customer assistant

trade assistant

department manager

truck driver

order picker

Selco Builders Warehouse

I had to recently leave the Walthamstow branch as a HGV hiab Driver because of the BULLY of a manager.
He can not be TRUSTED.he must of been bullied at school.
He is new to this branch , and has no respect for his staff or people skills and its his way or no way.
I was there for two years and the last manger was a people's person, everyone respected him,his door was always open if you had a problem, he got stuck in with the work with the staff,  it was a pleasure to work for him.
the new BULLY manger, sits in his office and plays god with people,
he basically said to me in January when he started ''off the record, i think you should go home to your wife and think about resigning as I don't want you here''
unbelievable I know but'' I will decide when I leave not you'' I said,
his idea of making things better for drivers is,waiting two hours to get loaded in the morning, while that is happening your expected to sweep the yard, stack bags of cement ,wrap pallets etc etc,then the so called transport manager {his friend from another branch}he recently employed is 68 with one eye and cannot load lorrys, not his fault but he shouldn't be doing the job especially when he knows nothing about transport regulations, your forever asking him to move the stuff he wrongly put on your lorry, then when you finally get out about 8:30,the runs are so badly put together you end up all over the place, the yard can only handle 2 vehicles at a time, there are four vehicles trying to get in, plus the delivery vehicles get priority in the yard, so the battle everyday is to get in the yard and get loaded every day, then your expected to do at least 4 runs with about 4 deliveries on each run.
its push push  push all the time ,and that still isn't enough,while the little BULLY manger sits in his office watching you on the cctv. 
Health and safety is now very poor ,with pallets everywhere in the yard, rubbish on the floor, truing to send vehicles out overloaded, not giving the vehicles the correct equipment i.e. slings ,straps cones etc.,
parking at the branch is limited and will be worse when the double yellow lines go down outside in a couple of months. the mangers always get a space though, obviously.
you have to work all day Saturday and have Wednesday off in the week.,6:30-4:30 on a saturday, even if all your deliveries are done by 12 you have to help pick , sweep ,wrap ,clean ,etc etc.
your meant to finish at 4:30 in the week,you think you are then the witch of a sales manager (ks) shoves another delivery in your face,'one more she says' walking off cackling, and that delivery is usually back into London.
If you want a headache and stress every day then apply to work at selco Walthamstow, if you don't then work for selco but another branch were there run a lot better!!!!
I used to love my job at Walthamstow before the new little unapproachable manger took over, everyone here used to love it,
but I had to leave, and I am not alone, two other drivers have gone  ,one picker has gone off with depression and another one long term sick because of the so called new working environment.
I have tried to be as honest as I can here to warn other drivers as to not waste there time in this branch because of the branch manger, who puts his martial arts achievements on his office wall, sign of insecurity and look at me I am powerful I think, if you blew off he would probably fall over!!!
the staff {not the management}are the best part of the job, real friendly people, even the cleaner and security are top drawer!!but most of them do want to leave now as there forced to work every weekend,
shame on selco for employing the worst manager ever.


I wanted to leave it for 24hrs after exiting this company, before writing a review.
This is by no means, a bitter rant, it is an honest account of my experience within the company.

So, initially, I was drawn by the wage. 29k is a good wage for a class 2 driver.
Their speed at supplying relevant training, was impressive.
Forklift and side loader training within the first few weeks of starting. And my hiab refresher too.

All of which, was fake!!! It was impossible to fail. The answers to every written test, were either handed to you to fill in, or were read out to you.

At this point, alarm bells are ringing.

A nice gesture the company makes, is handing out “Rewards” to the group as a whole. Pizzas, doughnuts etc. None of which, I ever accepted, personal choice. I reward my pets with food treats....it just felt the same!!

“Some” staff are friendly and approachable. You always get the odd few that clearly have places in “deliverance” or “The hills have eyes”

The branch I was lumbered with, every second person was a manager!! Maybe giving them a position with a title, will encourage them to perform better? This clearly failed.

My original position was to be a driver out of a local hub. After visiting it, I’m glad to be out of the company. But good luck to anyone that ends up there.

Very quickly, I became demoralised. Staff slating each other....other staff slating the people I would have been working for.....it just ruined the whole experience.

One in a managerial position, couldn’t tell me the load capacity of the vehicle. Didn’t even know how to eject a tacho card!!

The area transport person, who has been driving trucks for the last 300yrs, told them it’s ok to attach ratchet straps, to rope hooks. Something DVSA frown upon.

I went to bed each night, dreading going to work the following day.
 Constant lies to customers. Drivers being blamed for branch mistakes.

We often waited 2hrs, for the truck to be loaded.
One poor guy, sat around for 3hrs, waiting to collect something from this particular branch.
It was a running joke among other drivers.  

For the record I “Failed the probationary period” 
Complete lack of trust/confidence in the company, contributed to this. My attitude towards them had long since left the building.
 
I witnessed an agency guy that was offered 10 weeks work, flee after only 2.
But hey, it could be exactly what you’re looking for. 
Go make up your own mind.....but make sure you have a back up plan....you’re going to need it!

A typical day at Selco is and should be target and goal orientated, we are driven to hit our objectives, which is to achieve budget daily, weekly, monthly and annually. By hitting these objectives we offer our colleagues job security and a smart target. Everyone in the store is involved and communicated to, we ensure that the targets are displayed for  all colleagues to see and this helps to see results and the fruits of our labour.

Selco has given me so much and taught me not only skills relatable to work but in life also. The management have always been fair and consistent with me as well as giving me the trust and confidence to express my ideas and bring them to life.
My branch and deputy manager have been fantastic role models showing me the skills needed to reach the top, they are cool under preasure and know the building industry extremely well through years of experience and live by the concept that retail is detail. 

The culture that you can find in our branch is a family environment, our colleagues help eachother and communicate to achieve results. The hardest part of the job is to keep everyone happy all of the time, it is a juggling act but as you would expect the interests of the company take priority and we try our best to listen to everyone. The most enjoyable part of the job is to see the evolution of some people who join and can barely identify a bag of cement and they transform into supervisors and managers who have great business minds and can bring alot to the table. 

To progress at Selco the opportunities are there you will need to demonstrate good attendance and reliability, a can do attitude, a good work ethic and teamspirit.

This has been a good company to work for on the whole and is great to gain a basic knowledge of products relating to the building industry.

A typical day as a shop floor assistant starts with completing safety checks on the FLT's, electric pump truck, saw mill and bailer, then it is our responsibility to fill any large products such as wooden sheets plasterboard etc that is running low.

For the remainder of the day we need to work any stock that arrives to the warehouse and help with any customer requirements, mix paint if required and maintain a clean and safe enviroment for our customers and staff.

I find the management very approachable and they always do a walk around the shopfloor in the morning and greet all members of staff and have a brief discussion with them to see how they have been out of work and listen to any opinions they have within work.

The workplace culture is generally very good and I find that I relate very well to people from all departments at all levels and people from other departments are aware of how well you work and share these findings with the management which is good for your personal development.

The hardest part of the job is that it can be physically demanding but it is still enjoyable as people do not let you deal with a heavy task on your own.

The most enjoyable part of the job is the relationships between all of the staff who are quite diverse with all of their personalities and interests but are all equally approachable and respectful of each other.

Firstly the company treat you well and pay a decent wage for class 2 hiab Drivers.
However if you have been in the building trade doing deliveries before, this can be a challenge to say the least.
I can only speak from the depot I ran out from, so the majority of the staff are Great, but unfortunately the transport and route planning is woeful. 
You would expect it to be run by people with transport/ logistics background but it isn't. 
So don't be surprised if your turn up on site and one of your colleagues is also there, or 100yds away.
I experienced loading issues on a Daily basis.
I mentioned the problems I was experiencing to the management but it would appear nothing was done about it because the problems just kept occuring. 
The same Drivers are expected to work late when ever the management decide, whilst some drivers NEVER work a minute over.
Some Drivers don't start till 07.00hrs, so if there is a loading issue in the morning it has a knock on effect, ie, you get out late, then hit rush hour traffic, get back late and not loaded for the next day when you knock off, and this happens on a Daily Basis.
If you don't mind banging your head against the wall, and mentioning the same problems over and over again then go for it.
To be fair, not all branches can be this bad, if they were then selco wouldn't exist. 
If it was ran by people who knew and understood the game it would be a great job, but unfortunately it is being ran by inadequate individuals who are treading water,
Hopefully they sink sooner rather than later.

Store, deputy and transport manager haven’t got a brain cell between them to organise daily deliveries, often you’d be delivering next door to where your colleague would be delivering. The attitude from the deputy and store manager is poor, they talk about mental health awareness etc but try and work you into the ground. The transport manager has never been in a driving role so delivery locations were all over the place rather than split into organised sections then shared between the drivers. No amount of work was good enough, and you were always made to feel like you needed to do more/made to feel guilty for having a day off even though we’d be working with 50% of a workforce due to ‘sickness’. 
Going back to the attitude from management, your hard work would never been acknowledged but critiqued, we’re told that the drivers decision is final but that’s thrown to the wind when it’s something to do with their favourite customers with drivers being spoken down to because they don’t want to risk damaging both company and customer property trying to fit into tight places. Customers would swear and belittle staff with a manager present without and form of defence or support for the staff. 

So in short, if you want to work with a great bunch of people, then it’s a good place to work. 

And if you want to be promised a bonus over and over and no receive one, but have those lies covered with a few slices of pizza then it’s also the place to be. 

Everyone talks and puts down everyone behind there back favouritism to certain staff unprofessional managers and L the supervisors joke doesent do anything except she like to put down management behind there backs then to there face acts all nice  no opinion on anything lazy sneaky weak character ..low pay long hours . People in higher positions lazy do nothing all day .priority on rotas to those who face fits .just a number. People do as they please
No one cares . Free uniform cafe great customers. Some perks on pension health care and occasional 
Bonus . Apart from that not much else to say you will be used to there advantage and tossed aside like piece of rubbish.typical day would be working non stop with lack of staff lack of management left to get on with it basically. Most enjoyable part was meeting some good people and looking forward to your shift coming to a end.you may get some training if your lucky.if your face fits everyone else does what the he'll they want going for cigarette or leaving other people to do more work which causes alot of friction also favourites get to cheat test trolleys by supervisor at weekends when she kmows no managers around. everyone else has to get on with it.only if your liked will you get on in there nasty click. No matter how hard you work or how much you help with overtime no thanks respect of any kind. Good hard workers forced to leave.

I’m not sure if it’s just the Beckton branch but I worked there for a good few years and it was absolutely horrible. I couldn’t take working there anymore so I left along with three or four other people. They have lost nearly 15 members of staff in a couple of months. Management is really poor trade desk manager or any manager from a different department didn’t care about there staffs wellbeing. They would give you massive piles of work expect you to get it done in a day and just saw the money coming in and not the effort we put in for to make that profit for the company. I can honestly say £8.45 was not worth all the work and stress they gave. Along with the messed up shifts from doing a late 11-8 to doing a 6-3 the next day, it took two or three managers to do one rota which they always ended up messing up iswell. Where as the managers always made sure there rota was right and that they had enough days off. Working six days one week then four the next day I felt like I had no life apart from work. Managers are rude and promise you things like promotions and going up a step but they don’t give it to you. Worst place I have worked at please do not join this branch and you will get used and abused to the fullest. Most of my colleagues were lovely will miss them but honestly a disgusting place to work at.

Having worked in the builders merchant industry for some 16 years as a class 2 HIAB driver.

Selco is badly managed down to the shop floor I know from past experience of 4 hours + to load the truck if you ask why taking so long have no staff mate!! or they picking it and this ends up being a 14 hour day due to the back log of work!

most branches have taken on eastern Europeans good luck to all you will need it!

I don't drive for a living no more my experience with a company like this got me to get my finger out and get out of that dead end industry! 

I work in car sales with 5 times the salary now and enjoy going to work unlike the selco show turn up at 0600 hours truck not loaded or truck damaged my bumper hanging off asked what happened?  oh I don't know mate!   can't you put some tape on it! 


I don't miss taking a 26 ton fully laden truck down stupid tight roads with 2 inches either side to spare and having customers screaming at me why is it late we ring the branch they don't answer the phone yes welcome to Selco they don't care

From my 16 years experience with builders merchants the best ones to work for are:

TP 
Jewsons 
Buildbase same company owns Selco but well run
Lawsons

former employee of Selco for 7 years and never never never again!!

A typical day at work would be arriving at 6.30am, setting my till up and serve customers throughout the day, If I wasn't doing that, I would be answering customers enquiries on the phone or putting stock out. I have learned better communication skills, customer service skills, how to be confident on the phone and how to communicate effectively with others. Sometimes I did feel like management had favourites and others, including myself were singled out and were made to feel no as 'important' and I think a lot could have been improved on as it was a store we did set up. The people who I worked with were very friendly and we all did bond really well with eachother, like we had known eachother for a long time which you don't always get in the workplace so it was very comfortable to work in that aspect. The hardest part of the job was learning the products, as it was a builders merchants and something I have never been involved in before, it was difficult to identify most of the products such as plasterboard etc..but as time went on I did learn them fairly quickly. The most enjoyable part of the job was being around nice and friendly people who made you feel welcome and were always there to help you.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Customer assistant 5 salaries reported	£12.40 per hour
Trade assistant 65 salaries reported	£13.77 per hour
Department manager 15 salaries reported	£28,275 per year
Truck driver 39 salaries reported	£17.12 per hour
Order picker 7 salaries reported	£13.06 per hour

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