shift leader

sales supervisor

retail assistant manager

retail sales associate

retail store manager

5.11

Company really needs to take a look at who they already have in the pool of employees with talent and drive to succeed. Problem is they are doing somethings backwards by hiring inexperience people to lead in the hopes they learn how to be good leaders. This just leads to more stress and frustration and then turn-over. 

Company needs to put out an anonymous tip or hotline where employees can leave feedback or say hey I noticed or saw this but don't want my name involved. Instead people get frustrated and just want to leave. With so much internal hiring/promotions, it does create growing pains. But again it's good to see a company that promotes from within. There are some in Upper Management I do not trust and would throw someone under them to the wolfs before they admit to a mistake of their own doing. You have to have trust in your leaders to have strength as we confide in them. 

One of the biggest other factors I see from talking with other folks is theft. Internally and externally as this is a huge problem it seems in all locations. There are many things to put in place to help curtail these types of issues, but you need someone first to be in charge of getting that structure in to place. 

Please don't take this review as all bad, it's not as I truly think that 5.11 is a great company and is a great place to work. Every members has the talent and things they can bring to the table it's just finding the right position to be in to make them shine even more. There is nothing more important then a company that makes it out to be like family but as they continue to grow, it will only become more corporate like and this is where moral can have a huge impact on employees. Keep your family atmosphere in-tact before a corporate one. You'll see a huge difference in your employees when they feel more as a family. 

The company had amazing benefits to work there. Things like discounts and local business deals. Other than that, the company does not care about YOU. Anytime you want time off it’s one of the hardest things. They make excuses like “we are understaffed, so you cant go” or “these dates are blacked out” and the same managers will take 3-4 day weekends the days you wanted off months in advance. Thinking about planning a trip? Make sure you can refund it at anytime!! If by some mild miracle they approve time off from work, they will revoke time off as short as 48 hours prior. Forget spending time with family or significant others, the grind of a 6 day work week are right in front of you, PART TIME AT THAT. Want to promote? Good luck. You need to be best friends with anyone higher in the company than you in order to even have a thought of promotion. Regarding pay, you start off less than a cashier at a fast food restaurant. If you manage to promote, you will be paid around the same wage as that same fast food cashier with more work on your plate. Don't forget, you still have that same 6 day work week to go with it too. The work environment will be nice for you, as long as you are with the og crowd and group. Favoritism is a very big thing in the company and if you aren’t with that crowd of favorites, you will be running the store by yourself as everyone hangs out in the back rooms while its super busy. Thinking about taking a break? Good luck, that group of favorites can willfully commit time theft and take hour long breaks while still being paid. They might adjust their time clock showing a 30 minute break rather than a whole hour so its not suspicious. Just remember they only hire work horses that will let them take away every ounce of freedom from you. 

5.11 Tactical is a pretty fun place to work if you enjoy tactical and outdoor hobbies. The customer base is amazing and the employee discount is great. Also, the full-time benefits are pretty nice and not too expensive. 

However, the cons far outweigh the pros of working here. Hours have been lowered across every store, meaning you will most likely be working all weekends. This is especially true if you are a key holder. There are not enough employees to comfortably call out. Calling out means someone else coming in on one of their two days off. 

The pay is unbelievably low here. The estimates on job sites are inaccurate for this company. Full time supervisors make the same as the starting hourly at McDonalds, and the managers are paid the same hourly as most local internships. 

This poor pay leads to high turnover rates. If you ever check 5.11 career board you will see every store has an open position. This is because the good employees leave for higher pay and the low pay attracts poor workers who don't show up. 

There is very little room for advancement on the retail side. If there is any advancement it will be due to the high turnover. You learn a good amount about the company's product and using their sales system but that is about it. Upper management does not care for the store workers. They only care that your store produces good numbers. 

A typical work day can very on your store. Should your store management be on top of things, freight tasks and helping customers will come with ease and help past the time at work

It's a typical retail job. Should it be your first, you will learn 5.11 product and its pros and cons. Otherwise product knowledge and sales technique is not really something that is taught

Management again can vary by location. Luckily for me I had great store managers, but the district manager was slimy and lazy. Again this is my experience but so take it with a grain of salt

Work place culture is good. Everyone seemed to get along and work as a team. As a supervisor and manager you may be overworked at times, and honestly the wage is pretty low. Most stores do their best to make it a light and easy atmosphere

The hardest part about this job was an absent district manager and low staffing. This often led to overwork and people not wanting to stay. Corporate policy, like stores competing against 5.11 dealers made getting exclusive accounts hard. Also some locations are deep in homeless and drug infested areas. Not being able to work your part timers longer was a drag as well.

I have been working at 5.11 for some time, and it’s ok. The pay is decent, most of the other warehouses I’ve worked at doesn’t pay as much as here. However, the job culture and other things need to be improved. 
Although most of the people who work here are cool. There are some people here who treat their coworkers terribly due to their own opinions. If you move “ too slow” your other coworkers will have a problem with you. This can look like evil faces, and one person even got physical with me. Management only ended up talking to this person, so it shows how much tolerance they have for bullying within the workplace. 
I’d say that 5.11 took this COVID thing a little too far too. I had to miss a week for a running nose… thankfully I got paid for it, but the getting paid part was based on a law. The only way to call in sick for one day is to say you have a headache, so it either forces you to go to work sick or to miss 2 or more days. 
Last but not least, they don’t let you know that you will be working overtime until Wednesday if you are working Monday to Friday. This means that all of your plans for Saturday would have to hold off on being scheduled until that Wednesday or Thursday. 
All together I’d give this workplace a 3. 

On the retail side: If you're looking to grow into a Store Manager role, this is a great place to do that and you will acquire some amazing leadership skills. The corporate culture on the retail side is pretty great too, the leaders do care, but they are all worked to death and don't have the bandwidth to effectively problem solve. I enjoyed working here and enjoyed my teammates and my leadership, I just became exhausted from working without support. There is also a great discounting program for employees that allows you to fill out your wardrobe. The benefits and PTO plan are pretty amazing too. The PTO plan here is second-to-none, I'll miss that! If you choose to, you can travel to various 5.11 stores around the country. If you like to travel, this is a great place to foster that love. The actual product 5.11 makes is pretty incredible too. There's a lot of benefits, it's a great place to be.   The other sides of 5.11 outside of retail are pretty amazing! The professional sales team, MIL/FED team, etc. are all awesome people. I cannot stress enough that the corporate culture here is great.

I was one of the original employees who began working at 5.11 as the new store in the area opened up. I never heard of the brand but I was excited to be in a new environment. Boy was I wrong. From the lack of trust between management and employees due to constant monitoring by corporate, to high demanding work. For a period of two and a half months we were without any management in the store and were expected to run it as if we were full staffed. Corporate would not take our advice, yet didn’t seem to mind the fact we continued to stay and run the store. There is a lack of organization, lack of proper background checks on certain employees. The new manager at my location is an unpleasant, lazy, micro managing freak. I understand that is his style of management, but it drives me nuts. I don’t need to be educated, considering the fact that I was there from the beginning of the stores inception. Overall, the product is great, the atmosphere was good, 60% discount. But I believe that because the main focus of the company is rapid expansion, they will ultimately forget what it was that got them there in the first place. 

Before covid hit, we just got an amazing team together finally. When there is work to do we do it, and there is never a dull moment here. When there is downtime, we get to know each other and build as a team. The customer base that we get at this location is all around fantastic, and we make sure our clientele are taken care of and find what they need. From an employee stance, I will say there are some things that are frustrating about the job, but at no fault of the people I work with directly, and mainly find it to be at our corporate office. At a store level, we deal with the product, the system, and the customers first hand, and it is hard for us to believe that our corporate counter parts understand our frustrations with what works and what doesn't. To see our comments and concerns to be taken seriously and to be fixed, or at least considered would be helpful. 
Overall, there are always ways to improve and my coworkers and I have recently started to see those changes come into affect, which we appreciate wholeheartedly. 

5.11 is a growing company who has just moved past the founder stage and while becoming more structured like a corporation they are maintaining a culture that still involves some of the fun aspects of a smaller organization. The CEO is still easily accessible to any employee. 

At 5.11 I had my hands in every aspect of the online initiatives. As such I learned to create successful campaigns that were unified across multiple marketing channels with specific budget allocations. I managed nearly the entire budget for advertising which required the ability to make educated decisions quickly based on a combination of all available data as well as market experience. This is not a job for the faint of heart as one must take calculated risks with large amounts of money on a daily basis and provide results analysis for the outcome. 

The most enjoyable part of this job is the challenge and the opportunity to grow company with a great product offering. 

The people you serve, Military, Law Enforcement, Firefighters, First Responders make the job worth doing.  The products are top notch.  Though there are a lot of great people who work there, my management was terrible.  Expected daily phone calls.  Call reports needed to be very thorough, so pick one.  Don't demand both daily phone calls and call reports.  Compensation was weak.  Expected to be on the road constantly.  A lot of wannabes that acted tacticool, but never were in those fields.  I was and it seemed to be held against me for some strange reason.

Poor work/life balance and low pay for the work tends to yield a high turnover rate.  This is hard to overcome with Dealers you are trying to grow business with.  They say things like, you won't be here in 6 months.  Turns out they were right.  Company could be great, but they need more professional leadership and better treatment of their Sales Teams.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Shift leader 147 salaries reported	$16.70 per hour
Sales supervisor 241 salaries reported	$17.11 per hour
Retail assistant manager 73 salaries reported	$19.19 per hour
Retail sales associate 86 salaries reported	$13.97 per hour
Retail store manager 71 salaries reported	$28.02 per hour

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