Pros
- Benefits through parent company (ServiceMaster); medical, perscription, dental, 401k, etc. - Company issued uniforms which are paid for and laundered weekly. And repaired as needed. - Bi-annual company paid physical. - Comaraderie amongst Specialists and outside of work activities. - Freedom of each Specialist having their own truck and route. - Exercise in the great outdoors causing weight loss.
Cons
- A workplace atmosphere where there is no spirit of cooperation, and employees are undermined as replaceable. Imput is not taken seriously. No say on how things are done. No positive feedback on where employees do well. Lack of recognition and reward drives the "misery index" up. - Lack of good direction from upper management. Corporate constantly "tweeking" things in a vain attempt to re-invent the company; Yet missing the mark 9 times out of 10. Instead, falling into the trap of doing the same things over & over again and expecting a better outcome. A group-think mentality of "Lets double-down on what has already been tried and failed!" (Employees had these same complaints 20 years ago!) - Having middle management tell employees that TruGreen is just a "marketing company", and to "leave your conscience at home!" Made to spray in rainy weather just to hit a $-number. - High turnover among first year employees who either find that they can't do the job and/or don't like TruGreen's poor business practices/ethics. - Heavy work schedule. Made to work a lot of Saturdays because of excess employee absenteeism, slackers that don't bring in their weekly quota, or because the entire Region is behind its goal for the month. - Specialists unable to adhere to Best Practices and the company's "Do The Right Thing" policy, forcing Specialists to cut corners due to unreasonably high quotas/goals. Creating a dilemma of meeting production numbers without compromising quality standards. Mis-measured and underpriced properties add to this problem. - Winter lay-off, forcing employees to go on COBRA and pay their own benefits. Because of this a lot of guys don't come back the next season. - A consistantly poor "we-they" relationship between Operations and Marketing Groups at the Region level. The connection between Production & Sales Groups at the branch level ranges from antagonistic to adverserial, but is rarly mutually supportive. - Marketing is a joke! Annoying sales tactics. Door-to-door "Neighborhood Marketing". Cold-knocking on doors like students selling coupon books. Plus harassing telemarketing, constantly calling existing customers bugging "sandbagging" them to buy more services. "Hail Mary" sales are bogus, and are self-inflicted cancels. - The dreaded "Fluctuating Work Week" (FWW) payroll method. The pay gets converted from hourly to salary. This legally allows TruGreen to pay "half-time" for overtime, instead of 1.5 time. You end up making less per hour the more hours you work. This is known as "Agricultural Overtime", but is scarcastically called "Chinese Overtime". Yes, it's legal. but it's also unethical!!
