Advance Auto Parts reviews

3.1

42% would recommend to a friend

(5,524 total reviews)
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Shane O’Kelly

21% approve of CEO

32% positive business outlook

Advance Auto Parts has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 5,524 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Advance Auto Parts employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

6K reviews
2.0
Oct 19, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The job itself is an awsome job. There is always work to be done so your always staying busy. There are so many things to do an that has to be done, it is a rewarding feeling to have accomplished so much at the end of every day.

Cons

Favoritism! It seems that it does not matter how hard you work, how much you accomplish, how knowledgeable you are or how change oriented you are, if you are not in the "in crowd", it seems to not mean a thing. Not enough evening help. How, are we suppose to answer the phone on the 3rd ring if the only other employee is performing free services in the parking lot, the store is full and customers are walking out. And there is not enough flexibility in the schedule to accommodate for employees with children.

2.0
Oct 13, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The only reason I worked at advance is because they were willing to work with my college schedule (at first). I do have a weekend car I tinker with, and the 20% employee discount was a perk.

Cons

Crazy schedule. They would want me to work 7 four hour shifts during the summer. So the math, that is working 7 days to get 28 hours. I would burn $10 gas and get $40 for the shift.

2.0
Oct 11, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

As a GM I write my own schedule. No one in my store burns vacation hours for life's little one day happenings.

Cons

1) Most District Managers are recycled from other retail companies. Most of them have never run a small retail outlet and come from Big Box retail. When you come to them with your problems they simply reply with the corporate speak that the Senior Management spews. 2) Labor department slowly whittles away at your labor slowly. They have continually cut labor. they use a cookie cutter approach to giving labor hours to stores. This results in many GMs needing to work 60+ hours to overcome corporate caused labor shortages as GM bonus is lost if he/she uses just 1 hour more than given. 3) SOP states no less than 2 employees must be in store when it's open for business. Labor only gives most stores hours to have 2 people in the store after 7pm at night. This affects your ability to perform free services for customers. If you do go outside to help customers and something happens in the store you'll get in trouble. If you refuse free services due to bein understaffed for them and customer calls in a complaint you get written up. Lose / Lose situation for managers. 4) GMs hours are part of stores hours given to serve customers which makes it difficult to perform administrative duties. This again results in GMs working 60+ hours to do their job. Job description states GM works 50% on floor - 50% admin. Bullox. 5) They say they want you to have quality time with your family and then make decisions which will insure that a GM sees his/her family less and less. 6) They are more concerned with high pressure sales than actually helping the customers. 7) Team setting sales goals can't grasp the correlation between a bad economy and auto parts sales. Used banner year of fall 2009 through fall 2010 to set 2011 targets. When economy started rebounding no one hit these targets in Q1-2011. 8) Company has changed GM bonus 3 times in 2011. The company saved money on GM bonus due to changes. Underhanded plan to cut operating expenses. Less than 20% of GM bonus budget has been paid out this year. It took them bleeding good GMs to make the changes to fix it. 9) DMs hiring non-retail managers and giving them new stores to run. Not smart. No retail background and we give them a new store? Wow !!! Prediction - Continual labor decreases will result in loss of more good GMs. All they'll have left are rejects from other companies or AMs that get promoted to fill holes even if they aren't ready for the challenge. 10 months ago I would have recommended this as a great place to work. Now, I'm actively seeking employment else where.

Viewing 5392 - 5394 of 5,524 Reviews

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