Pros
-One of the better retail employers, at least it used to be. -You will probably meet cool people working here -Department managers get paid really well in some markets -Specialist pay (non management sales jobs) can pay decent in some markets -Has a lot of nice products for home owners that you will be proud to sell -A lot of room to move up but... this is mostly because there is a lot of turnover.. managers get burnt out... but lots of opportunity to become one of them -More flexibility to make customers happy than a lot of places - part of this stems from Lowes having it's own delivery fleet which is huge -Decent retirement benefits for retail
Cons
-Senior leadership from the top of the store up is second rate - HD is first place for a reason.. I used to work for HD before Lowes so I know first hand, maybe the new CEO can help -Completely unprofessional store managers - you don't need to rule by terror and manipulation -Zero work life balance - if you are a senior manager you are going to have marital problems -Scheduling matrix leaves you exhausted and burnt out completely unnecessarily -Up and down hours plus dirty warehouse environment lead to health problems -Lack of vision as a company - has let Home Depot take the majority of the contractor and professional market over the last 10 years, which I believe will ultimately drive Lowes out if they can't get that aspect together... everything for inability to control in store stock levels and auto fulfillment means you don't carry the quantities needed when they walk in the door... HD does and it shows -Too much focus on consumer "do it for me"... not enough margin to really lead in profitability since installs with homeowners tend to go wrong, and the solution (or demand from customer) is to throw money at it... $3,000 carpet install plus install delays or issues, plus low margin, plus paying contractor extra, plus all the insane sales usually leads to a job that overall lost the company money... now rinse and repeat for most everything... this impacts your bonus, how many people you can have working in the store, etc - Attempts to reorganize the structure of associates was a thinly veiled attempt to load the pockets of investors and the former CEO and his cronies (who are strangely all gone now) before the lack of management and associates in the aisles started to massacre sales and morale - restructure was a complete failure and has now been mostly reversed -Health benefits are bad -Vacation and sick benefits are poor