Shoppers Drug Mart FAQ

Adequate Health insurance and employee rebate

Exploitative of employees time and effort. Chronic under staffing issues that cause workers to invest more time and effort than other businesses.

-If you want to change franchises for good reasons (aka moving town) it's possible to have a transfert but you'll lose all seniority you had. Having worked for shoppers 10 years and worked into 3 franchises, management is WILDY different from places to places. -Insurances programs is just ok, for full-timers only though. Dentals is good, eye is meh. nothing exceptional. -I will miss the flexible schedules. I could've taken a two months trip to europe and they would've said yes without any arguments really. Good for school and if you have a second job (you'll need it with the pay). -There's a discount of 30%ish on mostly everything in store except electronics but they're monitoring everything for security reasons so if you want your boss to know that you are buying 3 tubes of lube a week be my guest. -You get free stuff from time to time (perfumes and cream at cosmetics for them to try, free food every now and then for event and some holidays) -Chrismas party is a must, the owners are usually putting everything they can to impress employees at this stage of the year. Exceptional food, open-bar,randomly selected gifts like TVs and Playstations, they're also giving Shoppers drug mart gift card with an fixed amount depending on your full time or part time status and how many years you've been working. -They were offering actions for a lower price to managers a couple of years ago, but since Loblaws bought Shoppers maybe it changed... -They're giving back to community, with donations earned by employees. -Fellow employees are laid-back depending of the franchise. -Uniform is kinda easygoing.

-Base salary really low, there's exception if you have balls but if you don't want to beg for more money you'll get rarely more than 0.50$ every year. Cash and floor supervisors are basically glorified cashiers that earn a dollar more but with loads of responsibilities. -recognition isn't based on performance at all, it's mostly on seniority even if they're parked at their working station doing absolutely nothing more than the minimum. -management is separated in four major breadwinners: floor (reception, floor clerk), checkout (supervisors and cashiers), pharmacy (assistant-pharmacist and pharmacist), and cosmetics. Salaries are based on how much money the department is making so pharmacy is number one, cosmetics with their commissions close second, cashes and floor is at the same level. This makes tensions and inferiors feelings between department sadly. -The bosses are selected via intern politics and timing (if it's urgent they will pick anyone) and not on skills at all. Also they will pick direct family members more than often even if head office technically says no-no they're not in the hiring process at all. -HR is virtually non-existent within the franchises, head office will give HR advices for majors reasons (like managers sleeping around with employees, or psychological harassment after multiples complaints of employees for more than five years) -Management is not really interested in their employees in general career-wise. -Managers are afraid of head office so they will use some shady ways of getting their sales numbers up so everything looks fine to Head office. -Managers aren't trained in HR AT ALL. They get little powerpoint with infos on basic Hr concept every now and then (real example: smile to your employees, it help build trust OH REALLY) -They have issues regarding health and security on the work place (quality of air, no training or very little regarding good methods of working). There is a committee for that, but it's a scam. My own name was there as witness of the meeting and i never participated to any meeting. It's to be legal that they're doing that. This experience is inside every franchises I've worked at. -They will FORCE you to do a survey every year that's the only real contact with head office and will quickly do the annual evaluation at the same time (because there is question in the said survey and it's bad for their numbers when one employees is saying no to that. Also, employees (older ones) don't trust the system, they think they're gonna be fired if they're really honest. -The worst of the worst is the punishment for bad behaviour. Sometimes even illegal. (I've SEEN extortion more than once. ''Pay us 500$ or we're calling the police so you'll be deported.''). Terrifying.

Fully aware that Shoppers won't care of these comments: -Better salary.... for everyone, differences between department can be ASTOUNDING, we're talking 10s of thousands of dollars differences. You could TRY to be the difference within the retail world -Put value and recognition for EVERY employees in EVERY department the separation isn't good for team-spirit. -Head Office shouldn't have a police role but more like an ally. -Involve yourself in the career life of your employees (goals, ambition) -Take the health of your employees seriously. -Head-Office should lead and control the recruitment process to actually apply rules. And they should be proactive to complaints and check directly to the employee that did the complaint and NOT to the manager who has everything to lose. -The survey is a good idea to get the pulse but accumulate to much personal infos, you should change it so that employees actually trust the system. Trust me those numbers are FAKE. We got something in the 90% for the whole franchise last year how is that even possible with what i said earlier ?

RRSP participation option available after 6 months

Constantly overworked, burned out employees

I have a great location with great coworkers. Work life balance is great.

For a big corporation the benefits suck. 3$ per chiro visit is nothing I dont even bother submitting it. For a company that pushes self care and health youd think the employees would have a way more comprehensive benefits package. Had minimal dental work done this year and its already maxed out.

Great people to work with.

Wish they had a pension plan for full time employees