retail advisor

sales executive

sales advisor

store manager

assistant store manager

Oak Furniture Land

Seriously....Do NOT go there!
Absolute and truly terrible company to work for! Am not some fresh kid just learning, I have over twenty years very successful, and otherwise happy, experience working in the high KPI furniture retail industry.
I have never run from a challenge, but this company sets outrageous targets for their staff which increase at an alarming rate. These targets are not realistic and as close to impossible to reach as you can get!
They claim to offer support to staff members who struggle to achieve set targets, but you are merely pulled into the managers office for "a word". Then should you fail to beat your next target, you are through the door!
I have never witnessed such a revolving door in staff within a company in all my time!
As for "team"....forget it! Can not fault the commission possible to earn, but because everyone is panicking over their targets, everyone is tripping over each other and stabbing each other in the back as soon as a potential customer walks through the door! There is NO team!
Customers are literally hounded to death and customer service does not exist!
They advertise "free delivery" but this is only if the customer is willing to wait eight weeks for their order despite it being in stock!
If they want it within the next few days then they have to pay, and it is not cheap!
God forbid and be prepared to be jumped on from a great height if you do not get that delivery charge added onto the order!
Plus the warranty, plus the furniture wax, plus the care package......
Finally, don't call in sick .....you will NOT be paid and find a dismissal letter in your post!
I noticed this job being advertised yet again and just laughed, but felt the need to also just make potential people applying for the position the type of environment they could be facing.
My advice.....stay away! Much nicer companies with much nicer people out there.

Unfortunately OFL are typical of a smaller business that grew to quickly. When I joined they were quite teh novice business and were making it up as they went along. Unfortunately, there business model has gone backwards.

For managers like myself they cut the bonus structure from a guaranteed percentage of delivered sales to a monthly bonus which was far too complicated and unattainable. People like me had their salary dropped.

Customers love the products but would always complain that we stopped doing the longer Interest free options and started to charge for finance by way of Low affordable finance. They also didnt believe the sales message as the prices rarely changed.

They have an extremely high turnover of staff both in management and sales due to no nonsense "get them out and get a new one in" mentality. The majority of coaching and training is done by the manager and the information on products are not readily available. I have been advised things have changed in the last 6 to 12 months with a training centre where they want their people to speak like robots and sell a certain way which takes away from the personal touch that I found so appealing when I joined.

The good news is they spend a lot of money on marketing so people do come through the door and the product is excellent. It can also be very rewarding for the sales teams who hit their numbers, sell the add ons and persuade customers onto the low affordable finance. Its not uncommon to see sales individuals make more money than the manager and sometimes substantially more.

If money is your only motivator as a sales person and you can deal with pressure, then OFL Is for you. If you are looking for a great working environment then bypass OFL.

Oak Furniture Land as a whole but especially Sheffield store is an absolutely amazing place to work - they pay you a basic salary which is much higher than an overall salary in some companies!!! You also get monthly commission based on your sales which is a lovely bonus after all the effort you put into your job, regional managers are amazing really supportive and lovely and management staff in the store want nothing more but to help you progress, they is plenty of opportunity to progress into management and the management really help by giving weekly reviews to ensure you do the best you can within the job to earn yourself a good living. The other staff are polite and helpful - it can occasionally get a little competitive but nothing at all like other sales job as the assistants still help each other out! The company pays you to have your birthday off, gives you extra rewards for commitment to the job and pays for an amazing Christmas party. The hours are normal retail hours to be expected, weekends and evenings but if you are happy with this it is brilliant. While working here I went through a family situation that required a lot of support - I got phone calls and supportive texts from management and they gave me the time off and support I needed through this welcoming me back with open arms - I have never ever worked for a better company and I hope oak furniture land prospers for many many many years - the owner Jason Bannister, the regional managers and store managers should be very proud of this amazing company.

I worked sales Executive at Oak Furnitureland. think please 2 times before you  go. Staff they dont want another person in team because if store takes 300.000 pounds will be share 4 people (some percentage ) if you are 5th person than 300.000 divided 5 people , they dont want this happens to, so what they do , they bully all the time, and put nails on your car tyres to make you trouble all the time,I have to change 2 times my car tyres because of nails. after i start looking on the floor where i park my car behind of the store, i find everyday few nails front or back of my car .  when explain to the store manager , he only laugh for this situation.
sale  specialist  they take your customers away, because they think you cannot close the sale , so some one middle of conversation 
 between you and customer, someone jump on the conversation  and in interrupt. you and your customer...  and you feel like very down on the sale. (after they laugh to you ) kind of bully again , making a fun with you . 
you know what I love the work there but staff and manager , they like hunter, money hunter , why? because money involve , you get good percentage when you sell good staff with loan.
i did fed up how team players act me piece of . last day I did get lot of abuse from one team member , and duty manager ,she abuse me as well and than they said we will complain now to head office because you abuse me. did you get me what I am saying? they do plans and trick to how they can get rid of company. 
please think twice , I had big stress and up set everyday going to work this abuse bully people . its shame , big shame of company .

Oakfurnitureland was a great place to work for money hungry individuals. The long hours (9am-8pm), working every weekend and bank holiday were always accepted as even an average person could make £30K+; most people could make much more if you were even half good at sales. 
The middle of last year (2018) everything changed when the company started struggling, they created a new commission structure which of course was advertised as better for the sales people (no-one bought that as everyone knew the company was struggling) where they increased the targets and more than halved the commission. That being said if you were an exceptional sales person and managed to hit your targets you would earn a lot more but to do this you cannot sell honestly, it is almost expected that you miss-sell within the company. 
They lost a lot of very good sales people because of this new structure and the old school bully boy tactics of the regional managers really came to fruition (understandably they were under pressure as well). 
It is a very tough job, you get very little work-life balance and a lot is expected of you, when you could earn £40K that's OK; when suddenly you're earning £20-£25K there is no initiative to stay.

Typical job day would involve ensuring the store looks tidy and is maintained. Weekend starts usually involve negative comments and focussing more on what's not been done ads opposed to what has.

Focus each day is fully on sales and the add-ons. A sale is not considered decent unless it has the Extended Warranty and an Express Delivery which you are constantly hounded about.

The Sales culture here is such that a person can be top of the sales league by having 2 sales with both add-ons making them 100% and therefore lauded, yet someone with ten times the amount of sales and yet less add-ons will be way down the list and considered in need of training.

No one I worked with had any love or faith in the company and most people fear for their jobs on a day to day basis. 

Upper management seem to think it a good idea to hire regional managers who have absolutely no experience of selling on the shop floor and do not understand the intricacies involved in closing deals, opting instead for painfully unfunny and condescending emails that they vomit forth on practically an hourly basis.

Shame, really, as a few years ago it was ok and reasonably fun,yet the recent Draconian stance seems to be squeeze and squeeze the sales people and keep them scared and down.

Do not do it ! I was in high profile sales , and sales management for 20 yrs. The bullying and threats from management , at store level , regional level and above is terrible .  You are basically instructed to lie to customers over price , finance , insurance etc . You have to achieve ridiculous sales figures and KPIs . Commission structure is so complex its impossible to keep track of , and you often don't get commission for months after the sale .  Its a fear culture , and goes against the first basic rule of selling build rapport and trust . You will lie to customers every day , the store manager follows you round the store to listen in on your conversations , and you have a massive script you have to give to every customer on quality , delivery , guarantees ,  and finance … you have to be word perfect . You also have to take it in turns to sell to customers so if there are 5 staff on , it can be a long wait , if its not a good enquiry , you go to the back of the queue , if you sell something you go back to the front . So if the sales people in front of you have some return business its possible on quite day not to speak to many people . You also have to keep a log of every customer interaction , and the outcome , and transfer it to a book each day . You will work ridiculously  long hours , no overtime , open up to 1 hour early on Sunday mornings . shocking place !

What is the best part of working at the company?
Nothing at all this company is one of the worst company’s  I have ever worked for !!

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful thing about working here was they are constantly behind on their delivery slots for the customers whilst not informing them so when it comes to arriving at their houses the customers are fuming and you have to deal with frustration from the customer.
As a big company I expected better things from them but honestly do not get a job here !!

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Absolutely terrible the management have no clue what they’re doing with regards to organisation.
You will be told to get on shift for example 13:00 then be expected to wait 2 hours for a van to return and as for the staff not all of them are bad but most of them seem unhappy in their job so the work environment is very negative 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Stressful to say the least , you have to wait around a lot of the time for vans to return to the depot.
You then sometimes get put with people that are either inexperienced in completing the simplest of tasks or can’t lift anything heavy

Worked at Oak Furniture land for one year and a half. I started off with no training, front line managers are all mates and have been for years, you'll only get promoted if you're in with the crowd. The managers all cover for each other and will throw you in the deep end and lie about you. There's pretty much no health and safety in the warehouse, the health and safety department has no clue about H&S law, hire and fire culture the same with its stock stack it high and sell it cheap, very poor quality and wood cracked as not left long enough to dry. NOT SOLID WOOD!! Most of the items are infact veneer wood. 30 min break, the company wants more and more out of you until you make a mistake and they kick you out the door. The Warehouse manager is just 24 years old, and all his mates are under him. The only good thing is the people who work there, the warehouse ops and drivers. Avoid this company like the plague.

Contracted for 8 hour days, but expected to work until whenever for no further reward. 55 hour weeks are normal. They refuse to pay sick pay, even for work place injuries. 2 man lifting teams for everything from a 20kg bedside cabinet to a 160kg wardrobe.
Vehicles overloaded and badly loaded daily; management get around the weight limits by printing false weights on the paperwork. For example, the Hercules table top used to weigh 140kg but dropped to 100kg o/n. 
2 man team will carry up to 2.5 tonnes each day, but not all teams will be treated equally. The same staff will scream, "I int f'in doing that" if there's anything that involves effort, and the morning Tot Manager will shift that job onto another, unsuspecting team. Anything to ensure that he has an easy life.
Badly loaded vehicles will be justified by the O Licence holder because the warehouse/loading staff are on minimum wage, so it's not their fault. 
Vehicle tail lifts either don't work or are locked, meaning that all of the loads have to be handballed onto or off the vehicle, (Remember the 160kg wardrobe)!


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