cashier

stocker

sales representative

retail team leader

mechanic

Northern Tool + Equipment

Two years ago I would have recommended this job to anyone. The work itself isnt bad, the other workers are mellow and easy to deal with. However there is a breakdown in communication from the very toxic and arrogant management team to a disorganized and moral depleted work force. Their "value stream manager" is as mature as a preteen during a middle school dance breakup. He yells at employees in front of their co-workers, openly lies about what he says, and does absolutely nothing for the progress and culture of the company. There have been 4 employees who in my opinion carried the success of my department that left due to his inability to deal with people. This "manager" would have never made it more than two weeks if anybody from corporate saw how he treats those under him. Lastly the only good employees are overloaded with work and ignored when problems arise. The machine shop supervisor is also the paintline and weld supervisor now due to the incompetence of management to find and or properly pay someone to do the job. An example would be their do nothing temp welding supervisor who seemed more interested in his phone than doing anything productive. The job security and moral here are 0, even if you carry your weight and do all that you can. If you don't believe what is written here I encourage you to ask anybody who works there, former or current.
The pay is fair I believe, the training is good for those new to fabrication, and the work is great experience for those looking to learn. I dont recommend anybody who expects to get basic respect work here. If you however are just looking for a paycheck this place is tolerable.

I started as a part-time cashier and was given less than 10 hours "training" and then left to my own devices.  Luckily, I had experience with the computer system and "wiggled" my way through.  The only training materials consist of 90% anti-liability  and the rest is a mash of hit and miss relevancy.  There was a handbook that consisted of hundreds of questions with ONLY the other employees to provide answers.  There was no way of confirming if these were correct and often there were conflicting answers.  Communication from the management is the worst by far in any setting professional or otherwise.  For example: I started a shift by counting my drawer and asking quite specifically if there was anything new or that I needed to know as I had a few consecutive days off.  The answer was a humphy "no".  A few hours into my shift I tried to process a credit card specific to the store and after multiple attempts had the computer completely locked-up.  When I called IT support they said that those credit accounts were no longer accepted as per an Email sent to all managers.  2 of the 3 who received that message had been in the room when I asked my original question.  

I have since been moved to sales with no increase in pay nor commission.  There has been zero hours of training and only an increase in manual labor and stress.  

This company does not care one bit about employee training, retention or improving the lives of its employees.

First year was good, I actually really liked my job then. After management changed everything went downhill fast. You can pick up on the vibe if you’ve ever stopped in. Customers used to comment on the amount of yelling going on so. The expectations from Corp could never be fulfilled because you are a part of less than ten people (including management) to do absolutely everything, carts, sales, cashier, sales, cleaning, warehouse, stocker, training, receiving, cycle counts, merchandiser, signs. They will not hire out for any cleaning or repairs, ie forklift maintenance, bathroom cleaning, floors, windows etc. The store is very very dirty and constantly behind on new displays etc. This lead to countless safely issues while I was there.  It could have still and once was a good place to work and it’s really a shame it isn’t anymore. The benefits are one of the best, especially for medical, so if you are in need, I can say that is the best part. If you are someone that requires help in any manner please reconsider any job here, you’re left on your own to lift extremely heavy freight without any help and if you ask, you will be ridiculed in front of everyone. The freight is literally endless and overwhelming. The cashiers and even the mechanic are expected to hold that down. You are expected to sell massive amounts of credit cards and whatever products they’re pushing. Wouldn’t recommend reporting anything to Corp, literally nothing will happen other than extreme retaliation. Good luck to anyone working in this store. A lot of the other stores don’t have these issues so if you’re not at this location you’ll probably be better off. 

A typical day at work involves stocking, checking out customers, and answering customers questions about tools and equipment.   Very little training is given to get you ready.  There is training via a computer app, but never enough time to complete them due to business needs changing regularly.  For example a customer wants to know what the differences are between products.  Easy if you have experience, but it takes quite a while to get up to speed with some of the equipment.  That said, management assumes you already know and gets on you if you are taking the time to learn on your own.  As I said, business needs change regularly.  The best part of the job is finding resolutions to customers issues.  Customers are very responsive which is a plus.  Management does not tend to help with much on the floor.  The  overall day to day ops would be significantly better with that help.  Trainings would be easier to complete etc... the schedule is only done 2 days in advance of the next week.  Often times I have to go in on a day off to see if it's out yet or call a coworker to find out.  Product is always dusty and never seems to be tidy.  Torn and crushed boxes are common. Damaged product as well.  Overall it's a good job to expand your knowledge but you must be able to learn on the fly.  Company in general seems very disorganized.  Frequent pricing changes and miscues at the warehouse are also common.  Company is trying to expand nationally way too fast.


The company feels like it’s in its beginning of the end years. It adapts but not as fast and efficiently as it should. There are a lot of aspects that its competitors like Harbor Freight and Ace Hardware have that this company does not. For example, it does not have an app. The website does indeed have a “mobile version”, but it is definitely not a cellphone friendly app. The company also took a turn for the worse when it decided to centralize its repair facilities into one location per region of stores. Making the SM responsible for the “shop” operations after getting rid of the actual store mechanic was a result of poor decision making and not involving the affected associates themselves. Customers and upper management (corporate) alike will not see the struggles the stores have to go through to make ends meet which is why nothing is truly progressing. Operationally the company is all over the place. The overall morale isn’t great either, I’ve listened to many complaints from many associates and managers alike about the feeling of not being appreciated or not given the opportunity to learn and grow. Please refocus on the people on the front lines and work your way back. I hate to leave a message like this, but no one seems to listen to those sandboxed annual employee surveys. Had this been 7 or 8 years ago, this review would have been vastly different.

Miserable group of employees. Want to get screamed at on the job? This is the place for you. Doesn’t matter how hard you try, your efforts will never be appreciated. Rude employees will never get disciplined. You will have comments made about you, mean things said about you, etc. Nothing is ever good enough for them, something is always wrong or somebody is always stressing out to the max. Employees take their job so seriously yet are getting paid just over minimum wage. You will be treated unfairly, and the workplace environment is one of the most toxic ones I have ever seen. Made me genuinely depressed to go into work every day. The people you work with are lazy, and most of all rude. They will treat you with a complete and total lack of respect or care for your well being. I have been sick at times and told I still have to come in and work due to staffing issues. No matter how many goals you meet, it will never be enough or appreciated here. You are worked like a dog for a corporation that seems to have no respect for you at any level. Like mentioned before, genuinely one of the most depressing, miserable, gear grinding, aggravating workplace experience I have ever had. You genuinely could not pay me ENOUGH to come back in and work here. 

I've been working at Northern tool for a little over a year now. I've been working as a security monitor. I've had a good experience with Northern tool. Although the manager at my particular store is quite prickly, overall I'd say it is been a good choice to work there. Now this is considering I am like one of their best workers and I have been recognized for it. I have been accommodated for some of my mental health issues, but I have had to stick up for myself other times. As far as I know my manager has told me there is a potential for upward mobility/career advancement in the company. I think this is pretty cool considering my position. But I'm not sure I want to be a store manager or a regional manager or anything like that. I am considering moving to a different career, one that will let me learn more or be more flexible in what I do and where I can live. But overall I will say if you are willing to work well then deal with a small amount of BS here and there it's a perfectly good place to work. It seems to depend on your attitude, and maybe I have had some favoritism put upon me because of my capacity to work. But I would still do it all again.

Northern Tool provides the essential tools, machinery and hardware for many local business. These business rely on us to get through their essential projects. On a typical day I'll assist and recommend professional advice to roofers, business owners, mechanics, zoo keepers, Dr.'s and weekend hobbyist. Our duty as a Sales Representative is to provide beyond excellent customer service simultaneously pushing for sales. We organize and stock the sales floor, promoting a safe shopping experience in a store of heavy tools and machinery. Answering sales calls while on sales duty requires us to multitask efficiently. There is a constant flow of heavy traffic in our small store which adds the most difficulty of our job: Assisting all customers with great service (sales calls included), completing required stocking duties and meeting a variety of sales goals. The customers provide the most enjoyable part of the job because we meet a variety of interesting people with diverse backgrounds on a daily basis Overall working at Northern Tool has proved to be a rewarding and learning experience, gaining client building skills I can provide in any career field I pursue.

I used to love my job. Sure it was hard and customer service reps take so much abuse from customers, which has only gotten so so much worse since COVID. But since we went remote, the place just went downhill. CS was expected to handle everything and so much we needed info from non phone departments and we were lucky if they ever replied to our messages. Mandatory Overtime. They changed the Saturday Hours to later hours and made Sundays mandatory after claiming it was only going to be temporary for Christmas. Supervisors are always busy in meetings. I feel like instead of fixing some of the issues, they just kept hiring more people. Like throwing on a bandaid on your elbow instead of fixing the bleeding spleen... 

BUT, I can say Northern trained me much better than most call center type jobs will. They take things like credit card compliance seriously. The sales reps aren't pushy and customers don't feel conned into buying something. The company really pushes courtesy and professional attitudes, reps apologize and thank for everything. 

I mostly worked unsupervised. I pulled orders for the daily workload to be done by assemble lines. I would stage orders and to line change overs as needed. My direct supervisor was great as well as the other supervisors I worked with.
I learned a lot about how to structure my day and fulfill the needs of the production employees.
Upper Management above production supervisors was changing almost yearly. one even told me he didn't agree with the company vision and that it was toxic in the office.
The culture at Northern Tool was all about the company profit. Employee concerns and needs to their daily job are ignored by upper management and the Human resource department.
The hardest part of the job was the warehouse dept. went from 17 employees down to 7 employee gradually after COVID. The stress and workload became overwhelming  for most employees. Employee moral continuously dropped. Pay at Northern Tool is not competitive with other companies.
The best part of my job was working under my supervisor and the employees I worked with daily.


Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Cashier 406 salaries reported	$15.09 per hour
Stocker 291 salaries reported	$15.01 per hour
Sales representative 227 salaries reported	$16.00 per hour
Retail team leader 174 salaries reported	$17.60 per hour
Mechanic 42 salaries reported	$22.65 per hour

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