Poor Hours, Health and Safety and Excessive Focus on Targets - Customer Service Advisor Argos Employee Review

- At Argos, 15 minute breaks are paid for, so all of my shifts were between 3.5-4.5 hour shifts so that they legally do not have to give workers a break (just so that they can save paying you £2 for your 15 minute break). When I was first interviewed, my manager stated I would be working 5 days a week on a 15 hour (minimum) contract, I had no idea that this meant I would actually only be working 3/4 hour shifts so that they can take up all my working hours a week. - Digital stores (stores inside Sainsbury's) are constantly understaffed so very often, it's just three people on shift (one management staff, one stockroom and one on salesfloor). As a result, if you're in the stockroom, you're the sole person responsible for carrying a 20kg safe. Said safe would be on the top shelf of the stockroom , so you'd be on a ladder trying to carry this safe with one hand whilst balancing on a shaky old ladder - one of the least safe environments I've had the misfortune of working at. - If you've ever shopped at Argos, you'll have noticed there's an excessive focus on staff forcing you to buy insurance on your electrical goods or for you to take out an 'Argos store card'. This is because staff are set daily targets and are drilled from the very moment the shift starts for them to be selling these products to customers, regardless of whether customers need it. This is how Argos actually makes it profits so customer sales advisors are responsible for increasing margins for the company, yet we are only paid £8 an hour whilst our colleagues at Sainsbury's are paid at least £9.20 an hour. If you're reading this and wondering whether staff get commission for reaching these targets - we do not. The 'reward' for reaching your targets is being able to work more hours. Well, how kind of Argos. - Targets are not just based on how much insurance you sell or how many Argos store cards you can push onto the customer, but also on how quick you are able to fetch items from the stockroom. A computer speaks to you on a headset and instructs and records your every move, with management hounding you if you are not as efficient as other colleagues. Management constantly compare you against other colleagues, and they actively foster an unhealthy competitive environment.