retail sales associate

assistant store manager

store manager

department manager

materials manager

Follett Corporation

TYPICAL DAY
Begin the day by getting the cashiers out (with cash from safe) and initiating start-of-day in main server.
Resolve server and register issues, if any.(Troubleshoot/replace CPU's, receipt printers, pin pads, keyboards, scanners, etc. and coordinate with corporate product support, if needed.) 
Check email. 
Check voice mails. 
Check/edit employee punches from previous day. 
Assess employee absences/resolve staffing issues, if any. 
Reconcile unmatched invoices listed on online wizard by corporate AR. 
Apply account payments posted in online AR application.
Initiate wire transfers for university direct deposits, if any.
Submit billing to internal/external customers, if any to submit, and manage files.
Process payments from internal/external customers in online application, if any to process, and manage files.
Set-up internal/external customer accounts on daily basis.
Assist university departmental customers with merchandise selections for P.O. purchases.
Manage files for shipping & receiving documents for all (7) store departments.
Manage cash office: issue cashier change; visit bank for change, when needed.
Resolve customer and employee inquiries, complaints, and work issues. 
Execute various spontaneous tasks and issues for store manager.
Cash out cashiers at shifts end.
Prepare end-of-day deposit, when closing.
Initiate end-of-day in main server, when closing.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED
1) A successful retail business primarily requires efficient management of employees, inventory and customers.
2) Any successful business, to be competitive, must have a good office management system of some sort, either computer-based or manual
3) Managerial punctuality and attendance are of the utmost importance. 
4) I added many new abilities to my skill set, as listed above in my typical day.
5) I perform best in a structured work environment.
6) I tend to be direct and assertive, when dealing with superiors, sub-ordinates, and customers alike.
7) I have a high level of Integrity and a stronger than average work ethic. These cannot be taught; you either have them or you don't.
8) Managerial kindnesses really do enliven employees and elevate mood and morale in the workplace. The opposite is also true.
9) I write better than I speak.
10) My performance in interviews is weaker than my actual job performance.

MANAGEMENT
1) Proper management of employees is the number one, key element, in maintaining an efficient, orderly, productive and pleasant work environment.
2) Managerial integrity is the number two key element. Employee integrity is directly related to managerial integrity; if the latter deteriorates, so will the former. This includes the manager's work ethic.
3) Managerial effectiveness deteriorates as familiarity with subordinates increases, unless careful balance between the two is maintained.
4) It is important to discuss employee weaknesses with the employee, rather than with their peers. 
5) Management should always address employee deficiencies with the employee when observed.
6) Never get into a yelling match with an associate, whether superior or subordinate.
7) Every job comes with challenges. Sometimes you just have to suck it up, and do your job.


MY CO-WORKERS
My co-workers are good people with a range of levels of education,
applicable intelligence, dispositions, interests, work ethics, strengths and weaknesses. Each has their own behavioral challenges.

Waning sales and subsequent forced payroll reductions and limited staffing have strained morale. But, for the most part, a cheerful outlook endures.

Everybody complains about pay rates.

HARDEST PART OF THE JOB
Other peoples mistakes, shortcomings, inabilities, shortsightedness, and indifference create the most challenges.

It seems virtually impossible for employees, including the boss, to get to work on time and actually work throughout their shifts. 

I have to live with being the go-to guy for many issues and still fulfill my regular job responsibilities.

Corporate execs no longer care about the associates in the field; I finally know how it feels to be treated like I'm nothing but a number.

The work load seems to increase much, much quicker than the pay.

MOST ENJOYABLE PART OF THE JOB
My boss prefers a flexible, relaxed work environment. 

With college kids around all the time, a vibrant youthfulness is always in the air.

I have my own office and my own desk. Because my desk is in the cash office, my door is closed most of the times.

The cluelessness of the people at the home office is staggering. They come up with impossible-to-implement initiatives, or ideas that are so poorly conceived that, if executed as designed, will destroy customer trust

The amount of pointless paperwork and projects is so great that it is impossible to concentrate upon giving attention where it needs to be: serving the customers and doing your job.

Everything is a crisis. There is so little actual, real long-term planning. It is all reacting to perceived situations by people in the "ivory tower" of Oak Brook, people who have either never worked a day in a store, or have been in place for so long they have not had to work with the current cumbersome systems.

Home office people have no concept as to how much time it actually takes to do work in the stores. They have no idea of the intensity of research needed to cut through the cluelessness of professors ordering books which are several editions old, or the amount of finesse it takes to persuade someone to NOT try to sidestep the bookstore and go straight to some publisher who promises to line their pockets.

Home office holds us accountable for markdowns and discourages them, but announces initiatives which increase markdowns.

Home office holds us accountable for the amount of inventory in our stores, but demands we bring in more books earlier AND cuts staff while increasing pointless hoops to jump through so there are not enough people to get the returns done by the monthly deadlines that will make a bonus possible.

Home office holds us responsible for the amount of returns we perform, so they are limiting the amount of product we can bring in. When we run out, we will create ill will and drive customers away.

The only way to get a raise is to change positions (physically relocate to another store). Once you are in place, you get little to no raise annually, unless you have topped out in your job grade, in which case you get NO raise. Your job grade is based upon the amount of sales for your store, not the complexity of your situation, so if you have poor students and 2 offsite competitors plus internet vendors, you are plain screwed.

You will never be able to hire enough staff to help. They operate under the paradigm that your labor hours every year must equal or be less than those used the previous year. Never mind trying to grow sales. Nevermind the fact that last year at this time you lost your textbook manager, assistant manager, accounting clerk, and shipping/receiving manager. If you don't fill those schedule hours somehow RIGHT NOW, despite the job vacancies, YOU WILL NOT GET THEM BACK.

Follett talks a great deal about their values, but they don't give a rat's patootey about anyone in the stores, unless you're a regional manager's pet. They don't care that you can't make ends meet and need a shorter commute or a raise. They won't promote you into a better-paying position or job grade if there is a candidate who is coming off the training program, because those people work for less and must be placed to keep the Training & Development placement statistics high.

It's a very political place. If you like playing games and sucking up, you will do just fine. But if you have self-respect, look someplace else.

Regionals and VPs expect salaried store management to give up work/life balance to make up for the lack of labor hours. Their ridiculous demands have driven many of my peers to resign or leave the company. Just because they have no lives, they expect everyone to do the same.

Also, home office big wigs have mansions in the Chicago suburbs with indoor pools and big annual bonuses. They have no clue what it is like for the people in the store. And they only listen to the yes-men who are sucking up to them to get ahead.

Store equipment is antiquated and does not have enough ram to run the programs used. Point of same, textbook management, accounting, billing, markups, internet order fulfillment - all use poorly designed DOS or dos shell programs which do not talk to each other. They have to communicate at end-of-day through data pushes. This time lag is ridiculous. It literally takes 20 minutes to book up a workstation in the morning, and the IT people are persisting in spreading the best practice of shutting off computers every night, so that's 20 minutes of thumb-twiddling waiting for the machine to come up.

There is a LOT of physical work demanded. You have to lift 75 pound boxes and books weighing up to 10 pounds each, even if you're in management, because there is not enough staff to do all the work.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Follett is a good company with a long and established history of running college bookstore across the nation. In the past several years they have faced significant pressure from online competition and even though they have launched their own answer to this disruption their brick and mortar stores still face significant competition that they have yet to answer.

The college textbook market place is changing with new textbooks increasing in cost faster than the rate of inflation for oil, gold, and almost any other commodity, and competition for the secondary market driving the retail price of books ever down the publishers and brick and mortar stores are struggling to make sales. Largely the students using the campus bookstore are freshmen who have yet to discover the availability of cheaper online sources or student using financial aid who can least afford to purchase books themselves. 

Since 2014 Follett has seen two major lay offs and a significant reorganization of store location staff. and even though they have made several acquisitions of businesses that will support their general merchandise divisions they still face significant threat to their original mission, selling books to students. 

If you do decide to work for Follett as a store manager be aware that the environment will be one of diminishing returns. Fewer store resources, and personnel to make the same sales goals. Their computer applications are specialized and, frankly will take a lot of time to learn and understand, but, if my experience is any indication, you should expect little in the way of one-on-one support to learn and master them (despite their New Manager Onboarding modules and MIT program).

If you already work for Follett and want to be promoted from within to assistant store manager, department manager, textbook manager, or store manager go for it, just interview as many people you can before making the change to get a real vision for what is happening. The view from the top is a lot different from the view from the bottom. The textbook market is not what it was and will never be again. 

If you are applying from outside my honest advise is reconsider. I have worked in the book industry for nineteen and have been around long enough tho see the changes brought on by online sales and the secondary market in both trade and textbook sales. The only thing keeping the college bookstore going in their monopoly on campus and financial aid sales. The sad fact is without these artificial props the textbook market would have gone the way of the music store in the early 2000's. Students can buy for less online for alomost almost every book you will havein stock in the store.

Give the industry a few years, maybe a decade and more, but campuses will start using companies like eCampus to run their bookstores online and virtually and close down their on-campus book store locations, or just run a popup store during the first few weeks of term rather than keep the store open all year. In my opinion the long term prospect are few. 

Follett is a great company. Please don't misread me. But it is a company with significant challenges that you as the manager of a small store will have little control in fixing. That sense of powerlessness can be daunting.

Working for Follett was the worse time of my life. There were no raises, no insurance, no hours, no benefits what so ever. The manager would give the hours to his "favorite employee".
I have a disability and he told me that " I needed to get my head on right for the next few weeks of rush"(in-front of other employees that could hear what he said to me). That really made me feel embarrassed and ashamed. I literally was in tears and made an excuse to go outside for a minute. 
He also whine about me taking my medicines for my disability because they made me groggy and would "make my job performance poor". I felt like I couldn't do anything right. 
Every time I would make a mistake he would huff and puff and always address me in-front of other employees. One time I was helping a lady with her online order, there was a mistake the manager made ( he put the wrong books in her bag) I went to tell him and he snatched the paper out of my hands and huffed and puffed and was like " always confirm and make sure the order is right before sending them out the door" I said " I didn't send her out the door, I noticed the books in her bag didn't match the books on the order form". " That's why I am coming to you with this" He just rolled his eyes at me and said "whatever". So every time he made a mistake he would take his frustration out on me or somehow blame the mistake on me saying I did it. The manager also showed a lot of favoritism toward one employee,he wouldn't get mad at her for the same mistakes that I would make or other employees would make.. 
And don't get me started on working a "rush" I hated it. Certain employees get all moody and take out frustrations in a passive aggressive way..i.e slamming books. The first two weeks of every semester was blah, and it got pretty stressful. The job was fast-paced at the beginning of the semester than it would "die down" and get really boring. After doing stocking and cleaning the store, there was literally nothing to do but sit and wait on someone to come in the store. Don't get me wrong not all days were bad, the temps and customers is what helped me get through most days. Hiring and interviewing temps was fun, you got to meet new people. The most enjoyable part of the job was the lunch breaks and being off whenever there was bad weather. I enjoyed some of the staff that would come into the store, and I enjoyed the customers. Helping customers was the best part of the job. At this job I learned that I am a much better person that the manager and I would never treat an employee the way he treated me. I learned that I deserved to be treated fairly, I deserved to have a raise, and I deserved a better job therefore is why I quit.

(McHenry Follett) - - - leads will toss you under a bus for not meeting unfair goals every day with mandatory OVERTIME and Saturdays 6 Hours or 8 hours long. I got warned once but a few minutes passed and not even a day! I get a wright-up. people started getting the same and they were still trying as hard as they could. (A lot of people left of course.)

Some people work so hard, they could barely solve a small math problem at a 4th grade level. Bathroom breaks will ruin your goal rate, You hold it and hope your kidney doesn't fail or ware brown pants because they want to see those numbers even if the place looks like a mess for animals with books in places no one can reach. (This place is more like a labor camp.)

(Elgin Follett) - - - We were taken into a small room to get briefed on the hours for this location but nothing was printed and we were expected to remember EVERYTHING while we stood there. We were promised things like new this and that, instead on arrival from McHenry we used these scanners that would crash, freeze, and give us the wrong digits while still on rates.

Leads are not too well suited for the job, one of them looks like a high school girl pretending to be a strict secretary. occasionally rules are spoken and then broken more than once by the leads. I guess they are above the rules, everyone has their employee persona unique to them.

the job is easy for sure but these people are autistic in some way or just really uneducated. we have a kid who likes to bring big knives that are not allowed in the warehouse and pretend to stab someone, there's gossiping Latinos who don't seem to get yelled at for burning time and not meeting rate but leads don't say anything for some reason unless told to by the Boss who doesn't really know all that too well any predicaments you might encounter on the floor so you're better off reporting to a lead.

They say Mon - Fri 7am - 3:30pm but once you settle in after a few weeks. You follow a mandatory overtime shuttle with everyone. could be 1 hour or even 2 hours if things get busy, so you can come in an hour early to leave at 3:30pm and then Saturdays are usually overtime! 8 hours. and keep in mind unfair goals will fit the time you serve. Welcome to labor camp #2

--------------------------------------------

Would I come back to work here?
No way, HA! not even for 14$ an hour and mandatory overtime even on a weekend. if everyone is asked to volunteer and they don't want to, guess what. it's now mandatory.

The Boss is the only average individual compared to everyone else in special ed courses. 

[Do yourself a favor and only apply here if every other job out there is scrubbing a toilets.]

I think working at Follett is a good short term job to have, especially if you are looking for work or student employment. When I worked there last fall,I had worked at least 37 hours.  At the time, I was unemployed and I was desperately looking for work.  There was a student employee who worked with me. But I believe she left before I left.

I think the most enjoyable part of the job was that I was able to work at the college I had graduated from.  Yet, I did not get to work with any people that I knew when I went to college there.  I did not realize at first that you do get at least a discount percent discount on the clothes and accessories.

The job got me excited about returning to college, which I was able to take some classes in the Fall but at a different university.  It would have been great if I could have bought the books I needed while I was still working at the bookstore. Regrettably, but the position in the Fall ended before I ever got admitted and registered in the classes. (Then again, I am not sure if the discount would have applied to buying books from a different college either.)

Please note: You always want to make sure you are always on good terms with your fellow coworkers and managers. Make sure you are on time and never say anything negative about the workplace.  Make sure you wear a mask and get a Covid-19 test before going to work. 

It helps if you pretend to be docile or act like you do not know anything. Rather than being a strong supportive worker, the managers do not like it if you are outspoken or assertive.  

I found that one day, I didn't even get a lunch or a break.  Keep in mind that the food at the college you work at can be expensive at the on campus dining areas. So try to take your own snacks with you, which you can eat on the fly in a short restroom break.

You have to buy a parking permit or find your own transportation to get to the workplace.

Naturally, the supervisors and managers seem to have a preference for the workers or employees that are currently attending the same college or university you are working at. 

As one person indicated to me, the positions are seasonal. So you can't exactly rely upon having a job there in the bookstore all the time.

During my work at the bookstore, management was very friendly to its employees, to the point of even some of the floor supervisors going by their first names. That, however, did not mean that little was accomplished in the field; every day was a busy one in its own way. Books were always in need of shelving; before the rush, this concept was paramount on the sales floor. Any books that were overstock would then go into the stock part of the store, in the back. Book wrapping was also important, and thus from even the smallest tasks in the business I learned that those "little things" had to get done, or they could potentially have a huge effect. At one point, we had negative inventory on a very important class' book, and I'd guess that this would have set us behind in revenue in that manner. The harder parts of the job were during the rush, or rather, when all of my fellow college students would get their books most often. At one point I waited for another fellow employee to help me with bag check-in (as they couldn't bring a large bag in as a precaution against potential stealing), while I checked them in as quickly as I could. It was not the company's negligence that caused this, it was my insistence that I could do it and the ones who needed their lunch break could indeed go as scheduled; the job needed to be done. This experience was the hardest and most enjoyable experience during my working there.

However, this is not to say that I did not value my co-workers; far from it. I viewed everyone there as a friend who was making just as much of an effort that I was and I respected them for it. We were all in the enterprise together and I enjoyed every aspect of the work involved, save perhaps when it all slowed down and I looked for things to keep myself, the sales floor, and the back of the store moving. I looked for things to clean up, looked for people in need of assistance, customers and employees alike. I did anything to help keep myself useful and others unburdened. Long story short, this was my first time doing non-volunteer work, and it was the greatest and most educational experience I've ever had.

I worked as GM at the Massasoit Follett Store (Rated B+ within Follett) from March 2008 to August 2009, when I was promoted to the University of Massachusetts Boston Store (Rated A within Follett)
The reason for my promotion was that I was successful both financially and through excellent customer service (rated by client's comments to my RM). My Regional Manager once told me that I was the "most professional manager in all of his 25 store region".. something I was particularly proud of. 

My typical day was a balance of various tasks. Part of the enjoyment of these two positions was that I was not stuck in a job rut. I could pick and choose what I wanted to accomplish on any particular day. which I did first by priority, then by choice. There was always something to do in these jobs. I would take three things off of my list and three more would appear via corporate email, through the necessity of monthly scheduled tasks or through store need. 

I felt that I was accomplished in having a happy productive team in both stores. I am the type of manager who gives more than I expect and am there for my staff when they need me. I provided a strong ethical basis to staff about the importance of efficiency, productivity and communications. I was able to bring my store, through the use of great customer service (and an online customer comment reporting system called "SMG"- Used by Follett), to #3 in customer service in our entire 950 store company. I maxed out my bonus for FY14 at $23K (which is proof of the efficacy of my GM and financial skills). 

The most difficult part of this job was to convince the universities we were contracted with to partner with us on major projects and programs that we rolled out which required them to integrate university and Follett computer reporting programs to the benefit of our store and students. As the two schools I worked with were state run universities, they were reticent about integrating systems with our "for profit" company. But persistence, and hard won high-trust relationships usually resulted in success for Follett and myself.

One of the most significant factors to the enjoyment of any career is the environment in which you work in. The relationship you uphold with faculty, staff, students, and fellow employees for this particular job has a great impact on your outlook of this job. Believing in company policy and entertaining the thought of stability and upward achievements is an another factor to keep in mind. 
   Throughout my experience, I was able to create lasting relationships with different members on campus. The support and outlook of the college community on the services that the bookstore provides will only increase the faithfulness between the employees and the copious amounts of people they provide services to. I can proudly say that I will walk away from this experience with more a greater understanding of the business in Higher Education. With that being said, I would not recommend working for Follett.
    Last year, after less than a year of my employment, the company had significant cutbacks with no warning to the hundreds of employees who had been cut from positions that they have upheld for years. Many of those people had established relationships on campus. It does does not shed a positive light on the company as an entirety to remove someone from a community, because that's what working on a college is supposed to be: A COMMUNITY. Follett fails to address this establishment. Understandably, this is a business (and one in dire need of attempting to uphold footing as technological advances are empowering the way the business is currently structured.). 
       Initially, I was proud to say that I was working for this company. They seemed to provide more-than-adequate training. However, it's all a facade. As it currently stands, their is a significant dissonance between not only the company and campus relations, but the company and itself. They are attempting to change their policies and procedures and structures at a pace that most stores cannot keep up with, which is resulting in a distaste between actual campus locations and the 'quote, end quote' higher-ups. 
    If you care about people, if you want to help students, if you care about higher education, if you care about making a difference,

     Don't waste your time. 


Thank you for your time.

I worked mostly as a cashier and therefor spent most of my time behind the register. I tended to work in 4 different locations of the 7 our region occupied. Three of these were retail, working face-to-face with customers. The fourth was in our catalog's warehouse, filling orders. I liked that area the best since everyone seemed to get along well and the schedule was regular. Breaks, lunch, and hours were always exactly the same, which was not true in the stores. Also it was consistantly busy. The stores could be intensely busy or seriously dead. Also hours for the stores were regular. There was no guarantee that you would get a break or if it would even be on time. It seemed also that you would be in trouble equally for doing too much or too little during the day. Hours were always distributed unfairly. The company preached equality and said that family and friends working together was not allowed yet managers hired their children, neighbors, siblings,etc freely without a word being said. These people and those that would suck up to management would be able to get away with a very easy guaranteed job and plenty of hours. Recently some management in my area of the company has been switched around. Some of the people who have gotten the best reviews and are the best workers were unreasonably reviewed negatively to make room for those favored employees. All this being said, I do generally enjoy the people I work with. I frequently do things with them outside of work. Also I worked for Follett for 2 years before going to another job. That job didn't work out and Follett hired me back. I had many medical issues the first time I worked there including a stretch of at least 4 months where I couldn't work at all. Considering I'm just a part-time employee it was very nice of them to just tell me that I could take the time I needed and my job would still be there for me. Once I get a full time job with benefits, I will still keep time aside to work a day or two since they have stood by me.

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