you have to cash up, etc. Of course you can't do that until you have closed the shop. Expect to be out by 11:15 - 11:30 on average. Oh, and you'll only get paid until 11, so McColl's actually get free work out of you, just for you doing a part of your job which is crucial to running the shop. Totally not a rip off. Honest.

My social life is patchy at best, especially as I work virtually every weekend. I have had to ask repeatedly to work less weekends, especially as there are enough staff to cover weekends. When I started working for the company, I was told that I would not have to work weekends. As someone with a family, this really appealed to me.

This is where politics comes into play. An individual I work with is more than capable of opening and closing the shop on a weekend but due to questionable childcare arrangements for a child who is not their own, they never have to work weekends. Meanwhile, I HAVE multiple children and I have to work most weekends. There is no way I can refuse to work them. I do not see how that is fair, especially as I cover virtually every shift asked of me (which happens every week), far beyond my contracted hours,

The benefits are laughable. We get a 10% discount in the shop but the prices on most products are so ridiculously high, that even customers complain and I am actually financially better off shopping at Tesco or Morrisons with no discount at all! Unfortunately we are the only game in town for some customers, so they have to keep on getting gouged by the company. As a professional I don't comment when the customers mention it but objectively speaking, they are right. Fair play to McColl's for forcing them into that position. As a solely profit driven company, they are doing the right thing. We get a standard, not so good pension scheme. Yay. Annual leave is minimal.

We get no company sick pay, only the legal minimum. I have had a grand total of two days off in well over a year due to illness and I have not been paid for them. Things like that make me feel like they don't care.

McColl's are understandably very profit driven but the lack of empathy and compassion towards members of staff that are lower on the hierarchy is obvious to say the least. I haven't checked this site but I have seen reviews left by Area and Regional Managers on other sites and I can see that the training, benefits and company culture for them are fantastic. It says a lot about where their priorities lie.

I will give my Manager credit where it is due, they are a great person, fun to be around and although the official company training at my level is non existent beyond legal stuff (Deputy Managers and above get actual aid, such as training workbooks, etc from the company), they have done their best to train me as much as they can and is always willing to answer any questions I have and provide feedback. I feel that I am very competent in my role and I have my Manager to thank for it.

I am lucky enough to work in a very friendly place and the customers are amazing. They are very friendly and always up for a good chat if there is time. You get some idiots every now and then, especially at night but it's nothing I can't handle.

I am on a first name basis with many of our customers, I am frequently complimented by them for my outstanding customer service skills and my Manager is constantly told the same by them. If it wasn't for the customers and the professional experience I am gaining, I would have left a long time ago.

If you are a Sales Assistant, or Supervisor reading this, I suggest you consider another company who will pay you more than the minimum wage/15p above minimum wage, especially if you're only going to do the same job anyway. Even Deputy Managers earn below what many other companies pay. There are many companies out there who are much more pro staff and have the benefits/actions to prove it. Ignore all of the PR stuff, the well worded adverts, etc and really look at what a company can do for you. Personally I am already looking for another job, as I know I am worth more. You are too. Good luck.

A typical day can revolve round many things, including the willingness of the people that you do - and can - work with!  I had learned that both the avenues of patience, humour and tact are valued things in such a place. But also comes the instict of serving individual communities and since I'm dealing with two seperate places. I thought that I'd split it into two days, the first day I worked at Keynsham and the first day I worked in Brislington.

My first day at Keynsham, was a eye-opener to me, for the small Newsagency of Martins in Queens Road in Keynsham was a stunner to me, an older customer had a penchant of lighthearted mischief towards the Post Office staff inside those premises that was - for me, at least - (And for lack of a better term) gobsmacking! Even today, it still leaves me amazed and astonished, but it was a good way to begin working for Martin McColls, for I develloped the technique of balance, and this trait, I believe is a positive one that I have learned.

I had one bumpy time - with a hold up at the Keynsham store, but I gained a lot of credit for saying that we were there to serve the community and that was the first priority for me, and my co-workers got on well with me, and those who held up the store? Well I can say that these individuals were caught by A&S Police at Chew Magna and given between 14 months to 5 years at Her Majesty's pleasure!

The most enjoyable aspect was the people I got to meet and to know and in both these instances that's half the battle won if you can devellop a functioning balanced relationship with both staff and customers at the same time.

Coming to my first day at the McColls store in Brislington! I started there as I meant to go on! Devellopping those skills of customer service further and also with interstaff relations as well.  I also became aware of what you can joke at first - by saying that given a chance, I would throw a shop thief out of the premises  turned out to be a unfortunate reality, only 10 weeks after starting in the Brislington store, from December 2008 - What I had said in jest, turned out to be the uncomfortable fact, I ended up throwing out a shop thief, after he tried to steal a 6 pack of Stella Artois lager! It caused me a great deal of lateral disquiet over the following months after that..  I resolved NEVER to do that again, on the point once you can be lucky, a second time, you might not be as lucky, and there's - always the point of repetition can be a greater risk.

I was lucky to have a good relationship with the local and area managers of the company, and even to the point of even sharing times of sadness when one manager that I had known, sadly passed away in 2011. 

Suffice to the saying - I - thoroughly - enjoyed my time there in both instances.  And it would be splendid if I could replicate that with Lidl if possible to do so.

The staff were lovely. Me and one of the other staff would swap shoes.

The hours were a bit depressing (since the new manager started) because if you clocked in early you wouldn't be paid and we'd always (if doing an evening shift) finish past 10 yet we'd not get paid overtime so we'd only get paid for the rota hours. Some Tasks seemed a bit silly to me due to who would be in . One of the most silly tasks that was asked of the sales assistant to do in the morning(some mornings it was 2 sales assistant in) was pi counts but they are impossible to do on some mornings as its two sales assistants in and opening up
And the only way to do many of the morning tasks is by knowing the manager/supervisor password it is technically a sackable offence.
Then if you're in in the afternoon/evenings shift and you do everything you can for that time (as according to the list of things we have to do) then you have to pull forward or put out stock but sometimes that's impossible as there is sometimes no room for stock to go out and you may have already pulled stock forward. But according to the list of things we have to do) then you have to pull forward or put out stock but sometimes that's impossible as there is sometimes no room for stock to go out and you may have already pulled stock forward. But you can't stand around doing nothing or you get in trouble for that. Then at times the shop is so quiet due to no customers coming in you get so bored.
On another note the shops falling apart as on one shift the screens for one of the tills fell over due to it not being screwed into the table (as of writing this it's still got missing screws) then at times our tills are so slow that paypoint will cause both tills to freeze and crash meaning while we restart the tills we can't server people.

However I was recently let go and was supposed to have multiple meetings regarding me being let go. So once I was told I was sent home being told by the manager the meeting would be on "Thursday daytime" so I messaged the manager on the Thursday when the meeting should have happened and was told it was moved to the following week. So I didn't hear anything on that Thursday so I messaged the manager after being removed from the WhatsApp group and asked what was going. She said did I receive a letter I told her I didn't and didn't know what was going on. She left me on read I tried talking to the deputy manager she just told me talk to the manager. Anyway I received a letter 2 days after the meeting should have happened with the date the meeting was on. Then this week I received a letter claiming I had poor communication with the manager even though she never told me when the meeting would be other than Thursday daytime. Also I did try and communicate but just got left on read. 

Overall the pay isn't great some stuff that's expected of staff is impossible to do and at least all the staff are lovely

Because it is a local convenience store, Its very easy to form a genuine friendship with the customers.The majority of my regular customers were all interested in my college course and what my goals for life are. This definitely brings the job life and excitement. You really never know who your going to see from day to day. I am also entitled to a 10% in store discount which is always beneficial. There is always something different to do at work which in which tasks vary on daily basis. If the post office or the shop is busy your going to be focused on preventing a Que, but if the shop wasn't busy you could be doing anything from filling up shelves to cleaning or making the till front look presentable. I definitely have to say the job isn't boring. it also has a varied shift pattern which is always good. this gives the potential to offer loads of hours. my personal longest shift being from 5am in the morning til 4pm in the afternoon. The downfall of the job is the progression route is a bit limited. So i can go from the cash assistant at the bottom to store supervisor then finally to management. once you hit management there's not much else left to progress onto.

This job has definitely helped me to improve my people skills and on how to handle a wide range of different situations for customers. whether it be an upset customer or an angry one.

Management is always there to support you. i have made very good bonds with some of the management team. they are also available to help you if you have any problem unrelated to work and you want some advice. They always have an understanding if you cant make it into work for any possible reason.

I always usually only work with one other person and the manager. its not very often that we have all have a shift that integrates with each other. but if a job needs doing we all work as a team to complete the job. We definitely all put helpful and constructive ideas forward for group meetings. If i'm ever unsure of what to do i can call up a co worker if my manager is not available and they are always helpful in whatever way they can be. 

The hardest part of my job is learning the post office rules and regulations. I undertook the role of the post office in May 2014 and i am still learning new things 7 months later. The sizes for what a parcel is considered changes all the time so that means i have to be extra sure that i am definitely sending the right postage stamps/labels on the right parcel/letters.

The most enjoyable part of the job is meeting new people everyday. i love making new friends or even just a customer telling me something that's happening in there life right now, or a past experience. This has definitely been my highlight of working for McColls.

I worked as a Sales Supervisor for 2 years, I was told it was a part time job, 17 hours a week. I was in my final year of university at the time so this would have been perfect. However, I never did just 17 hours. My first year I worked an average 25-30 hours a week, we were understaffed and due to staff being off sick I was made to do overtime, I wasn't given a choice. This made it extremely difficult to complete my degree, and resulted with me leaving for 3 months to ensure I passed as I was on the road to failing. During my first year I did not have a weekend off, unless I booked it off, so be prepared to have no social life. 

Returning to work after completing my degree I was working an average 30 hours a week, this was fine as I had completed my degree and was happy to be earning extra money. However, again we had staff sickness, including our manager for 3 months. Over these 3 months there was just me and my other supervisor, we worked an average 52 hours a week with one day off! This often included 2 x 12 hours shifts a week and working with people from other shops, unfortunately the people they sent to 'help' left the shop a mess and made it more difficult for me and my team members to deal with. Breaks were only introduced late into 2019, before then we didn't get any. Working a 12 hour shift you now get a full 30 minutes...how generous of them!! Be prepared to work through your breaks, most of the time the shop became too busy to leave one member of staff and you just end up having to not have  a break at all. 

 I ended up handing in my notice as I never got to see my family, or have any sort of social life. Head Office and senior management were extremely ungrateful for the amount of work you put in, they treat you like a number and do not care about your mental health or personal life. 

Be prepared to work alone for the majority of your shifts, this will usually be from 0600-1000 or 1600-1830 depending on the shop you apply to. It is hard work but once you get into the flow of things it becomes easy to organise yourself. Again, head off and senior management do not care for you- we had an armed robbery and were still made to work alone on the morning and evenings despite being shaken. McColls priority is money and nothing else. If you want to feel valued then I would suggest you stay away from McColls. 

Side note- after working 2 years they did not provide me with a reference. This is unhelpful when trying to apply to other jobs. 

Luckily, the people I worked with and my manager were lovely and I enjoyed working with them. It is a shame that head office treat all staff like trash. 

I worked for Mccols for12 years from Paperboy to Manager, a route a fair few people took in that company, now I am 2 years removed from my time thier and my anger has gone I feel I can write a fair review. From a personal standpoint I loved my shop and the people in it and around it, we were a family and loved to work together and as I had been the the same shop for a decade day in and day out I was a part of the local community and people would come in just to say hello, what more could you want from a job, working with people who become friends? 

the problem is the culture above that, before 2011 Mccolls was ran pretty well in a nice atmosphere, but when it became a corparate stock holding machine things rapidly changed. Anyone who worked in Bristol will know a cartain area manager who was loved and respected and after he became ill the following managers only cared about 'how can we catch our staff out'. After most stores took over the post office in 2015 and 16 it was followed by massive cuts in hours to save money and making most managers have to work 60-80 hours to do their jobs, it was becoming impossible, and all for 21k. I now do the same job for a different company on 5k more with less stress and anger and unrealistic targets. Further to this the internal politics are ridiculous to the extreme, every area manager has thier favourite who will go around and to other managers to look good and push them selves forward for the next area manager acadamy, which is always fun when you have 2 satff off sick are working 80-90 hours and falling asleep in your office but are deemed to be doing a poor job (I saw this many many times). 

Mccolls are regulalry targeted for thefts, which the company is aware off, but lone working is often compulsary, you will be set targets that you cannot meet, have area managers talk to you like dirt, and then the post office area come in and do the same. Staff morale is regualrly low over the last few years due to the constraints on hours and how much you have to do, which means the turnover is huge, very few people stay longer than a year unless they have to. 

It is sad that I ended up disliking a company that I spent my youth working for and would have worked their for my career, but it is not a people company, as a manager you are expected to give up any life you have for little pay and be grateful they gave you a job, which you will come to hate rapdily. I loved this company, I would not reccomend anyone gets a managers job with them, the only condition I would apply is, if you are a deputy their or supervisor take the job, do a year to get it on your CV and get out.

Worked for McColls in their Post Office, initially as a counter clerk but promoted to manager after 5 months.
The actual job itself was actually quite enjoyable. Our customers were brilliant and very understanding when it was busy. We got to know our pensioners, and even made a point of remembering their names and how they like their cash.  I had good staff who worked hard and we still are good friends now. It is however extremely underpaid for the job load expected of you, and the area managers are not the best. Ours was but she left and everything went downhill then.
I was responsible for the combi counter on the shop floor which was open when we were closed (so when I wasn’t even there). The poor shop staff got nowhere near enough training to be able to use it properly (upper management fault sadly) and there was weekly, sometimes daily issues there. I actually left my mobile number with that unit so if they ever did feel like they weren’t sure of anything they could just call me (not required of the job but it saved me a lot of headaches of sorting out things if done wrong).
We were always lone working in the main PO and it was so so hard. At Christmas they did give us some extra hours but nowhere near enough. I found myself in there on days off unpaid just to help out (purely because I actually cared about my staff and didn’t want them to feel stressed out). 
I stood up for my branch massively. Upper management used to say we didn’t sell enough PO products, but we didn’t know how. Told them that we needed training and it never happened. We had our regular postal customers and banking customers and keeping them coming to the branch was my priority. We rarely got opportunity to sell anything extra as everyone was coming in for the same thing every time! 
As it was my first managerial role, I did learn loads and got a good deal of experience. I left as I was pregnant, and McColls refused to pay my Stat Maternity Pay. Pay itself was never right, I encouraged the staff to make a note of how many hours they did and compare to their payslips and there was honestly never a month where pay was right. 
I would probably have gone back after having my baby as I did love the job, but by the time she was born my staff had also left due to stress and they’ve now closed the branch because they couldn’t keep the staff! Says it all I think!

How would I describe working here simple answer long. Why well this is because sometimes you may start a shift at 2 pm won't finish till after 10 pm but the manager won't let you leave and the sales assistants don't get paid for staying after 10 pm (we used to before the new manager came) they now only get paid for their hours on the rota.  
Another issue that is common in our and seemingly other stores is that unless we threaten legal action management won't send someone to fix broken stuff in our store meaning we have had broken locks on our back door witch previously lead to theft from the store.
One thing the management in the store hate is you standing around doing nothing but on some occasions, there may be nothing to do or on other occasions, there may only be you on the shop floor while a supervisor/ manager  is out back doing things meaning you cant get things you need to complete the tasks you are asked to do as you can't leave the shop floor unattended.
sometimes you may be doing a 2 pm till 10 pm shift and then expected in at 7 am the following day when on some occasions you may not get out of the store until 10:30 pm and they have unrealistic expectations of you being wide awake when you could still be shattered from the night before and may take longer to do tasks. 

also, it seems some morning shifts are silly. This is because they get two sales assistants in (one gets in at 6 am and other in at 7am ) but what they expect you to be doing is physically impossible as it is stuff a supervisor or manager should be doing.  as the sales assistant cant do those tasks on there till logins, as they don't, have access/privileges to the tasks (for example pi count)  so to do it they have to break company policy by using a manager/ supervisors log in to do the tasks. since they have used the logins that should technically be instant dismissal but it isn't but any other time you use someone else's login it is dismissal. Therefore I feel like a manager or supervisor should be in, in the mornings.

also, I recommend going around the store looking at the prices of the products as on the till they could be cheaper or more expensive than what is listed on the shelf. 

overall the sales assistant and supervisors  are the loveliest people and  the managers expect too and don't pay the sales assistants  past 10 yet 
they are usually in past 10 pm  (due to counting the tills ) 

Oh and according to our customers the manager ''doesn't seem to do a lot''

Worked for McColl's for 6 months and I can honestly say it was the worst 6 months of my life. If I could give a zero star rating I 100% would. This company will treat you like dirt the whole time you're there - I was paid minimum wage for slaving away, doing shifts such as 2-11pm and only offered 1/2 hour break, unpaid, but if you smoke you're in luck because you can take frequent breaks to have a cigarette, no questions asked! If you are doing a closing shift 9 times out of 10 you will be forced to stay behind to clean up the mess the customers made and you will not be paid for the time you spent trying to fix the store, unless you stayed behind for a full hour (most of the time you won't). Many times I found fresh & frozen stuff thrown back onto a shelf, which had to be written off as we could not possibly sell it again, and we also had to deal with thousands of pounds of stock lost every month due to it being stolen because a lot of the time we were stuck behind the tills and were completely unable to do anything about the thieves. We were lucky to have security because most stores don't even get that! You get zero benefits except for a measly 10% staff discount. Area manager was very two-faced, she seemed to listen to my concerns about working there fine, but I saw her treat one of the supervisors abysmally and tore up his two week notice when he tried to leave, essentially holding him hostage! She treated the other supervisor fine, I'm convinced she only did that because they became a complete suck up to her. Expect to get paid wrong some months as well, because if your manager logs your hours wrongly on the system you will not be paid for what you worked and you will need to wait until next month to get paid for any missed hours. I ended up being paid about £375 in a whole month due to this. There was even an incident where a bloke set off a firework inside the store and I had to give a statement to the police - don't expect much safety or protection with this company. To be honest they need to take the "caring & compassionate" out of their image you see when you click on their page here because they are neither!

The one saving grace of this job was that most of my colleagues were tolerable, however that is the only good thing I have to say. 

TL;DR - if you work for this company, expect bad pay, maltreatment, no social life and misery. 

Unless you are absolutely desperate, I will say it again - DO NOT WORK FOR THIS COMPANY.

I will start by saying that the people I worked with were all pleasant and relatively easy to work with. They were sociable and helpful whenever I asked questions. This made my time with McColl's bareable.

There is clearly, however, some major issues with the way in which this store ran. Employees were regularly expected to do up to 50-60 hours in a week to cover for lack of staff. This would be somewhat understandable if it rarely happened, but it seemed to be a weekly occurrence. I suspect this was an issue with McColl's as a company rather than this specific branch. Perhaps the store only had a budget to employ 6 or 7 staff when they really needed 10 or 11.

Another major increase on the work load at this particular branch was due to it being a post office branch too. I'm not entirely sure if this extra work was optional or not, but it required extra training and meant a considerably increased workload - especially at peak times such as Christmas. Often employees were stuck serving on the post office for hours at a time which resulted on the retail work (ie replenishing stock) being missed out. Again, not the employees' fault - they all worked hard to keep up. As well as this, there was no pay increase whatsoever for this increased workload, increased stress and increased responsibility. I'm not quite sure why McColl's would agree to having a post office in their store when it brings no benefit.

It was common to have no official break whilst on shift here. This was completely normalised which I felt uncomfortable with when I began work here. The people working here deserve regular, scheduled breaks whenever on shift - no exceptions - they work hard enough.
Regular breaks did not happen as the workload was too great, deliveries, replenishing stock, serving customers, placing orders all seemed to be prioritised over the welfare of the employees here. It was really angering to see.

McColl's seem to struggle with staff turnover and retention, perhaps they should consider paying more, increasing the benefits, distributing the workload fairly and caring about the people at the bottom propping this company up.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Store manager 17 salaries reported	£21,968 per year
Multi-site property manager 25 salaries reported	£24,756 per year
Retail store manager 3 salaries reported	£25,575 per year
Retail sales associate 4 salaries reported	£45,625 per year
Deputy manager 10 salaries reported	£351 per week

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