stocking associate

order picker

sous chef

line cook

cook

Plum Market

Cashiering at a grocery store wasn't for me, and I gave myself and gave Plum a chance for it to work out for the better. It didn't. 

General feeling of departmentalization in store. Lack of friendliness with coworkers in other departments. They just walk by you and don't say hello, you're "just another person" to them. And if you're not careful, I found myself almost taking on that same mentality. Which is so not how I roll. I enjoy being in a workplace where I can show up, talk to my coworkers about whatever, have fun getting the work done, and feel welcomed, and moreso, that people have an interest in my life, too. Sometimes, rude comments came across from my direct supervisors and my coworkers. This is just so unnecessary in the workplace, when we're all dealing with something. At least no one yelled or screamed at each other here. Most were professional and considerate, despite some people being the aforementioned.

The discount was nice, but most items in the store are either over priced or luxury items, so I only shopped for a few things. Same goes for the hot food discount, but without that discount, I'd rarely be able to buy it straight off the shelf. That says something about the disparity in our incomes nowadays and who we're serving. But I disgress. Anyways, I knew what I was getting into, in that regards, this is a luxury grocery store.

Most of my disappointment came from management's inability to reposition me elsewhere in the store. I was quite aware how frustrated and unhappy I was in the position I took on, with the best intentions, it wasn't for me. They were approached several times, and several times new hires were taken on in the exact position I was interested in, while, I being a current and qualified candidate, was overlooked for some reason. 

It was a general feeling of they didn't care about you and your needs. Pretty sure they were more concerned with appeasing the owner's demands, which at times, were ridiculous. There was one moment during the summer of 2020, the a/c wasn't working right in the front end. Everyone knew. This affected customers too, let alone employees who had to wear masks for the first time in their lives in a hot, humid environment. And yet the owner was more concerned with how shelves look, with making sure the bottom of sign-holders was cleaned every day, than on checking in with this important issue. At some of my previous jobs, that a/c unit would have been fixed within a week at the most tops, if not the next day. 

As a Cashier i learned just how physically and mentally demanding it can be to run a register. Pretty sure I will avoid it in the future. It's a shame there was no other future for me here, we coulda been great together. Syke!

It’s so frustrating when your department can’t keep itself fully staffed. There was a month while I worked here that we seemed to lose a new person from each department every week. Plum Market is always hiring, because they usually can’t keep people for more than a few months at a time. 

There is very, VERY little opportunity for advancement. Because my department was so short staffed, I was made to feel guilty if I was late, if I missed a day, or if I needed to cut down on hours for my own mental health. 

I did not ever feel comfortable telling my managers that I wasn’t okay. I felt like I was expected to pretend like there was absolutely nothing wrong with me at all times. There was never a time I felt like it was okay to address management with any concerns I might have, because I tended to be gaslit for even trying. “I’m sorry you interpreted it that way” was always much easier for them to say than “I’m sorry”. WE ARE IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, it’s a miracle people can hold down a job in the first place. 

I was expected to provide excellent customer service to customers for an unfair amount of pay. The lengths that Plum Market goes to make its customers feel valued is incredibly detrimental to its own employees. At Plum Market, the employee is never valued for their humanity, just their work ethic. 

Plum Market hires a diverse group of individuals, from all walks of life. They are LGBTQIA+ friendly, but I halfway wondered if it was so they could *feel* inclusive without actually *being* inclusive.

Plum Market pays one of the lowest rates for retail work during COVID, and is comparable to a big box store like Kroger or Walmart. This would make more sense if they were a bigger company, but considering they pride themselves in specialty, gourmet, organic, and locally sourced food goods, the pay rate feels incredibly unfair. I don’t know how much of their profit goes back into the company and how much actually goes to the employees, but again, it feels disproportionate.

When I quit, I received a personal phone call from the store manager, in which he proceeded to gaslight me into feeling crazy for leaving. Because of all the gaslighting they had already done to me, I’m ashamed to say I now partly believe that I am as crazy and worthless as they made me feel. 

Don’t work here. Take the advice of others in these reviews, and don’t ignore it like I did. RUN. They will not put your best interests forward.

I've worked with Plum for over 4 years, I started as an associate and was promoted to team leader after 3 years.  My old team leader really recognized how hard I worked and saw my value, always rallied for me to get great raises and time off that I needed.  I love my new position, it is very fast paced and I get to be creative. I have a lot on my plate but I love the challenge!  I am very passionate about growing my department and want to see Plum succeed.  If Plum grows, I grow, we grow.  It is family owned, you'll meet the owners and their family.  They are always working to grow Plum and expand which means more opportunity for advancement.  They always try to promote within first!  If you work hard and take pride in what you do, they will notice.  Great friendly atmosphere!  

I do believe employee benefits and moral can be an area for improvement.  This is retail, you will be working a variety of shifts, nights, weekends and holidays.  It would be nice to be compensated for working certain holidays.  Great discount, 20% and 50% off hot bar for lunch.  Earned vacations based on how much you work, I'm up to two paid weeks a year.  I believe all members of store leadership try their best to be fair but there is a business to run.  It is a fast paced environment, a lot to do, unfavorable hours (everyone wants to work 9-5 and no weekends), exceptional guest service is expected and monitored and they don't want to see you standing around chit chatting.  These are not meant to sound as cons, they are reality.  This is what having a retail job is!  I have been pulled aside many times to be told I did something well and given a reward.  It could be done more but we all get in that mode and forget to stop and tell our fellow team members how much we appreciate them.  This can always be improved.  Perhaps more can be done in the way of rewards, employee of the month, special recognition etc. 

All in all it is a great place to work.  They want great workers who care for Plum because they care about their store and only want to see it succeed!  Show up on time, be reasonable with your time off requests and work hard and stay focused and you will be rewarded.

Plum Market is flashy and uses the buzz words, but the more you dive into the company, the more you realize that it is a complete mess. Stay away. If you think outside the box or if you have more knowledge/experience pertaining to your department than your “support” aka corporate directors, it puts a target on your back. They aren’t receptive to suggestions on how to improve at all. The more you care about trying to do thing the right way or trying to improve the business, the more they will try to push you out the door. If you work hard, they push you out the door. They have no desire to adapt or improve. Plum Market is perfectly content on being mediocre. That’s all they’ll ever be. They don’t care about their “guests” or customers. They don’t care about quality, they don’t care about spoilage, they don’t care about innovation, they don’t care about employee moral… the bottom line is the appearance of the Store is all for show.  

The place is beyond slow…They’re doing something else behind the scenes to make their money…that’s a fact.

If you are an outside hire going into management, best advice is don’t.  If you are clean, organized, work hard, try to do the RIGHT thing….They WILL weed you out. You WILL be used as a “patch” until they get one of their “own” sheep in there. 

Ask any employee that has been there a while. If you work hard, they laugh because they know you’ll be gone….It happens time and time again. Do not waste your time with a company that doesn’t give a care in the world about you, or your family.

Lets start off with pay. The pay is trash for everybody unless youre a supervisor or in management. When its time for a review, youll have to chase them down daily. Sometimes for months. When you do get your review, you better hope they give you more than thirty cents. For some reason, basic level team members that barely do their job get paid more. That seems to be a recurring theme. The only time theyll throw money at you is if youre well like by management and you do you job very well. I had a coworker that got two raises because of that. He threatened to leave and they gave him a raise to stay, then they did his actual review and got another one. The benefits are OK. The amount youll pay is pretty cheap but youll be able to take care of the basics like dental procedures and check ups at a doctors office. Its a grocery store so the job is of course pretty easy but since Plum hires everybody that applies, youll end up working with people that lollygag and waste time doing a whole lot of nothing. The higher ups always claim to care when you tell them things about whats going on in your department or little things that will boost the morale, but they dont, so youll basically just be blowing hot air. This job should only be for people that are looking for something quick and easy, if you need/want the retail experience, or if you looking for something that will fund things you want to do outside of work ie. something like a business you want to start. I go continue my rant but im sure you sense my dislike for this place. :)

From the outside this place looks like a dream. But as always, things are always greener on the other side. They are like any other business. The ONLY thing that matters is profit. Not you. Not the customers. And definitely not the environment. 

This place thrives off of making people work themselves into the ground for little pay. While you can say no to the extra shifts, never expect management to promote you, or give you a good raise. Plum has to be YOUR LIFE. And you better be willing to through everyone under the bus while you’re at it. Because that is the culture of Plum Market, and it starts from the top down. 

The physical parts of the jobs are not too hard. But you will be in mental and emotional anguish. The guests are entitled, and treat you like they own you. The values Plum portrays to world are nothing but hollow lies. And management/corporate would rathe just give the appearance of doing their job, rather than just doing their jobs. They will never tell your coworker that doesn’t do his job, to do his job. They will just tell you to pick up the slack. Because they’re too busy just talking about everyone behind their backs, again, instead of doing their actual jobs and leading.
Management makes or breaks a job, and it is BROKEN at Plum. From corporate to your own department lead. 

Also- the healthcare offered is high deductible. $4000 high. 

That being said, they are desperate for workers (because everyone leaves) so if you NEED a job, you will probably get one. Just know that you are not going to be valued and still be expected to give 120% for little pay. So... I guess it’s not much different from anywhere else.

I am writing a review, to potentially warn others who want to apply here. 

Any ways I got offered a job here a few days after I applied. this was was a red flag. It was for drive up and delivery. Where I would be an in store shopper and I would pick out groceries for people. I thought it would be fun since I have done shipt in the past before. 

In the interview they told me that I had to have open availability but I would still get days off. No big deal I thought. That was what ever.

Then they told me I would be in the main front area of the store making sure customers aka guest were wearing face masks. And collect carts from the parking lot. Okay that wasn't in the job description but I was okay with it. 

Once I started working here, they just had me at the front of the store collecting carts and making sure people were wearing face masks. And I was doing it for 2 weeks cause the training at plum market is slower.

Then one day when I was off work, they scheduled me for 9 DAYS in a row. I called thinking it might be a scheduling error. So I called my team leader and she told me I would be working 7 days in a row. 

I sent a letter to HR and resigned immediately since in the interview or job description, they never told me over time would be required. 

This was for the Plymouth road location in Ann Arbor. Other locations might operate differently, but I'm writing this review to warn people. 

Oof! Where to start.
They say "flexible scheduling". That is not true. I have a few recurring medical appointments for pre-existing conditions and they had serious problems accomodating them. Days off and vacation time needed to be arranged ridiculously long in advance. Schedules changed multiple times a week. A Team Leader would post a schedule...then change it a few hours later. Then decide it needed to be updated the next day. I never knew when I was supposed to work because it changed so much.
Another employee informed me that 6 people quit the position I took in half a years time.
They are too busy to properly train. TLs are very particular about how things are done, but too busy to teach you.
Too much work. TLs want things finished by a certain time but it never happens. They pull you from a project to work on another one, then stress out because the first project never got completed in time. All merchandise should be stocked by 9 AM but they keep pulling employees for other tasks and early morning stock is still on the floor at 3 PM.
A few head managers were cool but had no control over the pathetic mismanagement of the individual departments.
Remember I said that I needed medical appointments? Well, many were for anxiety therapy due to attacks and flare-ups brought on by the stress of this job and inability to perform properly due to poor management and staffing shortages.
Its a shame. There were some cool rank-and-file employees in the store.

There's a lot to break down regarding this department, starting with training; there is a sense that you are there to act as extra help, so training is not very extensive, if a more experienced team member is on leave, you many not be able to fulfill all the responsibilities of the department due to it.

Current department lead either does not know how to schedule or does not want to post a two-week schedule, so you will often be stuck waiting until the last minute to know what days you will be working.

Understaffing means there is a high workload, and often working alone despite how onboarding claims that no one works alone.  If you take the 30 minute break that the company asks in its protocol it is easy to fall behind keeping up with the shelves. If you decide not to take it, management will tack an extra 30 minutes onto your shift to try and cover it up instead of addressing why its occurring.

Coworkers are about average, different departments within the prep area have their cliques, and often will not even give you the time of day if you're not working in their area. Meanwhile they will go out of their way to help coworkers that have been there a long time, there's a big feeling that while they need more people to work that department, they don't like getting new people.

If you're looking for part time work or are trying to get into food service/retail management, then this might be a great place to start out. However, beyond that, I wouldn't recommend. Experience depends on which department, but working in the floral department, I found the job very boring. 
Pros: pretty organized, not too stressful, and overall an easy job.
Cons: pay is lower than other local grocery stores. 
-Strict dress code, yet make you pay for your uniform. 
-Not a lot of benefits. The products are so overpriced that even with the discount, it's not much cheaper than other stores and you only get about 6 days of PTO a year. 
-Management leaves much to be desired. They seem to have favorite departments and ignore the other "smaller" ones. Most days, I wouldn't even see or speak to store leadership. 
- There is no sense of team work and it is pretty clique-ish. People tend to either only socialize within their departments or with other people who've worked there a long time.
- High turnover rate, which makes befriending people harder. 
- Huge disconnect between corporate management and stores. The CEO likes to randomly come in and critique things, making us move around displays, often in an inconvenient way. They also insist on buying too much or too little product, and buying things that don't sell, which only creates more work for the employees. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Stocking associate 10 salaries reported	$1,432 per week
Order picker 10 salaries reported	$1,432 per week
Sous chef 5 salaries reported	$21.80 per hour
Line cook 5 salaries reported	$19.60 per hour
Cook 1 salary reported	$19.50 per hour

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