PetSmart Reviews

Current Employee – been working at PetSmart full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Fun and you get to see all kinds of animals

Cons – Can focus too much on surveys

Advice to Senior Management – Realize that you can't always go by customers comments

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at PetSmart full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Petsmart as a company had got it right, Petsmart Canada has a lot of work to do with respect to value of "The People"

Cons – Low wages, high volume of work. Regionla office does not value store associates

Advice to Senior Management – Go in with open eyes. This is not a 40 hour a week job. Most SM's work 65 plus hours, very little HR support at associate level.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at PetSmart full-time for more than a year

Pros – co-workers are like family. get to see and work with a lot of interesting animals.

Cons – minimal pay for a difficult job (grooming salon - bather). little opportunity to progress or even be listened to by management. poor hiring decisions make the job harder - who hires a bather who doesn't like dogs?
little support from management in general.

Advice to Senior Management – recognise key employees who keep departments from running into the ground. when someone speaks up about something that needs attention, don't instantly see it as a complaint and dismiss it.

Former Employee – worked at PetSmart full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Positive relationships with staff - Love of pets - There is a strong commitment to care for the pets in the store and customer's pets.

Cons – What finally convinced me to leave was that a Canadian Vice President placed a secret ban on internal salaried manager promotions that lasted a year while at the same time, Human Resources kept insisting that it wanted to develop talent from within. It was very embarrassing for Petsmart in Canada when this came out. The company did start to open up the promotions process after that experience but a lot of trust had disappeared in the meantime.

Advice to Senior Management – Basic honesty in dealing with your management staff is a fundamental requirement. You are entitled to bring in all of salaried management from external sources but you cannot claim at the same time that you are developing from within.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at PetSmart full-time for less than a year

Pros – Great company that truly puts the customer first and is totally committed to quality pet care and pet products. I love dealing with the customers and their pets.

Cons – The job entails a lot of strenuous physical tasks - unloading palettes, heavy bags of food, etc. - especially because the pay is so low. We are also soooo busy that I seldom get my breaks - but that's partly my fault as well. Other than the physical labour and low pay, it's a great place to work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at PetSmart part-time for more than a year

Pros – The company as a whole is dedicated to the care of all its animals. The policies and procedures are detailed and revolve around the health of all animals that enter the store, as well as the safety of it's employees.

Cons – There is no support or incentive for long term employees, the management team is has no diversity in other departments so when the store gets busy they are unable to help the employees in most scenarios (especially in the pet care department - unless it is the pet care manager). Managers spend too much time helping customers and to notice the struggles in other areas of the store. Pay increase is minimal and most of the employee reviews are exactly the same with no positive reinforcement about how you contribute to the operations of the store, mostly just things you need to work on.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay more attention to the value of your employees, they make your store what it is.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at PetSmart full-time for less than a year

Pros – You get to work with dogs and cats, it can be so much fun seeing all the cute animals and discussing issues with pet parents. You get to see all different breeds of dogs which was great. I also worked with some very nice people, everyone had such a love for animals. There are a variety of positions in the store. If you do become full-time the benefits are pretty good.

Cons – The position I had was very stressful. I was hired as a guest services associate assuming I would be working at the front desk of the hotel, as well as handling some things in the back. I was then later told that I actually had two position titles and that I would be supervising doggy day camp sometimes as well. It turned in to me standing in a room full of dogs all day cleaning up their waste and trying to prevent fights between them. (A big percentage of the staff that was hired for the pet hotel requested a position change and transfered to the salon for pets. There are some positions in the store that seemed good.) Many dogs were allowed in the play room regardless of the fact they werent very good with other dogs. It seemed as though making the money was more important than the well being of the animals. Even after discussing these issues with my manager it seemed as though it made no difference.

The location I worked at was also very understaffed for the amount of animals we were supervising, this resulted in animals not being cared for properly which was very upsetting. Some examples are animals not being fed when the pet parents asked. Dogs sitting in kennels with waste for long periods of time because there was no one to do relief walks. Cats were supposed to be taken out of their cages twice daily for half an hour each time, which rarely ever happened. On many occasions pets did not receive the things that owners requested for their pet, things like extra play time and ice cream. Owners pay more money for these requests and my manager wanted us to lie to them so they wouldnt be dissatisfied.

Many employees were hired under the assumption that they would be full-time and receive benefits, later finding out that they were only part-time with full time hours and would not get benefits. I later received full-time status and benefits over some other employees and was instructed not to let my co-workers know.

Advice to Senior Management – I know that the pet hotel is a money making business. However, I think this company needs to pay more attention to the type of care the animals are receiving. This means having more staff on hand so the animals are not neglected.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at PetSmart part-time for more than a year

Pros – Loved seeing all the animals and proud owners of the dogs brought in. It's great to see so many people who love their animals so much.

Cons – I was not a fan of the company uniforms. Managers would often talk down to other employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at PetSmart full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great staff, great pets, some good management, good clean stores great customers was great until the last 2 years then too much micro managing and not being set up for sucess, less staff to get the job done well while the bar was being raised to do more.

Cons – Due to the new demands of upper management, store managers style of managing regressed to bulling staff, favourtizim, right of entitlement work style, throwing staff under the bus, not being able to do a good job. A lot of good staff keep quiting while no on deals with the BULLING issue.

Advice to Senior Management – If you keep cutting staff back then lower your demands to doing a great job to a good job. Don't expect more when you give us less. Bullied & Burnt out, trying to meet your expectations!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at PetSmart full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The job itself was fantastic

Cons – Like all corps. they want more with less

Advice to Senior Management – Spend more on staffing

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company