Sales Rep - Sales Representative Sherwin-Williams Employee Review

2.0
Oct 18, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Medical/401k benefits. Met a some really good people that I hope to stay in touch with. Gives early career skills to those fresh out of college. Flexibility for sales reps in their schedules. The job itself is not glorious.

Cons

I left on good terms, but my overall observations of the company from treatment of employees(especially the Charlotte District) as a whole is a very old school mentality, top down hierarchical authoritative management style. Manage by fear and selfish priority rather true employee management and training. Appreciation was never sincere and never acknowledged except at National Sales Meeting, one night a year. Lack of acceptance/adoption of change in current business philosophies. Pay is below average including bonus structure. Lacks typical sales organization's motivational rewards. Very slow in adapting to tech changes, and still has a blue screen in stores. Did not have a one on one with manager in field for 18+ months. It was obvious that the sales mgr had other priorities to his existing territories rather new ones. Upper management is way out of touch with store operations. Offer very little help, empathy, or reward to under-staffed stores. Placed fear in employees if they talked about Valspar acquisition. Yes SW is acquiring Valspar. Dont tell the world if you don't want them to talk. Good luck Valspar employees. There's a reason the company dropped in rankings in places to work. Preach safety, but don't offer ways to work around it. Once tried to help an employee to report an injury and got scolded because the district has the highest injury rate in the company. Its ibvious they hire certain employees straight out of college for their figure and looks. They'd brag about "hiring diversity." I support diversity, but you still have to give the best applicant the job.These are just a few of my thoughts and ones that my peers shared with on many, many occasions.

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5.0
Apr 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Feels like family locally. Good friendships between stores

Cons

CEO and upper management out of touch

1
5.0
Jun 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A positive work environment. The best co-workers I have had so far in my career worked with me at Sherwin. I also worked under an amazing management team. There is a lot of room for career growth. I worked for Sherwin for about 3.5 years. I started as a contracted lab technician, then I was hired full time as an R&D Associate Chemist. I quickly worked my way up to R&D Chemist within a year of being hired full time. The department I worked in was very fast paced, however, I know there are many other groups that move at a much slower pace with longer timelines. This would make it much easier to manage the workload.

Cons

Working with marketing was challenging at times. We would regularly receive big requests a day before they needed something. This would pose a challenge when you had other priorities to attend to. The pay was average. I do think it could have been slightly higher for all of the job responsibilities given to the chemists in my group specifically. The workload was overwhelming at times.

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