fulfillment associate

customer support representative

customer service representative

merchandising assistant

environmental project manager

School Specialty

School Specialty is not going to advance your career or your savings account. This is a company that has been on the brink of being saved from disaster so many times-- it's a wonder the Titantic is still afloat.
In 2012 the company had to reorganize their disasterous financials by obtaining a new line of credit for over 270 million in order to pay vendors who had not been paid and were not shipping products to us.

From a management perpective, two words; Horribly Mis-managed.
The senior CEO's and upper managers at the corporate level are loathed by most of the Regional Managers. The Regional Managers in turn, are de-masculated and unable to perform basic functions like approve simple office supply expenses for their sales force due to complete lack of budgets.

Since Account Managers call on mostly school districts that have been severly hurt by budget cuts and lay-offs, you would think a sales reps. quota would reflect this reality, but the management does not adjust extremaly high and mostly unattainable quotas and continues to raise them yearly. This is a convenient way to keep the sales force from seeing any kind of decent bonus or year end incentive-- so pretty much the salary you get is what you will have to live on. Also don't forget to subtract a full week from your salary at the end of the year. The company makes all employees take a mantadory unpaid furlough betweek Christmas and New Years. Additionally, the ever present risk of more furloughs are always a threat since School Specialty will cut employee hours before timming the fat in other less cost effective areas of the company.

They do not value your opinion for new and "outside the box" ideas about how to run a financially crippled school district sales territory but rather stick with the "old ways"-- or get you terminated very quickly if you dare cross the path of management with ideas about best practices or better ways to improve revenue.

Benefits are very very medioce for a company this size--- and there are no longer raises, bonuses or matching 401k's offered. This is a job and not a career. If you are a go-getter sales represenative who likes to make money and be treated fairly by management which reward the fruits of your labor, School Specialty is not the place to be.

I endured SSI for a short period of time. A few weeks after they hired me I wondered why they were hiring, with furloughs and cut backs it seemed ironic that I was offered a job and then told I needed to take 5 weeks unpaid! I started looking shortly after I was hired for another position; the writing was on the wall with this company. No corporate communication, no strategic planning, even other company’s CEOs from the area were chatting…everyone saw this one coming. Lucky for me I landed a great opportunity and I didn't have to explain my reason for looking. The VP of my currently employer already knew of SSI’s situation.

If you want to be a part of real results and watch the fruits of your labor flourish than this is not the company for you. If you have any expectations at all, this is not the company for you. Upper management lacks the skills it takes to lead anyone. There simply are no leaders at this company. They have gone through several restructures but always cut of the wrong people. They need to stop cutting the Indians and start cutting the chiefs.

When their new CEO came on board people were excited. Then came the nothingness that he has become known for. This CEO will walk away with one more failure under his belt. He should have laid out his strategic plan and then cleaned house, literally and immediately. When your company’s finances luster like a toilet bowl the CFO and most of the finance team should have been the first walked out the door. Then when your VPs and directors have no departmental strategic plans for measurable success they too need to go. Their senior VPs and VPs literally don’t know how to run their business units effectively. Their operations are a mess and none of the Indians trust the Generals.

I have never seen a fear driven management style be effective, and it isn't. You don’t promote what doesn't work. The smart and talented employees have filtered out and accepted better positions. The upper management is mostly made up of other company's rejects and they will likely go down with the ship as no one is lined up to make them an offer. Future companies looking to hire SSI employees should stay away from all upper management director level or above.

While the I started at $13 an hour working first shift, the chaos of the season was not worth it. Initially shifts were merged causing not enough work and a shorter work day (5 am-11pm). This lead to moving back to split shifts but still hours were lack luster and would range anywhere between the afternoon to late evening as late as 5pm. Our start time constantly changed from 5, to 5:30, to 6:30. It was inconsistent and impractical in the sense that we were promised a 9 hour work day, coming in (5am-2pm) or by making a change to (6:30-3), which really didn’t make a difference since we’d stay later regardless. While it’s a “work until you’re done” motto, we were often tasked with additional work per the end of our work on line as a puller. The overall management was not respectful in how they addressed issues or even how they talked to employees. Many employees including myself felt insulted and disrespected by the way our boss would talk to us as if we’re unintelligent and it made the work culture feel secluded. Initially training wasn’t bad the first few days but then you’re thrown to the sharks. If you make a mistake or an error it’s accounted for, but rather than have a conversation and have the leads/trainers correct it in a positive way, often it felt as if I was penalized and stupid due to the nature of their approach IF they even corrected it. Most times it was just expected to be fixed without the necessary discussion or correction. 
Breaks were once paid and now are not, which takes away from the drive to work. Overtime pay was also a positive but at the cost that we would work a Saturday picking up additional work from another school specialty warehouse which felt like our work was deterred even more. Work was always scattered and frantic and there was no structure so we were all running around like chickens with our heads cut off. 

Since Indeed.com is used by many job seekers, its only fair to post an honest and open review to help anyone make a better informed decision about seeking employment as a sales professional with School Specialty. I can only share my own experience but believe I also represent how the majority of sales people working here feel.

School Specialty is not a company that promotes or encourages its sales force to think or act dynamically with better or more innovative ways to sell into a very financially crippled market. This line of outdated thinking comes from the upper management run in the very conservative mid-western and clicky circles of a small Wisconsin town where their corporate HQ is based. This is a " good ol' boy" kind of run company which continually fails miserably in large markets like the Los Angeles school districts because of the refusal to market themselves differently, understand their competition and think innovatively.

The thinking here is " we have always done it this way and althoug"it" has not worked we're going to keep doing it the same way because our upper management says so"....I have never worked with a company in which there was so much inner sales force frustration, fear, and politics of rocking the huge company boat.
Sales people are overworked, rarely recognized for their efforts, slammed with ridiculous and unachievable quotas, very poorly trained on most important products and terminated or furloughed at a moments notice if not in agreement with management.

A horrible career chioice for any sales professional who has a voice about improving sales revenue from past experience and/or wants to make bonuses or realistically achievable quotas. You can do 101% better in your sales career if you believe you are a top performerthan this company could ever offer you.

The work is complex and challenging at first, eventually becomes simple and monotonous but somehow enjoyable. The constant clash of customer desires vs. reality gets frustrating but is typical of every job.

During the fall and winter, the office is very laid back. Spring is about gearing up for summer. Summers are fast-paced and stressful, and everything seems to happen at once due to the nature of the business and poor planning on the part of the management teams.

The flow of business follows roughly the same pattern every year, and yet year after year nearly every department is understaffed. The sales team continuously balks at every reminder to do their job correctly. And, since their work is prioritized by corporate, the customer service, order entry, and the various product customization departments are overworked to make up for their inadequacies. Associates are required to work 50-60 hours May through July, and there is strong pressure (with incentives) to do even more than that.

Management also bows to every one of corporate's whims, often values the input of (brand new) associates based purely on job title rather than actual knowledge level and longevity with the company, and generally does not seem reliable when it comes to sticking up for the associates who work for them.

Corporate itself has historically barely tried to understand how this particular division of the company works, and has implemented several policies and changes that have damaged both morale and the actual efficiency and productivity of the company. Many long-time employees, rich in both work ethic and general competency, have left because of these decisions and the issues mentioned above.

A typical day for me was driving my order picker to fill customer orders.  This included a lot of heavy lifting as I was in charge of the bulk orders.  After picking up these orders I was also in charge of sorting/organizing them.  I was also involved in the shipping process as well.  I learned a lot working this job.  First, I learned to how to drive and operate types of machinery similar to a fork lift.  I also learned how to use a lot of software on School Specialty's RF guns which is what I used to fill orders.  Lastly, I learned a lot about the process of shipping products which was interesting to me because I was always on the other end of that cycle, ordering products.  Management at School Specialty seemed pretty normal.  The only complaint that I would have is not knowing if I was working Saturdays/Sundays until Friday night.  That made it difficult to plan some weekends but overall if you didn't create any problems for management, they treated you very fairly.  I loved my co-workers at School Specialty.  We all got along very well.  The way I look at it, if I am going to be spending the majority of my summer with people, I am going to try very hard to get along with them.  I am still currently friends with two of my co-workers today, as we attend the same university.  The hardest part of the job was probably working overtime.  Some weeks we would work 60 hours a week including weekends.  I enjoyed getting paid overtime, but it was very tiring.  The most enjoyable part of my job was working with my co-workers because we tried our best to make it an enjoyable time.

When I got this job,  I was so excited. They say all of the right things so it seemed perfect for a growth opportunity. As soon as I started, everything went downhill. I was not given the tools and time of day to learn everything I needed to be a successful supervisor in this building. In fact - nobody knew what they were doing anywhere, and training in certain departments and functions were only allowed for a select few individuals. When those people were off for the day, good luck, some important pieces of the operation will likely not get done. During my short time there, I saw numerous random layoffs, job threats, and turnover. Department leads that had been there for years and had the most knowledge in the building faced demotion due to a new restructured associated “tier” system, and I was forced to be a part of the interview process for this. In addition, I was forced to hold my associates accountable for productivity when there were either no set standards in place or the standards made no sense. It felt wrong and unfair. I am writing this review months after I left this position because it was a really upsetting experience working here. Again, nothing is fair and everyone is (somewhat understandably) negative all of the time because of it. They hired me to make an impact, yet the facility is set in its ways and does not know how to make proper change management decisions. As a supervisor here, you’re constantly trying to put out a fire when you don’t even know the catalyst of the fire.

A typical day of work - School Specialty is usually a 7am-3pm job, and the work isn't terrible. I was a picker, which meant retrieving product from the shelves, and putting it in boxes. One of the biggest issues with this was the fact that other pickers would all contribute to the same box, and there was a lot of cleaning up the messes of lazy workers.

Management was often infuriating, forcing ridiculous rules and regulations on everybody. None of the lower level employees ever earned positive feedback, and management is generally unfriendly.

My co workers were awesome. They were mainly college kids, as few adults would stay around for this job. Great, friendly environment there.

The hardest part of the job was putting in my all, and getting $8/hour for it. There were never any raises, advancements, and encouragements from the School Specialty team. Additionally, the company would have "seasonal" employees working year round, for several years without ever hiring them as full time employees with benefits. Overall, not the greatest company to make a career in, but okay for college kids just needing the extra cash.

Check into the history of the number of bankruptcies, ownerships, and mass layoffs that have happened before you decide the pay is worth it. Management consistently supports decisions made and actions taken by sales team members, and does not show the same support for other non-sales teams. Operational decisions are frequently made by individuals with sales background and no history of business operations. In any role outside of Sales, this job becomes incredibly demeaning, because of the treatment from the Sales team and lack of management support in those challenges. If you’re in Sales, you may feel powerful but I assure you that you won’t be making as much in commission as you could elsewhere - both due to commission rates and poor business decisions which impact customer satisfaction and repeat business. 

HR and management frequently share confidential or protected information when they shouldn’t. The workplace is full of gossip, cattiness, and infighting between departments. 

This is an extremely toxic workplace and I would strongly encourage anyone to steer clear of at all possible. 

But… they do pay fairly well for the area so at least there’s that, I guess. 

School Specialty is a great company that cares about its customers and works very hard towards meeting their needs. My responsibilities have been diverse and grown significantly over the 4 years I have been here. My days are not typical. I juggle many differing responsibilities from our corporate website, to our paid advertising, to email campaigns and public relations. I have a direct staff with varying degrees of expertise, who need different levels of management. I also manage a significant group of consultants and freelancers. 

The most enjoyable part of my job has been the rapidly changing digital environment. It offers many challenges which make for each day unique.

My main concern with School Specialty is the continuously changing  executive staff (4 different CEOs and 4 different Marketing VPs in 4 years). Unfortunately, this chaos has led the company to lose its focus. It is owned by venture capitalists who are prepping the company to look financially viable for sale. This type of management leads many employees to distrust management decisions on brand extensions and new business offers such as school shooter training.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Fulfillment associate 6 salaries reported	$17.67 per hour
Customer support representative 13 salaries reported	$16.62 per hour
Customer service representative 2 salaries reported	$18.50 per hour
Merchandising assistant 1 salary reported	$20.50 per hour
Environmental project manager 6 salaries reported	$23.83 per hour

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