No other company on this board is more widely panned and poorly reviewed in the aggregate than Follett. What does this say about the company and its future? Unless this is a case of the same 5 or 10 people posting each week, then I surmise that things are indeed very bad at this company. My friend applied recently and we did a Google search that landed him at this site. He rescinded his application the next morning. Social media is that panacea we look to for truth, and companies that do not manage this extremely powerful and rapidly growing force properly are doomed to a very unpredictable future. Ignore at your own peril. You cannot simply try to choke out the chatter--you must work hard to change your culture to change employee perception. Hopefully it is not too late for Follett, but no one we have spoken with who works there currently (or left within the past year or so) has much positive to say. Certainly no one gave my friend a vote of confidence that he was doing the right thing by accepting a job offer. That is pretty sad.
10 replies (most recent on top)
Not only no raises, people are leaving left and right. No one is being replaced.
The ones still there are forced to take on the extra work with of course no extra pay.
And don't forget your raise this year=0. Your max bonus=1/2
If you have skills and not near retirement you owe it to yourself to move on. Follett is not a career any longer, it is a job like one at a Kmart. You will make more money, have better benefits, have a better work like balance and likely be on an upward career path again.
The resounding message that was delivered in the past few years was that Sears and Office Max folks can run this business just as well as experienced Follett employees. The problem with that thought process is this is a unique business (unlike anything I have encountered in my retail history). The concepts of big box retail DO NOT APPLY. Leadership's arrogance created this train wreck. Now they and everyone else suffer the consequences.
Outsider .........I think not. Just a troll chumming the water.
Follett failed to change fast enough to continue to lead its market, and consequently it will continue to decline. New leadership thought they knew everything about the industry, removed people with actual experience, and then blew it. A lot of people have been laid off: destroying morale, reducing the talent pool, and eliminating institutional memory.
Things are not great but the griping from remaining employees is overblown and the "good old days" were not nearly as great as people make them out to be. We have been poorly managed for as long as I have worked here. We have never trained our managers how to run our stores and then wonder why we have problems. We have never held people accountable for execution and then wonder why things are not executed. Our technology has always been decades behind.
Contrary to a lot of what you hear on this board though, we still have better work/life balance than anywhere in traditional retail. Most higher ups (there are notable exceptions) are pleasant and professional to work for. Also, if your store performed well last year you still got a nice bonus. Unfortunately, that part is changing and future bonuses were recently cut in half. Benefits have declined but they have for just about everyone in the face of rising healthcare costs and recent legislation.
All in all, its not the worst place to be but not somewhere you should plan a career at since future prospects are grim.
Here's an honest perception from the inside.
8 years ago, this company was something incredible. It was a career you could live with forever and feel like you were making an impact, no matter how small. Follett was the company we all took great pride in-we promoted it, lived the values, loved our leadership, and we're happy. It wasn't a great paying job but all the benefits outweighed that. We knew we were cared for and were the family's top priority.
Skip to today, this company is something we barely talk about outside of work. There is consistent fear of whether or not we will have jobs-we talk negative, skimp on our daily duties, despise leadership, and are all awaiting the collapse of this once great company. The pay still sucks, benefits have decreased while the costs have increased and we are expected to give more effort than ever while out raises and bonuses no longer exist.
What Follett did was prep for selling but no one wanted them. Now they can turn backwards because the shareholders love their increased cased flow. Follett also lost its footing in the market because of poor leadership. Follett is striving to keep its doors open at most locations because the money just isn't there anymore. But overall, the main thing that changed is that the board members have changed. The old family is gone and the younger generation has taken over. With that change, the focus changed from the better good we were striving to achieve to profit and only profit.
Because of these horrible decisions and massive changes, Follett has a solid 8-10 years remaining as a dominant force in the textbook market. This company is going down and there's nothing anyone can do about it. We will see some positives in the next couple of years and then we will face more massive layoffs and closures.
No one should try and jump ship. Follett isn't going anywhere. However, the morale will continue to suffer because sales are suffering. There's not much out there in the job market so you need to keep working hard and keep looking. There will be options but in the meantime stick it out.
I love this company for what it has taught me. New leadership can never take that away. Stay positive and move forward. We miss our friends but out friends don't pay us, Follett does.
All said about Follett is true. My 8+ years started well, and has slowly degraded into hell. Talent and hard work are not rewarded, there is no loyalty by Follett to their employees. You are their servant, to be used and discarded. Most of the talent has left, and they squeeze those who remain for more blood. Sad, some good people stuck in a company with no future and no conscience. I left over a year ago, I was sorry to move on, but our families come first, and Follett is no longer my family. Avoid working for Follett at all costs.
I have to agree with the reply. When I first got my position at Follett (about 8 years ago), I thought it was the best company ever. No employer I worked for ever treated their employees so well. People at the home office knew you. It felt like a family, and I was grateful to be a part of it. Work life balance and benefits were terrific. You were a trusted and important part of the Follett team.
Then the current upper management took over. They thought they knew it all. Layoffs in the stores, layoffs of talented, experienced upper management. Then they replaced former management with crony friends from Kmart. Including ADDING new positions that always seemed to be filled by Kmart management. (Follett used to announce all upper management hires / promotions. I noticed that stopped when people started noticing the Kmart trend.) Then came the micromanagement...the attitude was that all Follett employees were dummies and the new management would sweep in and clean things up.....
Now Follett is getting what it deserves from hiring Kmart management..... a slow death into obscurity.
I try to remember the really great times we had prior to 2013. The carnage started that November , continued in March when Home Office was hit right before the move to Westchester. Then it continued as certain Sr VPs started to weed out the talent... Supply chain hit especially hard when GT started his reign of terror - many good people lost. (Glad he was finally let go too.). Stores pared to the bone for labor. IT cleaned out so SS could bring in his foreign consultants. Can't think of a department that hasn't been hit. Entire marketing team wiped out. But to show it was bad management and not the employees, take a look at the Follett Alumni Facebook page. Started by people who quit or were let go - the comraderi is amazing, and one can sense what the company was like before the current regime took over.
No chance for Follett now - they don't have enough associates with the right skill set. No one wants to work there unless they are desperate, and even then, who knows how long a job will last. Dying industry, they waited too long to make changes and now it will be a long slow death. Good luck and hope you find a career/job with a company that cares.