branch manager

category manager

management trainee

warehouse worker

kitchen designer

Travis Perkins plc

Where do I begin? 
I started at Benchmarx Bristol in January of this year, no manager in place or assistant manager, so no one to train me or introduce me to the job role, a complete and utter mess. All of the regular customers had stopped using the store in favour of Howdens (very smart decision) because the previous manager (who hired me) jumped ship to another store and didn’t really care about leaving this store to burn as long as he was getting a fat pay check. 
2 weeks pass and finally! A manager and assistant manager get hired, but wait the assistant manager knows literally nothing about kitchens and doesn’t care to do her job, is constantly making mistakes and making the store look even worse. The manager is ex-howdens and only applied to be an assistant manager not a store manager so has zero experience of managing a store, has terrible customer service and severe anger issues, and to top it all off, upper management keep driving home the pressure to sell whilst offering absolutely zero support to all the new staff. The regional manager is a complete jobs worth, filling gaps rather than solving problems and it’s amazing how she can get the big bucks for doing absolutely nothing of any service to anybody.  It’ll be no surprise to you that the assistant manager left within a few months leaving me with just the manager who’d regularly text me late into the evening and with all of his personal issues and threatening to quit his job if I don’t hit a certain sale. Meanwhile the ex-manager is laughing all the way home, slating the new manager to anyone that will listen, and leaving me, the person he hired, to suffer. No surprises the manager hands in his notice right as another assistant manager comes on board, Who again isn’t offered much support and is pretty much left drowning at the deep end at the start of her employment (thank god she had her head screwed on and actually made the best of a bad situation, a mindset that Benchmarx had well and truly beaten out of me) 
In terms of customer service, it’s awful. Managers will promise the world and as soon as payment is made they’ll go back on it all. Drivers and warehouse men are pushed to the absolute limit with cramming deliveries to customers the same day the stock comes in, being made to deliver 3 to 5 kitchens in one day, as well as remedials and small orders and when they inevitable can’t hit that, fitters are left on site having wasted a days work when their delivery didn’t come, and who gets yelled at by the customer? The warehouse men and the drivers? And who’s fault is it? Well it’s certainly not them is it, but management still continue to play the same stupid game day in day out and wonder why no one wants to deal with them anymore? 
The hours are ridiculous, they expect you to work from 7:30 until 5pm every day, with work expected every other Saturday, but when all your customers are gone and there’s nothing to do except question what on earth you did in a previously life to end up here, it makes for a very long day. 
Commission structure is a joke, my manager showed me the list of all the kitchen designers nationally and what commission people were getting, and a handful in top earning stores were doing very well, but at a glance I’d say at least
75% of that list were going home with nothing. In my new role, I can earn the same in one sale, that I could in an entire month at Benchmarx, so if you’re in it for the money - run. 
In this job, I had been used as an emotional punchbag by management, physically threatened by customers, put down and my mental health destroyed. In my 9 months at Benchmarx, I had seen 3 staff come and go, one of the Benchmarx national focuses for the year was ‘staff retention’ which I believe tells you all you need to know about them! 
To top it all off, I went running and screaming for the hills at the end of August, no one in management bothered to let anyone know, I was never sent any form of pay check but was owed holiday and commission and was never informed about cut offs or how they work out pay, so when I received my final pay in September I didn’t question it, but had a lovely letter from Travis Perkins through my door this morning demanding money within the next 7 days! All because no one could be bothered to do their job properly and sort out my employment ending. 

Lovely! At this point, I’d even go as far to say Wren would be more desirable than Benchmarx.

I was in the first induction group in January and I must say it was the best induction I have ever been involved in. It lasted 2 days It was like a sales show actually with various members of management giving us a speech and overall painting a masterpiece of how wonderful Travis Perkins is to work for. Compliance, integrity and health and safety were the main words used over again. 'The door is always open to management for all warehouse colleagues' was said again and again. 'We will always listen and find a solution to any problems.' 'You will all be trained to high standards' was another one.

But once on the warehouse floor, the grim reality sets in. The team brief and roll call is likened to school assembly. The FLMs are lazy, unhelpful, patronising and have big egos. They need to be trained up on compliance, because they don't have a clue!  A few of them are actually OK. Hard to tell what function some of them do except walk around with clip boards and arms folded - that's when they are not flapping like headless chickens! The operations managers are the same. The door is never open for them to listen and you are met with apathy and emptiness. If your scanner sign on password doesn't work, then you've no chance! What you ask or if you have a problem which a few early shifts might help - there is no feedback - it is forgotten!  Unless your face fits!!!! Jobs for the boys! Forget about applying for other roles, it is forgotten.

The job is easy enough but there is a constant monitoring and antagonising to put up with. So much for the relaxing first year where everyone feels their way! I hear since that colleagues are being monitored going to the toilet!! There's no compliance and no integrity. 

I used to be a supervisor at a multinational company far bigger than TP; it is easy to see that it is a managerial fault why experienced people, who have been enticed from other companies, have left in their droves. False promises, unstructured 'names out a hat' training and managers trying to earn their Blue Peter badges at the expense of colleague bullying. If this is the way modern warehousing is going to be, then I'm glad I'm out of it. I hope it improves for some of the colleagues sake - there are some good people who are experienced and know their job. 

TP has the potential and infrastructure to be a very good company to work for, but with the current crop of management, it will never happen without training, re education and applying compliance.  The FLMs should take a leaf out of the wages admin girl. Nothing was too much trouble for her and was extremely helpful.  If all managers had the same philosophy as her, it would be a very good place to work for.

The branch manager at the interview and during intervening discussions talked big about Heath & Safety, TP safety culture, inclusive workforce and a family group culture at Barnsley, but in the 40 days I was employed by TP, (only 25 days doing the job I was employed to do), none of his talk came to fruition, it was all about meeting & beating sales target for the 'in branch' staff, who must have been under intense pressure to achieve. Either that or they couldn't do their jobs!
The mistakes that were being made regarding wrong delivery address information, wrong products being loaded or the right product not being loaded, collections not being scheduled, communicated or arranged, made my job as a delivery driver all the more difficult, frustrating & stressful.
I was under intense pressure to get the vehicle out of the yard doing deliveries, carrying out the required pre-use vehicle checks wasn't a priority, securing the crane to the vehicle wasn't a priority, securing the goods to the vehicle wasn't a priority, reporting vehicle defects wasn't a priority. That's because, once out of the yard, all the above was the my responsibility, my licence was on the line, I paid the fines, I got the points on my licence, I went to prison The priority was getting deliveries done. I was informally targeted with 20 a day!
The branch managers " Daily Comms" emails, focused on sales targets of the 'in branch' colleagues, not yard colleagues or drivers, just 'in branch' colleagues. They rarely, if at all ever mentioned health & safety or staff wellbeing, just sales targets.
The branch manager wasn't slow to let you know how successful he believed he was. Unfortunately, it was all probably based on sales target met, not on the well being or health & safety at branch level.
I fed back to the branch manager, via email, documents I'd produced at home during my own time, outlining where there were problems with the delivery process. These documents were meant to help to develop a more efficient delivery process, but were seen by branch management as negative & excuses. I realise now that what they actually did was highlight problems that couldn't be resolved, because 'in branch' staff were under such pressure to meet & beat sales targets, not get delivery details correct, because sales targets were not based on the number of successful deliveries made, but the amount of money / profit the branch made from 'over the counter', telephone, account, etc. sales.
I realised, too late as it turned out, that there are TP official policies regarding health & safety etc; and then there's the branch managers policies, which are well below the standards TP ,in theory, expect.

For a company of their size TP should be doing alot better but in 2p23 they are really struggling. I worked externally in sales in the Midlands, and its was always constantly and uphill battle for a number of keys reasons:

Category teams cannot buy timber and plasterboard well enough, meaning they lost out massively to competitors. This was a systematic issue across all material groups, and you had to slash margin just to remain competitive. Between April and July 2923 TP were losing approx one million in sales revenue per day against rivals. This was down to the category teams not being able to buy timber well, and sales got hit massively. TP then doing a huge marketing campaign saying they've reduced their timber prices, but clearly its too late!

The internal green screen branch system is very old and full of laborious navigation pages. It's very dated, causes issue that cause further issues and is simply not fit for purpose.

Price rises are not communicated properly to customers causing huge invoice queries because staff don't get told about the rise properly themselves.

Regional Sales Managers are overworked and have too much to support, meaning sales teams get neglected and are left to fend for themselves.

Salary is poor in sakes compared to national average, and bonus is near impossible to reach.

Directors hardly support or get involved with sales teams too, and if your face doesn't fit your basically told to get another job!

EBS car scheme is ok but there is a clear catch with mileage that means you end up losing money out of your own pocket. It's not properly explained and is very expensive. Completely the wrong kind of car scheme!

Branches are always short of staff, the morale in branch is constantly poor and branch managers don't get enough support from senior management.

If you work in sales and thinking of joining TP, don't bother. Other merchants look after their staff much better and in terms of future trading it looks like TP will be making lots of cut backs, redundancies and branch closures.

Do not recommend working for this company at all.

Flash and clean type of image, but poor, dirty and failing on the inside.

Another big company to go under at some point? It's not impossible....

At the interview you are told that travis perkins is a great place to work, flexible with employee family commitments, and an extremely safety conscious company that offer great rewards and job satisfaction and respect as an individual.

Once employment starts all of the above goes out off the window!.

The actual job is easy enough and fellow colleagues work well together as a team.
The problem lies with the vast amount of FLMs and team leaders constantly antagonising and pressuring colleagues to constantly switch and change what they are doing work wise at a seconds notice, with no concern for health and safety or quality of work.

You get 1 half hour break in an 8 hour shift, of which an FLM (front line manager) decides at what time you can take it.

A toilet break time can be monitored, with shift managers often waiting outside to time how long a colleague takes to use the toilet.

At the end of your shift you are told to clock out on the exact hour your shift finishes not a minute earlier or you will be docked pay, after doing this you are made to queue among a full shift of colleagues and sign a fire register (after clocking off?), and then be searched. Some employees unfortunate enough to be at the back of the long queue of colleagues can leave the company building up to  30 to 40 minutes after initially clocking off!. 
No extra pay is paid for this time lost.


On leaving the company car park, four sets of  speed bumps have been recently installed, on initial installation no warning was given to employees about them being there, and several employees vehicles where damaged as a result.
After colleagues approached the general manager (gareth rendall) about the excessive height and the subsequent damage to colleagues vehicles, he allegedly replied "get a different car".


The shifts are, a week of 6am till 2pm followed by 2 weeks of 2pm till 10pm, rotational, and also a separate night shift (10pm till 6am). 
There is no flexible option for working parents.

Expect the same thing every day. First thing in the morning it's too busy and customers moan that they aren't being served but, we try our best to quickly and efficiently serve every customer at once to keep them happy and buying more of our stock. We dont want them leaving us to a different builders merchants. I've learned an awful lot in my 3 years with the company! I know every single bit of stock in the yard and know what they can be used for, even when talking with customers I learn different things and the different names that they call each product, that makes it easier for us to identify them when other customers ask for a specific item. I am very confident at driving the forklifts and many people say i'm an exeptional driver! The management is terrible at my branch. Our manager doesn't reward us or give us any appraisal for what we do. I personally like appraisal because it motivates me to want to work harder. Alot of the deliveries to customers are wrong and me and the other guys out in the yard notice these mistakes and tell the manager but, the mistakes still happen. He takes holidays on stock take days and avoids the Regional Director visits when he can. He sometimes doesn't pay you for the overtime you have worked. My co-workers are brilliant! especially the two guys i work with in the yard. We get on so well and are such an effective team! We are all so friendly to each other and our customers. The hardest part of the job is trying to keep on top of keeping the yard tidy for health and safety reasons, also to keep on top of loading/unloading lorries whilst serving the waves of customers. The most enjoyable part of my job is to just have a laugh with my pals because that keeps us working hard and keep a smile on our faces which is great for the customers to see! 

Been with them over 3 years. Had some atrocious managers, and currently one that is excellent! Work / life balance is good, but most weeks I do around 50 hrs. Some staff have an appalling attitude, which directly affects your driving job. Some customers are decent, others are very unreasonable and rude (especially building sites). Expect to have mostly stressful days as HIAB work isn’t easy, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Everyone thinks they know how to do your job or where you can deliver, rest assured they can’t. Also adopt the attitude that everyone you meet is telling you a pack of lies - just so they get what they want. No concern of you or your truck is given so long as they get their goods!
Company overalls is great to work for, but it has its good and bad points (see below):

Bad points 

,Can be some terrible vehicles within the fleet, it’s hit and miss. 
,Warehouse staff who load you can be lazy and have poor attitudes.
,Management can be terrible, It can be a them and us mentality, 2 years later they leave.
,Pay rates not competitive, TP have a god complex. 
,Jobs are expected in all weather, No hiding in the cab.
,Can be lots of back stabbing and in house fighting amongst staff. 
,Unrealistic expectations as to what we can deliver, both from management and customers.
,Safety is key at TP, but those lines can be blurred at times.
,Can take new drivers minimum of 6 - 12 months of pain and suffering before they settle in to the job. 

Good points

Good
-Working hours Mon - Fri, home most days by 17:00,
some good managers, and support if you get issues.
,lots of training, chances to move on if you show initiative and ability.
,Most days you’re left to be your own boss and work through the jobs.
,Can be relaxing at times when it’s going well, and customers are good.

well, What can I say? where do I begin? The training and management is absolutely appalling. I had worked as a delivery driver in the Sutton branch over a period of three weeks, and during my time there I had received no proper or official training from my manager, who has a serious problem with attitude and billeting people. whenever mistakes were made I was never approached with helpful criticism or feedback, only threats of having my wages cut. I was new to this type of working environment, and while my colleges were helpful with providing answer to my questions, I still found myself left to my own accord to basically watch and learn everything I was expected to do, Which wasn't easy. the demands and expectation of deliveries I had to make per day was also ridiculous. barely finding time to stop for lunch I was constantly criticised for taking too long, despite the fact that some of the destinations I had to travel between were sometimes 20 miles apart and that traffic is quite a common problem around London. There was physically nothing I could do to meet their ridiculous expectations and management refused to listen, and dismissed all my reasons as excuses. To top everything off, the manager couldn't have made himself any more unapproachable even if he tried. Refusing to pretty much acknowledge my existence, he made me feel unwelcome to part of a team to whom he treated  with at least some some kind of acknowledgment, and only ever spoke to me when he had something to criticise me about. He never provided helpful feedback or advice to help me improve on a job that to me, was a completely new experience, and believed that intimidation and generating fear was the right way to manage a business.

At Keyline, Bristol, which is part of Travisty Perkins, they are currently looking for an LGV driver at the moment.  They do seem to have a very high turnover of drivers, but it's not that surprising, when you actually start doing the job.

The job at Keyline is monthly paid. The salary is £22,950. Hours are 0700 - 1615 Mon - Fri, and 0800 - 1200 every other Saturday.

At Bristol Keyline, they have five 26 tonne hi-ab lorries, and are soon to be getting a sixth.  It doesn't matter if you're delivering to a big site, or a small narrow residential cul-de-sac, in the middle of town, you're expected to do it on the 26 tonne. - there's no alternative choice of vehicle.  All you will be told is it's at your discretion. - Should you decide to use that discretion, and not to try and make the delivery, it's you that'll have to phone the customer and tell them yourself!  Have an accident and hit anything, then it's, why did you go down there, it was your decision, at your discretion!

When making a delivery, 25% of customers are alright, the other 75% seem to delight in being awkward (Neanderthal builder types that have just mastered walking upright)!

As for the management, a few decent people in the office, but the rest of them; they may be all smiles and nice to your face, but just want you to get on with delivering stuff to places they can't even be bothered to give you a proper and accurate address for.

There are many LGV driving jobs about at the moment (July 2015), and a lot that are easier and less hassle than this one. - I'm on the look out for one!

typical day at work is serving waves of customers that pour in at 7am and constant stream all through until 5pm. Loading and unloading of lorries through the day. keeping the yard clean, tidy and free from hazards. organising of the yard and putting away all stock correctly. Only 3/4 of us in the yard and most of the time it's too much to do all these jobs at once, but we do our very best at it. 
Management at our branch is absolutely useless. orders far too much stock, that we constantly run out of space in the yard and it is slowly getting smaller. manager has more time off work than in work. takes on far too many deliveries for customers and we end up not getting there deliveries to them on time, which then causes the customers to get annoyed and sometimes use a different merchant. 
I've learned a huge amount in my 4 years being there, this is without any training courses, just two or three half hour talks on products. I learn more off of customers than Travis Perkins will ever train me on. There are no incentives or staff days out. Never have your work recognised and praised. 
Hardest part of the job is trying to keep on top of doing all jobs at once. Having the staff in the office come out and try and tell us what to do, when we know that if they were out in the yard for a day they couldn't do it as well as we do. become quite a professional forklift driver over 4 years.
Most enjoyable part of my job is the banter with customers and having a laugh with my co-workers outside.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Branch manager 10 salaries reported	£35,236 per year
Category manager 7 salaries reported	£44,857 per year
Management trainee 10 salaries reported	£20,600 per year
Warehouse worker 1 salary reported	£16,853 per year
Kitchen designer 4 salaries reported	£23,125 per year

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