sales merchandiser

merchandiser

retail merchandiser

local driver

truck driver

Mondelēz International

I loved this job for sure. The pay and medical benefits are really like no other for someone who doesn’t have a degree. However if you have any desire to have a family or life outside of work, best of luck to you.

Everyone at the factory capitalized off FMLA to get extra days off because 12 on/2 off means missing 99% of things happening around you. It means sore bodies and lots of OT. You’re either at work, doing 5 more forced hours of work (if you don’t say yes, your attendance is punished), or you’re sleeping for the inevitable graveyard shift you’ll be stuck on for the first several years. Some employees had 10+ years still stuck on third or second shift. 

I enjoyed the majority of my coworkers however there’s lots of drama. I guess when you spend over half a day at work it is bound to happen. Lots of union workers had issues with management however I never really did. I both got along with and respected the management I consistently worked with, but maybe that speaks more for who I am as a person being respectful rather than looking down my nose at them like many union workers did. I saw them all doing the best they could to follow their orders from higher up and be as present as they can in a factory where management is not allowed to touch anything or assist due to union discrepancies.

I worked on both bake and packing floor and I loved both. If you’re someone who’s always chasing to learn more and more, there’s always seniority based bids to change departments and do something new.

Gaining seniority is hard which is unfortunate as it affects literally everything. What shift you are, what line you’re in every week or weekend, if you do or don’t get forced in the weekend, if you do or don’t get forced M-F, if you get accepted when you bid for a new position, when you get to take vacation, and what order you get to choose said week of vacation (lowest of course chooses last, gets forced first, gets placed on the shifts and lines no one wants etc)… it affects everything. Take that into consideration that this job can make zero accommodation to your life outside of it because you are a number all taken into account off seniority. If your kid has an event and you need to work first shift instead of second one day, that simply can not and will not happen.

You can miss up to 8 days a year/collect 8 points before termination and that sounds like a lot, except for that whole 12 day on 2 day off thing. As well as denying any OT to come in 3 hours early to stay 5 hours over, if you say no, is counted as a point/missed day. Which when they can force you 20 hours M-F (5 hours a day 4 days in that week) and then also 8 hours per weekend day, you could potentially rack up those 8 points pretty fast. 

My BIGGEST takeaway is if you want money or nice things and you’re single with no priority to see people, this is the job for you. Lots of growth and money here. But if you have children, prioritize family, or want to enrich your relationship, maybe not. I made the ultimate choice to leave for the sake of growing my life with my husband because this job trying to balance with his was ripping us apart. I will always miss this place, and the people I met inside of it, probably more than the money. However it isn’t worth being a number and having zero control over my life at work.

Where do I begin !!! In short, during the 5 years working for this company I did not meet one employee that was genuinely happy with their job.  This goes from the service merchandisers (stocking personnel) to the delivery drivers.  

I had the pleasure to work with people that have been with this company for over 20 years and they hated working for Mondelez (Nabisco).  This company is nothing short of a joke.  Last year, 2014 the company was hard pressed to make quarterly numbers.  What is Nabisco's answer to making numbers ?  Send in unnecessary product to stores!!!  There were several times during the year at quarter close that this company FORCED it's sales employees to send orders/deliveries to customers when they did not need them.  Talk about shady business practices.  The reasoning for this from my immediate manager was "everybody is doing it".  Hinting that other companies are doing the very same.  Ha ha ha....  A joke indeed.  This excuse was even used by Regional Upper Management.  

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Everyday complaints are plentiful....  A minute of overtime and one has to call your immediate manager for approval.  Upon doing so, you are almost scolded for even bringing up the idea of overtime.  This is in sales as well as in the service sector of the company.  You are "given" a company car but they subtract from your pay check twice a month.  They treat their merchandisers (stockers) terribly even though they are the life blood of the company.  If you file a complaint, you get nowhere with HR.  They have these ridiculous sales rallies where the Area Vice President tries to pump everyone up with meager sales data.  The company has no back bone.  They are at the whim of Wal-Mart.  Whatever they say, goes.  I once had a sales manager call me on a Sunday and DEMAND that I go to a customer to take care of counting some inventory all because that particular store manager wanted it done.  THIS WAS AFTER MY MON-FRI 40 HOUR WORK WEEK.  The pay offered to sales employees is awful considering the amount of work.  I would spend just under 8 hours in the field and sometimes 2 hours at home preparing for the next day or recapping activities for that same day.  But would I report my time after 8 hours ???  Of course not.  Read on please.....

Harassment from managers is commonplace from sales to merchandising.  They always bring up BUDGET, BUDGET, BUDGET.  I worked for several different managers in different regions and they were all the same.  Ask yourself...  if a company is pinching pennies like this and partaking in shady tactics to make numbers, do you really want to work for them ?  There is little to no innovation going on in this company.  What does innovation mean for Mondelez International???  Triple Oreos, Candy filled whatever, Super fudge etc etc etc.  With market trends and in the current economic climate I see this company going nowhere fast and getting much much worse.  

Unless you are hard pressed for money stay away from this terrible company.

What did I learn:  How NOT to run a business.
Most enjoyable part of the job:  Pay check every two weeks?

Poor management/No communication/ email used to much and is unreliable/ expect you to be doing things work related on your little time off like emails/ stress and unbalanced work load/ unnecessary driving due to poor scheduling that doesn't make sense. There's no set route not even as an order writer/ nothing being done to improve efficiency for this type work. Just increased stress cutting budget by trying reduce hours in payroll causing you to have do work in even less time. Unrealistic time restriction but once you do this for years you get it down packed/ no uniforms , who wants to wear business casual clothes dirty and worn in warehouse like conditions/ physically demanding but you get used to it once you've done it for years. /Favoritism/Unrealistic requirements and time frame/Inefficient scheduling use of technology./unpredictable and no advance notification of schedule./work hours indefinite and unbalanced/You dont matter it's literally about numbers and dollars./Tell you what you want to hear to get you to take on extra work and more responsibility./Your hard work really isn't appreciated/They really expect the job to come before your life, family and health/ Only time you hear from dm it's something negative.rms can send an email in hours about o.t they caused adding stores to you less than 24hr notice. But anything relating to time off if practically ignored/Safety really isn't important when inclement weather arrives, there's no communication- no one should be working because your required travel multiple places. When the hurricane came in 17 it was nothing sent out the day it "hit" until that evening. /No real designated lunch break,  you have to figure that out on your own. / not able to use pto or vacation because there's no actual request system or no way you can view it as an employee. Just hope your email, call, or text is actually seen or returned. Hr is no help they cant speak or understand English and they know nothing, yet rms usually refer you to 1800 hr as if they would know anything./ At times delayed pay due to 3rd party  mileage pay company. Work phone app used to track time is unreliable and useless- have calculated your time instead of it recording the time arriving and left and the app calculating that time for you. / I'm literally still here because it's hard to find work in my area that can pay all your bills.

I have worked retail for over 15 years, been in charge of a crew, worked as part of one, and worked entirely on my own. I'm an incredibly hard worker capable of pushing 80 cases an hour depending on what product is going up. I have no qualms working hard. What I do have an issue with is when I'm working as hard as you do for this company and you get little to nothing in return. 

With the minimum wage soon going up to $15/hr in Massachusetts, their starting pay for most people is $2-3 under this average. When you consider you need an average of $27/hr to live in this state, it's not hard to imagine that most of us need a second job to even approach getting one end to meet the other.

I was lucky to have a pretty good sales rep above me and it worked out fairly well most of the time but, as others have said, when it came to quarter close, things became out of control. Christmas time is another ordeal as well. They bring in inordinate amounts of product none of your stores wants or needs to "hit the number," a number which is essentially a lie because it's being buffered by forced product and not actual sales. The board of directors and such must know this. I've worked for stores and other companies that also rely on this falsification of numbers to feed lies to the higher-ups, but this one takes the cake. Sales reps push these only because they can get bonuses and perhaps perks like a trip each year if they fall into the highest earning reps in the region. They do not care how miserable their part or even full timers are working 800-1500 cases a day between two people during the holidays.

The worst part is the clear amount of stress it puts its employees under, particularly the part-timers who are used as cheap labor. Many full timers lie about what they're doing, some don't even make an attempt to work to any kind of standard. They couldn't care less if they waste an hour sitting in the car watching videos on their phone while you put up 60 cases of the load they're supposed to help you with. The common question of "You done yet?" with a wry smile that hints at the actual hope that you've done their work for them is uttered every single day to the point of making you want to walk out.

I could never recommend this company to any retail employee, most especially any with a deep background who is looking to move up. There are far better companies out there to do so with. This company isn't even American anymore, it's owned by a Mexican conglomerate. Don't contribute to terrible companies taking away our business and making profits at the expense of our poor judgement.

Overall the job itself and work wasn’t that bad but management and certain employees on the floor made it difficult to effectively do my job. 

We had either day or night shift in the warehouse 9AM or 5:30 PM night shift always gets treated better though they never balance the work evenly between the two shifts so day shift has to stay on overtime while night shift leaves early or on time.

It’s pretty easy you have a picker that selects cases of Nabisco products and puts them on a conveyor belt that goes to the stacker, they stack the cases on the pallet wrap it and load it on the truck and start on the next one.

The new eWS system for picking and stacking pallets is overly complicated and takes a ridiculous amount of time away from doing your job. 

It’s a Teamster job so the union does what it can to protect you but a lot of employees feel like as soon as they get a little bit of seniority they don’t have to work anymore just like everyone else. It takes at least 5 years just to get a decent stable bid if you’re full time. 

It was a “part time job” but some of us casuals were working 40+ hours a week and the pay was amazing but no benefits only full timers get those. Full time requires a CDL Class A which was ridiculous they should have full time inside bids for casuals who don’t want to drive for the company.

The logistics supervisor for the Streetsboro location and the day shift foreman rule the place with an iron fist. I’ve never seen a union foreman work so closely for the company before in my 3 years of working in a union shop like that. 

They let me go after I started having symptoms of COVID and asked if I would be required to stay home. 2 hours later I get a call saying i’m no longer needed couldn’t even fire me in person. Overall management was a joke and didn’t care about helping you if you were struggling on the floor or dealing with things it was all about getting the Oreos and Ritz crackers out.



As a Merchandiser for Nabisco, you go into multiple grocery stores per day and service them; this includes: packing out product, selling incremental displays, and general service to the store based on their needs. If you are lucky, the management of the individual stores will not give you a hard time during your pack out, and you can move on to the next store until the day is done. Mondelez, like many retail companies, is constantly putting out new products and bulk distributing it to stores, sometimes to the displeasure of their customer. Upper management feigns obliviousness and leaves it to the people on the ground to deal with the backlash.

Part time workers are vulnerable to abuse by the management at Mondelez. Part time workers do not receive their work schedule until the day before they are expected to work (sometimes after 7pm but generally around 4-5pm). You may be asked to travel to stores (in your personal vehicle) far outside your region, and guilted into doing so by the RMS. The company reimburses mileage at 45 cents per mile AFTER the first 25 miles, so if you are asked to service a store 26 miles away from home for a 4 hour shift, the company reimburses the employee 90 cents for 51 miles driven (drive time is not included).
Many times the workload is heavy and support is limited, so the part time worker is asked to stay overtime. Full time reps are limited in the amount of overtime they can take, forcing part-timers to, on many occasions, eclipse 40 hours per week without receiving benefits.

Not much room for advancement out of the Merchandiser position. You can be promoted to a Senior Merchandiser, which is a step below a sales rep without a company car or bonuses-- but you are at will of the company and will be asked to travel across territories for weeks at a time. Popular belief seems to be that women and minorities are the only ones promoted further up the ladder of sales (with some exception).

As a general grocery store vendor, the pay is decent, but if you are looking for a more long term part-time position you should consider working in one of the stores you service, as you will receive some kind of benefits, raises, and advancement opportunities which seem to be very limited at Mondelez.

They PREACH work life balance. There is NONE. You get your schedule, at 5pm the day before and it will frequently change. They give the Sales and Senior Sales more deliveries than the merchandisers because if they keep the merchandisers hours low, upper management will bonus. Sales and Seniors are told they will only do about 30% of deliveries, but that is total lie. As a Senior, you travel constantly. A week, at a time, you are on the road, covering a Sales persons territory, while they are on PTO. Sales people will leave Seniors all their returns and out of dates to clean up, when they are on PTO and then throw you under the bus when they come back. Management turns a blind eye to the Sales peoples sloppy work and blames it on store and merchandisers. Stores treat you horribly. Management will call Sales on their approved PTO, if they have an issue. Must build displays and do deliveries on ad day. Truck deliveries come at different times, every day and are constantly late, so again work life balance is a joke. If a truck is a few hours late, you are expected to clock out and sit in the parking lot, of the store and wait till the truck gets there and then clock back in. The time in store, they assign you is never enough to get the job done properly. Management is clueless to the challenges, at store level until a truck delivery is denied, at a store. Then they care because the sales loss, from that delivery not coming through, affects their bonus. Work is very monotonous and hard. Your feet, your back and your knees will kill you because you're constantly on hard floors at stores such as Publix, Walmart, Target, Winn-Dixie Piggly Wiggly and  Harvey's. This job is anything but enjoyable. The pay is not worth the agony that should go through everyday. It is probably the worst job I have ever had in my life, due to the lack of caring, from management and above. Turn over rate for this company is outrageous. Please believe the negative reviews that you read, about this company. Unfortunately, I did not listen to two friends, that work for Mondelez before accepting the position. I should have listened, it would have saved me a lot of anguish.

Depending on what territory, sales representative and supervisor you work for it can be great or awful.

A typical work day depends on the intelligence of your sales rep and their scheduling. If you have a great one who knows how to write excellent orders and schedules accordingly, life for you will be easy. If you have a horrible sales rep, the one that can't write a good order which in turn can't schedule appropriately for the bad order he/she wrote, your day will be very long and may require over time to finish.

The hardest part of the job is the pressure to stock a store as quickly as possible. The goal is 50 cases an hour. However, realistically it's more like 35 to 45 cases an hour, including rotating and "facing" the product. The average grocery order a merchandiser will stock is 40  to 80 cases alone.  If you are lucky, you will be paired up w/ another merchandiser to stock the larger stores like Wal-Mart which an order can be in the couple of hundred cases of cookies and crackers. Again, it depends on the intelligence of your sales rep to order what the store actually needs and sells.

 Best advice is to get to know the key employees in each grocery store you work in. The receivers and department heads I find know more than the store managers and are easy to find at all times. Check in and out of every store with the store manager if you can, if you can't find them check in and out with the store receiver-always. It will protect you against a sales rep or fellow merchandiser that may try to take credit for your work or accuse of not working- keep strong detailed notes and pics of your hard work- You may have your work questioned by a sales rep or supervisor or fellow merchandiser for what ever reason-be ready to provide this information at all times !
 
The best part of your day will be the drive home ! It's probably the only time you will have a chance to sit and relax. Even better, if a load is canceled by the receiver, it rarely happens, but when it does you will have a shorter work day.

Good luck to you !

I originally worked for Kraft and was working for the company through out the transition from Kraft to Mondelez International.  While working for Kraft I worked harder than ever as both a Sales Associate and a Sales Representative but I learned a lot and felt like I was working towards something and building a career.  After working for the company for almost two years I left my role in the Minneapolis market and was rehired as a Sales Associate in the Phoenix market.  My spouse took a new position with his company and due to his transfer I needed to transfer as well. That's is where my experience went down hill, starting with the fact that I was not able to transfer my position I was treated like a brand new employee and forced to start over and take a demotion or nothing at all.  I was disappointed that even though I worked for a nationwide company there was no support for an employee in good standing looking to transfer.  In addition to that unfortunately there were some major differences between the two markets.  I have never been treated as poorly as I was treated working in the Phoenix market.  It was so disheartening after working hard and seeing the results from my hard work in one market to come to another market and feel like I was forced to leave due to the way I was treated.  Management was very young lacked experience, there were several instances where management crossed the line of professionalism but they were never held accountable.  My manager in particular talked down to me on a regular basis and thought it was acceptable to discuss the fact that I was pregnant with whom ever he chose even though he did not have my consent.  There was no diversity at all, and I honestly didn't feel welcome from the beginning due to my race and gender. Needless to say if I were advising a friend I would strongly discourage them from taking a position with Mondelez International especially in the Phoenix market.

If you're looking for a company to work with that will help you grow, learn, advance and succeed, this is not the company you're looking for.  Management is non-existent until they need something from you, and they will take advantage of you any way they can.  A typical day at work as  a sales rep (or a merchandiser) is pretty exhausting, repetitive,  and requires a good amount of driving.  If you're a full time or part time merchandiser, you will run your car into the ground for a very low salary, so think long and hard before you agree to anything. And the mileage reimbursement doesn't come close to covering the wear & tear on your car. 

The culture depends on who you work with.  The last district manager  I worked for offers nothing in the way of guidance, support, encouragement, backbone or interest in helping you advance.  If you work with a good rep, and a good team, that helps a little, but every two years they cut employees, mostly sales reps. 

The best part of being a Rep or a merchandiser is you get to work in stores, on your own and no one bothers you for the most part.  The hardest part is the physical labor, the driving, and management. The company is so poorly managed from top to bottom, it's almost funny to watch. 

The turnover is very high since it is a pretty demanding job for a comparatively low wage. And again, management is terrible so that doesn't help with keeping good workers. You will work very hard, do everything right, take pride in your work while others do as little as possible, get paid the same as you and keep their job. If it weren't for double standards, this company would have no standards at all. 

The work life balance depends on who you are. If you are a good, conscientious employee who gets everything done, and does it well, there isn't much work life balance. If you're someone who does the bare minimum, and just wants to get home, you'll have a good work-life balance. They will just give the good employee more work to do instead of correcting you.  

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales merchandiser 5 salaries reported	$19.00 per hour
Merchandiser 28 salaries reported	$16.59 per hour
Retail merchandiser 3 salaries reported	$17.58 per hour
Local driver 28 salaries reported	$29.80 per hour
Truck driver 5 salaries reported	$29.18 per hour

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