Outdated SOP, Nepotism, and more! - Sales Trainee Graybar Employee Review

1.0
Aug 25, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Opportunity for employee ownership. -Access to vast amounts of training, knowledge bases, and contacts in the electrical wholesale industry.

Cons

-Horrible internal communications—Employees across the company are given pieces of important information at different times than other employees and the organization is messy. -Outdated and antiquated training system and procedural documentation—It’s really a bunch of old timers from the industry trying to teach today’s millennials and GenX how to use a computer. —Salesforce administration is in disarray—This is a fairly new software tool for the company, but in one year they are struggling with insight on Salesforce usage by sales reps in THE MOST PRODUCTIVE OFFICE IN THE COMPANY. -Favoritism and nepotism—Employees referred by other employees, or industry contacts, were allowed to keep their jobs through the pandemic while 25 other employees with the same title and MORE EXPERIENCE were “furloughed” from the company at the same location. -Insufficient Human Resources or people operations for Fortune 500 — When a Director of Human Resources for a 9,000-employee company calls you directly, you might have to wonder why, especially if you are a lower-level employee with at least a handful of other reporting managers above you to communicate with. -“Boys will be boys” type management — One Manager in particular made constant references to “punching nuns” while describing what he could get away with at work, or rethinking his career move back to stripping and “working the pole”, if Graybar didn’t pan out. Also, managers who don’t properly introduce themselves to lower level employees but demand and command respect from whatever room they walk into. -No protection for Employees — When one employee threatens another, and it is documented, and the employee who made the threat has already been written up for extreme misconduct but is allowed to keep their job....yeah, I’d say there’s a problem. -Where is the culture?!—A complete absence of comradery, professionalism, team building exercises, employee networks, etc. This is non-existent at Graybar.

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Graybar Response
5y
Thanks for leaving a review. We hope that you are sharing some of your thoughts and ideas to improve Graybar on our quarterly employee surveys.

Explore other reviews about Graybar

5.0
Dec 2, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

good people and wonderful training experience

Cons

No cons so far i love it here

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Graybar Response
6mo
Thank you for taking the time to share this feedback. We’re thrilled to hear you’re enjoying the training experience and the team environment. We appreciate you being part of Graybar and are glad to know things are off to a great start. If you’d like to share any additional feedback, please reach out to your local HR team.
3.0
Apr 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Many opportunities to learn about distribution and management. Pto is three weeks per year plus holidays and over a s Week of sick time. If you work here longer, you can buy enough company shares to receive a sizeable dividend each year. You are allowed to buy about 5% of your salary in company shares per year and then receive usually 20% of that back per year. The profit sharing plan contributes 10% of your salary to your 401k account but you need to be vested to keep it all.

Cons

You will need a second job to live. Sales reps make way more and do half the work but they report to their managers much more. If you are a CSR, sales people feel entitled to treat you however they want and their manager will back them up. You are watched by coworkers and management like a high surveillance prison especially when you're new but they will leave you alone if you're good at your job after a year or so. Graybar brags about how much revenue and profit they make but middle and upper management suck it all up leaving scraps for the workers who made it for them.

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