sales associate

delivery driver

stocking associate

warehouse associate

customer service representative

Raymour & Flanigan

The officially stated culture of Raymour and Flanigan is just like that of any other company, it is reasonable and positive. Though, in practice, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Firstly, management, at least in my former location, seemed to have very little competence in hiring quality people. This seemed to be true in all departments, with the exception of Customer Care, which I knew little about. Most of the problems I encountered were directly related to subpar employees who would be quick to take shortcuts, skip work altogether, abuse break and lunch times, call out sick excessively, and in general, simply not care at all. The best way to lose quality people is by hiring incapable and unfit people. This is made worse because there is very little individual accountability when an action or actions are deemed inappropriate (i.e. there is a group meeting to discuss the issue instead of going directly to the source of the problem).

Second, managers and supervisors (again, in my location) were incredibly inept and incompetent. This was the rule with obvious exceptions; there are always some managers and supervisors who seem to generally care, but they are outweighed by the poor management of those above and adjacent to them. For example, as an IQI, it is our JOB to repair furniture to a like-new condition if possible. It is our JOB to access the items and determine the best course of action for returning it to a sellable condition if possible. It is our JOB to do this with EVERY item we see. That being said, I worked with an IQI who would regularly state that they skipped some item because they, "didn't feel like doing it." This was brought to the attention of MANAGERS and SUPERVISORS on multiple occasions and they quite literally did nothing about it. That IQI still works there and from my understanding, still behaves this way. Case and point. 
Management always knew the correct "execu-speak" to use when an issue was brought to their attention, but when one has worked there long enough, one realizes that these cookie cutter responses are just regurgitated non-sense when triggered by a specific phrase, statement, or concern by the employee. It was almost as if these statements came from a rolodex of acceptable managerial responses.
Managers seemed to do just enough (professionally) in order to get to the next level, and each new manager that entered the picture would undo everything that was previously done and make the claim that they had the antidote for whichever disease was currently infecting the business...rinse and repeat for a decade.

Also, there were members of the delivery team who tested positive for a certain virus and there was not a single meeting or acknowledgment of this fact by any manager or supervisor (Point 2). Instead, this knowledge spread among associates who were friends with those infected. If they were unwilling to communicate this with their employees, did they communicate it with the customers who those delivery team employees delivered furniture to?

Third, although it is a retail environment and one should expect to work most of the time, with the exception of major holidays, work/life balance is really non-existent. They tell you that you get Christmas, Easter, New Years off, and you do. However, you have to then choose a day (which you would normally have off) to "make up" the day you missed. So every holiday, there will be a week preceding or following the holiday where you must work 6 days in a row and this also occurs around times where the business in naturally busy for other reasons such as Mother's Day or around tax return time. This is exacerbated by the fact that, even though holidays exists EVERY YEAR, they still wait until a week or less before the holiday to inform you of what the "plan of action" will be for said holiday (i.e. there is no standard year-to-year practice). This coincides directly with Point 2 of this review.

To say some positive things, there are some good people that work there. I made many friends there and those were generally the people who cared about their job and who made a legitimate effort to improve the business.

As a first job for someone right out of high school, it's a great learning experience and the pay for someone that age is pretty good. That being said, raises are limited to 2% or less (unless you raise an issue about your own personal and professional worth with some degree of accuracy, efficiency, and conviction). However, in past interviews after asking, "What could I have done to increase my value and earn a larger raise?", the answer was, "Nothing" (Yes, that was the response). Again, back to point 2.

Lastly, what made me stay for as long as I did (over 10 years), were the few people I worked with who actually made the job enjoyable. Overall, I enjoyed my job very much. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy doing it surrounded by the people I was surrounded by. That included supervisors, managers, upper managers, and co-workers.

There is very real opportunity for that location to be improved and made to be a top location in the company, but the current line-up of employees and managers alike will not allow that and it is truly sad.

The company's sales approach is badly dated. Wearing a suit & tie 6 days a week is just flat out awful. Customers don't like it either because the suit creates a barrier. The customer is dressed in a relaxed outfit & you have effectively out dressed them. This makes it harder to establish Trust.

The look and feel of the store is also badly outdated. Compared to much more contemporary businesses like Restoration Hardware or cool, indepently owned stores with an emphasis on design & decoration, Raymour & Flanigan stores are built on Chocolate, Taupe & Tan cheaply made furniture being in stock so you can have it in 3 days! This just is not a model that today's customer wants.

They have dropped all the good name brands that used to carry I know they make their own "Bellanest" brand that is just awful-looking & chinsey. 

They have literally falling behind modern Trends by 10 or 20 years at least. I don't say this is a sustainable model and it's difficult to close a high percentage of customers who just come in walk around and leave, wishing they could have sat down with a designer and browse some cool more contemporary furniture set up in a way that they want to shop it.

I was a store manager for Raymour and Flanigan for a number of years and I did pretty well but I hated working such long hours year after year and the next couple layers of management depending on the region you're in is often pretty bad. 

Associates work on a full draw so that means if they don't get it delivered by Friday they don't get paid. Instead they can get in advance which if they don't cover it they have to pay it back. Full commission. Any way you want to slice this, full draws create a Cut Throat culture. Raymore has a lot of great philosophies in writing - but think about it. The company is not willing to extend a small guaranteed base salary to truly show they take care of people.

What's worse if you are a manager they adjust your sails budget monthly so in other words if you do very well one month against budget they up the budget. This strategy is designed so that they don't overpay you they want you working extremely hard and motivated but they have designed a system where if by chance you do get paid well for a few weeks they're going to get you back. 

The business concept is actually disingenuous both for the hourly sales associate and for the manager.

Time off is another huge issue policies that are in place are designed to completely burn someone out and anyone good ends up working 6 or even 7 days a week because it's really the only way to make as much as possible. Good sales people are Money Motivated and the company has a lot of good sales people working for it.

Instead of helping them achieve a work-life balance and paying a little more Raymour and Flanigan mongers the prophets.

An example of this can be found in the way the company pays. The associate is paid on gross profit margin of the sale. If they have to Discount in order to move the piece then they take the hit not the company. 50% of the sale is the house's. The other 50% is the sales associates to do with what they need to with a Max cap of 5 to 12% discount flexibility. Of course if the customer wants at least 20% off to close the deal then manager is called in and the customer is satisfied.

First of all what piece of furniture has a margin of 50%? None of them do. Mattresses are about 75 to 80% and furniture made in China trust me on this is nowhere near 50% it's much better.

So Raymour and Flanigan protect sthemselves incredibly well as a company ensuring that they can pretty good Prophets the people who suffer are the people who sell the product they grind you up in terms of long working hours and they whack you on margin every single time you make a sale.

(Heads up: its commission only, you own company money if you don't sell and you will get fired if you don't meet quota few weeks in a  row.)

They sold me and everyone else during the job training. Sold me on the culture and ideas of the company. During 2 weeks training they provide breakfast and lunch.
But once you leave into your actual role you find out it 180* on the training. Nothing like it.

In my first few weeks about 3 people were fired for not meeting quota, and one of them was there for 10 years. They have a hiring spot in the store, and that's the same spot two managers ask you to meet them when they wanna let you go. 

A lady came in and said "I don't want to deal with him, I want someone black" managers got someone black and laughed it off. (One of the reasons I left) They said "If the customer is buying we cant turn them down, its all about making money here" 

Employees fight all the time because they steal each others sales daily. Managers do have favorites.
You hear about how some people make good money and others don't, well what they don't tell you is that those who make good, livable salaries are doing two shifts there all the time and are never home. They come in at 9am and leave at 8-9pm.

You get paid in advance around $19 per hour, but if you don't sell enough to cover that then you end up owing the company money, if you owe more than around $2000 they fire you. ( you don't have to pay back if they fire you) ... yes you can work 50 hours per week and end up owing them money! 
You have to sell around $16,000 weekly to earn $800, That's about your $19 per hour. Most people make that or less, many end up in deficit and hope for a huge week where they can pay it back. (Imagine working and then you end up paying the company)

If you ever see huge sales in the store you honestly are happy but also sad. Happy because more people come in, but sad because any sale the company gives actually comes out from your commission. Yes! The company always keeps their share but take out from you for discounting. And any discount you or the manager gives comes out from your commission. You honestly need to sell around $20,000+ weekly to make $800 ($600 after tax) because some orders get canceled a lot and sometimes you make less or nothing due to big discounting.
The benefits are terrible, you got to pay out of packet about $1800 before they cover anything. Benefits don't kick in til after you're 3 months there.

Note!!: If you want to quit do it right away, do not listed to them and give 2 weeks notice because they will fire you asap because they say since you're leaving you wont work as hard. So just tell them you're leaving end of the day or today is your last day.
(I gave 3 week notice and was told to leave end of the week the nest day, manager there didn't even say good buy or shake my hand, floor manager did tho)


If you need a job for few months only this is a great job! you dont feel sad for leaving, you get paid for 2 weeks training and 4 weeks training on the floor. After that you can do another 4 weeks even if you dont sell anything because you don't have to pay back anything for leaving. 

What I liked:

At first I liked everything, but when I learned more and more they only cool thing was not leaving witha  bad feeling. Even the close friends you make will steal your sales, they always fight and much drama.

There, you are just a body with a  sale quota, if you cant produce you are replaced with another body.

Don't believe me, walk in and ask any sale rep about what I wrote.
I went back to my old job where I made $65,000, the district manager called me back. 
I left raymour on good terms, everyone liked me, I bought cookies almost everyday :) Just didnt see a future there.

 You definitely cannot expect to retire from them!

New applicants BEWARE...Make sure you clarify EXACTLY what your job description and hours will be!!
The Credit Dept consists of 4 smaller/separate departments. Lending, Collections, Fraud and billing/payments.  After working here a few years as a collector the Collections Dept. was told before Christmas that we have to learn how to be lenders in order to help even MORE with the phones in the evening and on weekends OR we would be LET GO. We were also told that our jobs have been saved the last 2 years from layoffs yet they hired someone in that time frame. So basically the years we put in as collectors means nothing if we don't agree to learn a whole other job if they are so quick to let us go if we don't.
  The collection dept. has always had to helped cover store calls in the evening and Saturday nights but it has gotten harder to do over the years due to the fact the company is growing and we work with more finance companies, calls require more lending interaction. We have said for awhile the Lending Dept needs to hire lending staff to answer the phones (Not Collectors), people who can actually help the stores rather than just park calls for a lender but they tell us they can't do any hiring. Yet the company has been hiring in many other depts. but they can't in Lending, one of the more important depts. Seems Hiring 1 or 2 people to be actual lenders who would be dedicated to that craft to work nights and weekends could make all the difference but instead they are going to train a whole collection dept. who are only doing it to keep their jobs.
They did this a few years back 'asking' if any collectors wanted to learn lending and work rotating weekends and offered them more bonus money to do so. Most of those collectors that did agree to do it have since left and there are only 2 left. Its to much.  All this is doing is making it harder for the collection dept. to reach their monthly goals for their bonus which has dropped to less than 1/2  the bonus potential. The office is short handed daily because if you work the weekend of course your off a day or 2 during the week and if you cover other shifts in lending which is needed monthly your offered comp time so more days off during the week so we are always short handed having less people making collections calls and having to answer more incoming calls which have increased as well  which also affects the collection efforts. We are turning into a Call Center/Customer Service Center which is what Raymour really needs to filter the calls where they need to go and answer basic customer questions. These calls should not be coming to the credit dept.  Its really starting to hinder Lending and collection efforts.
Its not easy to switch roles from a collections mentality to a lending mentality and even harder if you feel forced. 
A few years ago I would have given Raymour a fast 5 star and its very upsetting that that is no longer the case. We apply for jobs that interest us or that we have experience in and that we will succeed in which only benefits and adds to the success of a company. We can only hope they rethink this move as I didn't think the moral could get any lower and the daily frustration any higher until now.

I worked for this company for 9 years. I started as a visual merchandiser. 2 years in my daughters had a terrible car accident. One of my daughters suffered a traumatic brain injury. I was working part time and spending time with my daughter at the rehab hospital. At one point I was sat down and told I wasn't working "to performance level". This was at a time when my daughter developed pneumonia. Due to the stress my Dr. took me out of work for one week. During this time I was replaced! At some point shortly after I was offered a different position for less money,,,even though by law I should have been compensated at the same rate.I spent the time with my daughter instead. After she passed away I received a call from HR and was given disability for those months. It was truly appreciated, but transparently a way to cover their butts.I received a call 2 days after she passed to see if I could fill in for visuals who were out on disability! I returned as I needed the income. When they returned I went into sales. The manager that was there at the time was my lifesaver. However, this company has a high turnover of employees on all levels. We then had a manager who told me I had to bring up my numbers or he would" get rid of me like an "old pair of socks". Talk about a lack of respect! I was in sales for 4 years...I then returned to visual merchandising. This was a job that I adored and had an education to do. Again we had a change in upper management and store management. Another visual and myself went to the new district manager and proposed an idea for a little more pay.. we were turned down. However this idea was implemented, after I was terminated, with 2 new visuals at the same rate of pay that they had been receiving! With new store management I was asked to work overtime from time to time. This company does not allow overtime despite their demands. It was agreed that the hours would be kept track of and I'd be allowed to leave early on quieter days and my time would be adjusted.Many employees in sales were aware of this arrangement knew of this. One of whom became a district manager later on. Again a change in management. This new manager kept the overtime agreement. Right after our annual walk through where the "big wigs" evaluate the store and good reviews given, I was written up. I became upset and asked that we continue the discussion the next day. It was never continued. Knowing that I had "banked" time I punched out early. The next day was a bad snowstorm, traveling was precarious but I knew I had to be in. When I walked in the district manager ( this was one of the aforementioned employees who knew about my "banked" overtime )was there. We met and I was fired on New Years Eve for leaving early the day before. I needed to go to mediation for unemployment and this same person sat there and LIED. DON"T work for this company. It's definitely "dog eat dog"..no concern for those that line the pockets of the brothers and cousin that own the company. The owners are VERY pompous and detached.

As with any job, there are great leaders and some not so great leaders - many managers go above and beyond to assist their staff. Other managers are lazy and complacent as well as lacking in knowledge (their own fault.) The company is making efforts toward education with an in-house tablet based training program, and continuing education from vendors. They do well with trying to make sure employees are knowledgeable. 
In some stores, the culture between the salespeople is different and unfortunately not all have integrity (it is a sales job and sometimes that is to be expected.) 
In order to work there and be content, you must be willing to pivot - directives from owners and VPs can change often. 
As with any sales job, there is scrutiny of your numbers and some of your metrics’ importance change on a whim: one week or month it’s bedding sales they focus on, the following week it could be your platinum (the company’s protection plan.) 
Be careful of some of the regional leaders who speak with a forked tongue. Plenty of false promises were made. 
I think the company is doing well financially, however they have removed some of the little perks, for instance they canceled the budget for office lunches when there is a new hire. It’s such a small thing to even mention and hardly affects performance, just lends to an overall feeling of the owners being miserly. 
I don’t think the compensation plan for managers is fair - especially during the early months of re-opening after quarantine. Managers were working harder than ever to meet demands and were selling/delivering high numbers, but not being compensated properly. I know of a manager that was delivering peak numbers, yet had to get a second job to make ends meet. 
Overall, I enjoyed my experience with the company and that was largely due to the nature of the work itself and the people I worked with.
Should you choose to work there, you can have fun and great success. You will be content if you are able to pivot and go with the flow. Must also be okay with working every weekend. It’s required “for your own success” - that IS when people shop. 
The company culture sounds great: they talk a good game but don’t always walk the talk. I think the owners have good intentions, but get bogged down in the minutia of numbers and off-base opinions from some of their regionals. The owners and managers are open to feedback and will host a yearly breakfast followed by a round table discussion with select employees who are there to offer feedback and make suggestions for overall improvements. They are open to discussions and feedback when they are visiting locations as well. I commend them for that. 
It was a mostly pleasant experience with people whose hearts were in the right place, just a few bad judgment calls. 
 

Certainly working at R&F isn’t all bad, but you can bet that it certainly isn’t all good. When you first arrive you’ll be treated with decency and courtesy. The money may even be nice. It will provide you with a lot of varied experience! It will feel like the honeymoon phase of a relationship, if I may. Everything is new and everyone around you is friendly and supportive.
But the longer you work there and the more you make yourself available for this place, they will quickly take advantage. You’ll be expected to cover a persons shift if they don’t come in. It’s completely acceptable for a customer care rep to work 6, 7, 8+ days in a row. R&F doesn’t have any snow days so you’ll be forced to come in during bad weather. There is no sick time offered. I was out with COVID-19 and had to use my vacation time..Your lunch break is only 30 minutes  long. Our computer systems are completely outdated and crashes every hour or doesn’t work at all during rainy weather. God forbid something in the office breaks such as a keyboard, credit card terminal, phone, computer chair, etc — it’s like pulling teeth to get items replaced.  
The environment/culture changed in the location that I work at. People talk behind your back, sales managers aren’t always quick to help. Some sales consultants become whiny, and bratty if they are not helped right away and they treat you as if you’re their personal assistant. Don’t even get me started about the customers. I understand this role is retail customer service, however, your mental health will certainly take a turn as the days go on with these customers. They are bullies when they don’t get what they want, and will stop at nothing to make you look bad including sending letters to the owners about you, or simply writing a Google review in which the company monitors. Obviously each day will not be filled with escalated customers but it’s the horrendous ones that have a lasting impression.  
Let’s talk about compensation, or the lack thereof... After COVID, customer care got hit EXTREMELY hard with high call volumes, processing sales, and customer issues. Our hard work was never honored, and a raise was out of the question.
Over all Raymour isn’t the worse place to work,  but it’s not the best. I would say, you can do (much) better!

I'm aware warehouse jobs as a whole have a negative stigma to them but Raymour and Flanigan has definitely taken the crown of crappiest warehouse position.  To start, their management is A JOKE.  The Warehouse "Lead" was aware of an employee drinking alcohol and ignored it.  As an employee I turned them in and dealt with harassment and retaliation for weeks to come, including having my car keyed and my lunch mysteriously ending up on the floor.  Needless to say, not much was done and was deemed the  "problem" for not fitting in with lazy,ignorant and irresponsible employees.   The supervisory team is all inexperienced and immature.  Leads or Supervisors make inappropriate and insensitive jokes all day long without any sort of concern to who is around them or acknowledgment of what is acceptable in the work place.  I hope you enjoy hearing overweight dudes moaning while pushing coaches on handtrucks.  They act like a high school clique looking out only for one another and blatantly will disrespect and demean employees in front of other co-workers.  They hide this little game they play behind their "team atmosphere" which is anything but.  You'll work most of your days with either new hires or temps who don't care whatsoever about the job they are completing.  You will be hounded about loading times for trailers when you're busting your behind but your co-worker is off in la-la land and you're held responsible for your partners work, since you're a team.  You are held to unrealistic expectations and not given the resources needed to complete the job correctly.  You'll work weekends occasionally and sometimes hit 12 hour days only to lose that overtime when they cut you later in the week.  Management lies about hours and certainly about opportunities to advance UNLESS you're willing to move to a desolate area like Suffern, NY.  The benefits are terrible, the pay is comparably low for warehouse work and the employees are real "winners" to say the least.  

This isn't a good fit for any legit hard worker but if you barely passed high school and are missing teeth-by all means, carry on.

Raymour and Flanigan only looks out for Raymour and Flanigan.  Stay away.

I worked at two R&Fs as a warehouse associate for nearly a year. If you are even considering applying as a warehouse associate a brief summary here will let you know what to be prepared for.

First and foremost be prepared to be stranded for a few hours by yourself. This will mean moving china cabinets solo across the sales room floor or loading dressers by yourself into customer vehicles. There should be a second associate there to help you but from my personal experience I found that, to save hours, it will probably only be you and the manager. It's a company that loves to tout "safety" about issues they previously gotten sued for but won't bat an eyelash when your lifting a granite topped table with no help.
There will always be at least three customer service reps, 2-3 managers and about 7-10 sales associates and there will only be one you. Most of the other associates will heap projects and tasks upon your shoulders while you are already overworked.
Management- your supervisor will insist on working 9-5 Monday to Friday and will hardly touch a weekend. This includes holidays (I was left alone for all three of their biggest sale event weekends)
Most of the time the manager will either be screwing around on a computer or talking on the phone while you are building and moving furniture.
The visual managers are polite and easy to work with, part of your job entails that for a few hours a day you rearrange furniture on the floor so it's aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
Hours- here is one of the most frustrating aspects of the job. R&F will automatically deduct a half hour from your shift as your "lunch" break. Since you are usually by yourself you never have time to take a break. By my estimation I only took my lunch break one fourth of the time I was there. I was owed at least a weeks wages. This is pretty much illegal and I'm sure it will catch up to them one day. They also use the old Walmart trick of harassing you to no end so you clock out and finish your work.
Also get ready to be yelled at customers and management as sales staff will promise the customer that the "warehouse guy" will build their item for them.
All this for a partly 11.00 an hour

The company promotes a program of associate-oriented guiding principles. They encompass the values and standards that are supposed to create a well-balanced culture within the company; a culture where the associates are the most important part of the business and to treat them as such will inspire and motivate them to do their best to take care of the business in return. This is an amazing effort on the company’s part and it truly defines a place where one would be lucky to be in their employ. The problem is, these principles don’t seem to go much further than the paper they’re printed on. 
   In all fairness I can’t say if the entire company is like this but, in Manchester, CT, it’s actually a “do as I say, not as I do” type of leadership environment. They claim to strive for commitment over compliance. In other words, they seek out employees who want to do their jobs and do them well. In truth, however, they go straight for forced compliance. Leadership just does a lot of whip-cracking, micro-managing, undermining, bullying, condescension, patronizing and the like.
   Another sizable and demoralizing issue in Manchester is that leadership largely operates in a sort of “panic mode.” This means that so many situations that arise, even mundane ones, can put leadership into an “all hands on deck” mentality which is pretty stressful given the amount of times this happens. This stems from the fact that they are almost never prepared in advance, if at all, for even the most predictable of situations: They don’t hire temps during the busy seasons; they mandate 6-day work weeks to make up for lack of staff; leadership too often performs associate-level tasks to cover under-staffing;  middle managers work long hours due to excessive associate overtime; etc. 
   Overall, it’s an inherently stressful environment and I think that has to do with the fact that leadership doesn’t have the time, patience or interest in running the business according to the company’s own “guiding principles.” Because of these things, everyone is so tense and frayed that leadership resorts to barking orders, doing things themselves, pushing the limits of safety, disregarding policies and cutting corners. The guiding principles just aren’t convenient in that environment. Maybe not even possible.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales associate 6 salaries reported	$74,167 per year
Delivery driver 1 salary reported	$22.98 per hour
Stocking associate 20 salaries reported	$25.00 per hour
Warehouse associate 1 salary reported	$13.00 per hour
Customer service representative 3 salaries reported	$16.67 per hour

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