Pros
- Meijer starts hourly employees at a little bit over minimum wage, and now employees are offered health insurance right away. -Meijer isn't publicly traded, so instead of profit sharing or stocks you get a little extra money each quarter depending on how well the store did on sales, friendly scores, etc. There's a little more freedom there. -Meijer is usually pretty flexible with scheduling, if you have another job or go to school or have kids or something. -Meijer at least gives their employees shirts! I can't believe that Walmart and Target just let their employees wear whatever blue or red shirts they own! At least that's what it looks like to me. -There are some awesome team leaders at Meijer, the type you would probably follow to another department or store if you could.
Cons
The store I work at doesn't seem to have "employee morale" in their vocabulary. Meijer treats most, if not all, of their employees as expendable. This coming from a store that has a very hard time filling positions and keeping employees because of this exact attitude! Also, some stores not only have some horrible management, but horrible customers as well! We're understaffed and being yelled at and treated like idiots because our idiot customers feel the need to vandalize the store constantly. It's very demoralizing, and I'm sure it happens at plenty of other stores, but Meijer used to be able to handle these situations better. Like other stores, Meijer has slashed away at leadership and hourly workers and works the few they have left to death. When leadership leaves they're replaced with worse and worse candidates who treat their employees like garbage. Meijer says they have plenty of opportunities to advance, but it appears they're more likely to hire leadership from outside the store. There are some Meijers that are unionized, but they just seem to be a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." They don't seem to be much better off than a non-union store.