delivery driver

parts driver

assistant store manager

counter sales representative

parts specialist

Genuine Parts Company

I was originally excited to start my contract at GPC through my agency. During the interview, it was indicated that everyone who contracts automatically transitions to a permanent employee after 90 days. I was informed the company was in the process of centralizing their leave of absence programs and there was the opportunity for growth. They indicated that the centralization had just recently started and caseload had increased and the need for hiring was immediate. They were looking for 5 permanent employees to assist with the centralization and they currently had 2 permanent roles available. 

Upon arrival, for the first day, I was instructed that one of the permanent employee's had walked out and ended their employment. I was advised by the supervisor that I would be taking over that employee caseload immediately. I was then instructed to filter through all of the current escalations and notify the supervisor what action was needed to deescalate the case. I was not provided any onboarding instructions, policies, procedures and/or system training, I was not provided a new computer or phone system as they provided me the computer that was left by the former employee.

I was able to get through the escalations with my previous knowledge of leave of absence and asking my current team members questions on how to navigate through the system. Most of the issues were pay related and or not receiving the appropriate paperwork to initiate the leave. I was informed that the trainer from training and compliance was out of the office and that the supervisor would temporarily train me. The supervisor was unorganized and clearly did not have a training background. Each time she would show the initial step it was a different way. Nothing was formally documented and she insisted that if someone on the team was talking about her or doing something that she has not shown to advise her immediately. Majority of the steps did not adhere to the FMLA guidelines and ERISA. 

Due to the supervisor not having the capacity to continue to train I was then instructed to do side by side training with current team members. As I indicated briefly processes and procedures were not documented and each team member was creating their own procedures on how to process leave. When I asked the supervisor about the correct process she was ignoring my question and then would approach the team on the floor to chastise them very loudly and unprofessionally. This made it a very hostile environment as team members no longer wanted to assist as they assumed I was there to get them in trouble. The correct way would have been to have a brief meeting to go over the correct process with the team and document the correct processes for the team to have access to.

Due to the hostile environment and the unprofessional supervisor, more team members started to leave. From my understanding with the team, it has always been high turnover and individuals do not stay more than 2 months. As of April 2019, the leave of absence department had lost 13 people in one full year. By the time I left the department it had lost 17 people. The supervisor also had favorites on the team. These favorites were the gossip bullies on the team. They took extended lunches together with the supervisor and logged in from other people computers in the morning before they reached their desk. It would literally take them 30 to 45 minutes to actually start working. They would target new team members and make them feel uncomfortable and unwanted. When I became to distant myself from the work bullies I was labeled as not being a team player because I did not gossip or allow gossip directly with me. I too was also targeted. Lucky for me, I was able to get my agency involved and it started to decrease. 

From members on the team, it was mention that the supervisor lied on her resume and provided false references to the job and that's why the program was implemented incorrectly. If you brought it to upper leadership attention that something is not in compliance or does not adhere to absence management the supervisor would get VERY defensive and find ways for you to quit or would end your contract by sending an email to your agency saying you were no longer needed with no reason to let you go. Each person that left the department was clearly needed and it showed once they no longer returned. Cases increased and calls increased and backlogged began to become noticeable. 

The supervisor would overtalk you, cancel meeting with you when you needed to address your concerns and try to persuade you that your background in the role did not change the fact that this was her department and she could let you go at any time.

I worked for a subsidiary for GPC. In the beginning, it was exciting. The subsidiary was under a restructuring with fresh management, open to new ideas, and welcomed employee feedback. In the last 2 years however, the level of employee involvement in the company began to drop. Although the revenue for the company had more than doubled since I first started, employees were seeing more cuts to annual events and the little things they were doing to boost employee morale. When I began to research where i was on the salary range, i noticed that i was about 30% under the going market rate for someone with my level of experience. I also discovered that I was under paid by about 50% to the person that held the position prior to me taking the job.  I had no prior disciplinary remarks in my time with the company. When raising these concerns, I was generally brushed off.  When I mentioned the pay difference between myself and a prior employee in that position, I was told I was paid what I was because i had worked up through the company. I held my position and did my job well for 5 years, but yet they didn't want to compensate me for those skills. This was a typical strategy for them, promote within so that they can pay those employees less than what they were worth to cut cost and benefit the management teams quarterly bonuses (additionally, they pulled bonuses from all non manager positions). Other divisions in GPC may be better about this, but my experience is solely based on my experience in the subsidiary I was based in. I would not recommend any of my friends to work for the subsidiary I departed from, but if anyone is applying to a particular subsidiary, do your research and know what you are getting into and what your potential growth looks like.

Overall I love working for GPC up until the last year of changes within managements and the direction they were going with our department. Anytime a company is only focused on numbers in a IT field and not Customer Service with complete resolve then its going to likely fail. I tried to explain this to management many times but you have to know when your not being heard. The direction is the direction. You can only help when people listen. I have no bad feelings at all overall with GPC as the company is great but sometimes companies put the wrong management in place that drive things the wrong direction and to scared to speak up for it's department. Allot of times the Corp. decision makers don't know the workings of the departments such as IT and what's needed and how it functions to support a company and make decisions that end up hurting the engines that support the business. In this day and age companies are lead not just by marketing, relationships or money, but IT.  It can start with those but the functioning, the communications and data. That is all IT to just name a few. Once they see this and understand it not just more but in detail from those are there working hard for them everyday, that company will be AMAZING and I wish this for them. You have to get ride of all the yes  people sometimes and get honest and verbal management in house so the Corp. heads are getting the honest and direct information to be able to support them as they want and need to be supported. Look at Microsoft, Amazon etc. GPC should be in the conversation as well one day. I wish all the best to GPC.

So to be completely fair.

This COULD be an awesome company to work for if you have the correct management.

I was the Site Manager for this location and I poured my all into this job. 

I even worked some hours pro-bono due to "budget" constraints of the company.. there just wasn't enough time to get this job done with the time allotted, so in stead of failing, I essentially paid out of pocket to get things finished(Working unpaid hours)

As the Site Manager, they wouldn't hire me a full-time employee, due to "budget constraints" when this job is a 2 man job full-time at the least.

They finally hired me a part-time green-horn, who I raced to train as fast and as thorough as possible.

I ended up trading some of my hours so I could have my helper full time (and thus ended up donating MORE of my time for free when I needed to be there more. )
 (there were multiple storage units on site that you had to attend to as well as attending the customer, (1 person can't be in 4 places at a time AND doing paperwork AND attending people.)

All in all, it's a sad situation that has a half-way, outdated toolset and approach to getting this job done. 

Ultimately, as had been experienced by the previous 4 Managers before myself, that you're ultimately thrown to the wolves by your immediate management and told to " make the location work"

There was serious lack of support by my immediate management which caused issues with the client; 



I liked to get there by 6am to get the (have to) work done before 8am. I learn how to serve a customer properly and how important a positive attitude is to employees and customers. My management taught me allot about the parts business in turn then I taught our employees about the business because I was promoted to Division Training Manager. I loved my job it was exciting to see what the Training did for our employees. Some employees had worked for other Parts distributors and had not received training that like what NAPA provided. The hardest part of the job was scheduling travel time and hoping the travel venture (airlines) was on time with no delay's that was tough! I enjoyed seeing our employees grow in the company and turn out to be great managers. I worked for GPC started in March of 1972 retired in June of 2006 I enjoyed my ride with this Great Company! I worked the jobs I want to work I liked them all it was a great growing experience for me. I started in Spokane went to Great Falls MT. back to Spokane then worked for Mountain Division yet resided in Spokane. My job titles were Territory Manager, Store Manager, Balkamp representative Mountain Division Training Manager.

This is my honest review.

NAPA offers a competitive salary, or at least it did.  Cost-of-living raises are minimal, around $0.10-0.25/ per hour a year.  That's if your pay hasn't plateaued; you can hopefully expect a lump sum in lieu of a raise instead.  
NAPA attempts to compete with Autozone and Advanced Auto, even though they aren't competitors.  So to try to steal their customer base, NAPA uses marketing gimmicks and extends hours past profitable points.  This decreases employee's home time and potentially pulls good counterman away from needed profitable times during the day in smaller stores.  
There is a lot of sibling fighting between GPC-owned stores, privately-owned stores, and Distribution Centers.  
NAPA doesn't seem to ever do a Cost/Benefit analysis before making any changes.  
I am not opposed to worthwhile change, but I fear for the direction this company is headed.  

There are good points though.  NAPA offers a 401k with a company match up to 5%.  NAPA gives bonuses to stores/individuals that perform well.  A Store Manager can make an insane amount of money through the bonus program ($100k+).  NAPA (GPC) offers a wide array of employee discounts both internally and externally.  NAPA will work with you to find a location/position that works best for you.

A typical day at GPC involved fast-paced picking with constant pressure to hit high KPIs. I learned how to work efficiently under stress and got my forklift and LO licences, which were valuable skills. Management was poor—out of touch with the floor, quick to blame staff, and often changed shifts based on mood. The workplace culture started off supportive, with good coworkers and chances to grow, but turned toxic over time as pressure increased and respect decreased. The hardest part was dealing with unrealistic expectations and lack of accountability from managers. The most enjoyable part was definitely the friendships I made—lifelong mates who helped make the job bearable.

Overworked, under appreciated working in a dept that was poorly created. They need new experienced talent in upper mgt starting with Shared Services Sen Director. Poor decisions created a leave dept that’s out of compliance. Turn over is insane due to poor treatment.  Basically your not a Specialist. You’re a micro managed specialist who takes calls in an inbound call center environment in addition to high impossible expectations of the job itself. Upper Management doesn’t even know their own policies & never follows what’s in writing on the policy. By far the worse place I’ve ever worked at a contractor. They use several agencies to fill Leave roles all with different pay per hour. They will low ball you! Don’t take less than $23 an hour!  Current management needs house cleaning in itself. Overworked and only talks permanent positions to increase morale. If you enjoy the twilight zone, working in this place is for you!

This was once an AWESOME company to work for. However, 1 senior leadership change, quickly changed that. The work place became very oppressive, and the director was an absolute bully. He bulldozed the employees and seemed to take joy in trampling over employees self esteem. 

The management team would target certain employees, and enlist the supervisors to build a case against employees they didn't like. The end goal was to get rid of them. Certain managers were allowed to call out of work twice a week for years with no reprimand, but we were forced to hold the hourly employees to a VERY STRICT attendance policy.

It's too bad that corporate wasn't more aware of what was going on in the shared services center. They allowed a few people with big egos, and an axe to grind, to run the place into the ground. As a result, MANY loyal people who had worked for the company for 10-20 years, resigned.

Very busy work environment. 
Learned a lot about the debit/credit account balance system, mailroom, UPS system (shipping and receiving), bulletin (company) processing and distribution.
Some management personnel were excellent, while others had their little idiosyncrasies such as playing favorites with some employees and making it harder for those not in their favor.
Co-workers for the most part were great.
Hardest part - When introduced to new processes, was expected to pick it up right away, even though it may not have been used on a constant basis.
Enjoyable part - getting to know the newer co-workers and sharing my knowledge of the company, their ways of doing things and such and helping them learn their tasks and showing them the easiest ways to accomplish their tasks within the safest and quickest standards of the work environment.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Delivery driver 86 salaries reported	$25.05 per hour
Parts driver 50 salaries reported	$36.10 per hour
Assistant store manager 2 salaries reported	$17.25 per hour
Counter sales representative 9 salaries reported	$18.56 per hour
Parts specialist 1 salary reported	$19.00 per hour

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