In my short 5 months with Frito-Lay, all I encountered was miscommunication and unreasonable management among many other headaches. The majority of management, save for a few of the actually “reasonable” managers all seemed to care about sales and sales only. They turned a blind eye to the well-being, both mental and physical of their employees, which to most people, is completely unacceptable.
In my time with this company, I was rarely finished with my workday anywhere close to a reasonable time. Many times, I found myself working 10-11 hour days even though management knew I had another part-time job which I had no intention of leaving. My manager even went so far as to accuse me of prioritizing that job over my responsibilities with Frito-Lay, which is a completely unfair and ridiculous accusation to make considering I’m a recent college graduate who literally NEEDS that extra money.
The main area that needs to be addressed is communication. This is a job where we are not in an office every day to be able to communicate face-to-face with our managers. We had to rely on the use of work phones which became a problem on multiple occasions. Calls that were never returned, texts that weren’t promptly replied to and many other miscommunications led to delays in my workday on more than one occasion.
I am also astonished that a company such as Frito-Lay AKA likely the most well-known snack company around, is still having their merchandisers use technology that is quite li
I worked for this company for three years. It's a great experience to learn selling, but if you have no selling experience in your past, good luck in getting on the payroll unless you have some insanely mad interview skills. I did and I was able to get my foot in the door with no prior experience. Don't expect to repeat my experience unless they're desperate to staff. Your experience will differ, depending on what area or district of the company you live in.
The training experience in this area/district of the company can be very demanding, as you could be training with an established RSR in a city that may be 100 miles away from where you live. That could mean commuting about or over 200 miles a day during your 6 week training at a flat rate of $525 a week (this may have changed since my experience). It may sound good, but consider that you will be working at least a ten hour day, along with the expense of any commute during training.
Initially, after training, you will likely be a float, covering the days off or vacations/sick days of established RSRs on various routes within the district. When you're not doing this, you will partner with established RSRs as a helper on a daily route. You make the RSR's day shorter (and your's) to about 7-8 hours. Your week then becomes a 40-45 hour week, typically, if you're a good worker. You still get the base pay, which is decent (do the math) but not the responsibillity of route ownership.These are actually the best days to work as
ProsEasy brand recognition= easy sales. Good benefits.
ConsWay too high sales expectations. No accounting for local demographic changes in sales plan.
Fun Productive Enviroment but makes you different person!
A typical 8 hour day as a merchandiser would be starting weekdays usually early around 4 or 5 am. weekends might leave one of the 2 merchs on your route doing afternoons pulls starting between 10 am and 1 pm. job isn't hard at all but you just have to be very assertive with your approach to working especially when communicating with customers (stores). They give you an iPhone 4 currently as a company phone with otter box case to clock in with and do other work related tasks and also supply you with good knee pads and maxi-flex gloves for free. You also get reimbursed mileage 56 cent per mile month or by period because you will be driving your own insured vehicle. Tasks mainly include Putting chips on isles, end caps, weekender displays, cross-dock pallets etc and will be assembling some of them as well as relocating and breaking down.
Some Coworkers will put work off on you, Especially salesmen because they get lazy and don't want to work back sock before load and want to go home early. Not all but alot do.Receivers and management seem to always gripe at you and call your boss. Most back stock areas are not well allocated vendor area wise and usually crowded especially when beer and soda loads are delivered.depending on your route, time of day and or week, store volume you can have a lot to do or nothing at all. Friendships are usually strong and fun among Co Workers, vendors and store employees, even consumers and everyday can be different.
You can move up really fast
ProsSalary+++, Stable Workforce, Fun Enviroment, Friendly peers and Very Low Supervision
ConsWorklife Balance, Griping store Mgnmt, Lazy Coworkers and "People stepping on your Feet" (Advancement Delays)
2.0
Route Sales Representative | Santa Fe, NM | Jun 30, 2019
Was a great company to work for up until the past two years!!!
I am currently an RSR and I love my customers, building relationships with your customers and consumers is an amazing part of this job. Basic shifts are anywhere from 10 to 12 hour days, they used to be 14 to 16 hour days up until they issued the fleet to be DOT certified which restricts us from working more than 13 hours in the handheld(gives you a warning to let you know your hours are coming up). We were on commission for a great period of time up until two years ago the company decided to take a turn and decided to make us salary with a bonus once a month. The bonus provided does not add up to what we were making per week on a commission basis. We were told that we would make more money while working less, well that was a lie. We're working the same amount of hours, if not more trying to achieve the required goals in order to make a "bonus", which is hitting a minimum 93% to sales or higher, 99.8% of service so you can't miss a stop or else you will get dinged on your service which will cause you to potentially fail on achieving a bonus. Working a minimum of 50 hours a week or at least that's what our "true up" paperwork states, and of course having a $0 variance on your overages and shortages from billing customers. Management isn't always the greatest since I've been employed with Frito Lay going on 8 years, every single one of my supervisors have been external instead of promoting internally like a company should do to give its employees an incentive to grow with the c
ProsCustomers and Consumer relations are great!
ConsHorrible salary for the amount of work you do!
I understand that in a competitive market that cutting cost and increasing revenues/net profits is vital to a publicly traded company.
Frito-Lay has a long history of cutbacks and increasing revenues. Fritolay has grown extensively in the last 30 yrs but their logistics are built on a small format industry. They have tried to make small changes here and there to accommodate its expansion in the marketplace but the real changes necessary to make the delivery system more competitive is at least challenging and capital-intensive. This would not go over well with investors especially when the drink and beverage division of Pepsico is consistently losing market share.
So what did Fritolay do? They made significant cutbacks that hurt their RSRs and just about everyone in the logistics chain. Fritolay product development has plateaued so a lot of the new & temporary items have been hit or miss and so have the force-outs. RSRs are working significantly more for the same pay because they have to try and make an unattainable plan, having to move around force-outs, wasting time checking-in large format deliveries when they could be merchandising, having to deal with a highly disorganized warehouse and picking system and having to built displays on items that aren't great sales in that particular store or location within that store.
I recommend:
a) organize your warehouse based on category and load trucks the same. Keeps all tostitos together, all baked, Doritos, etc. Distributio
ProsDecent pay and benefits
ConsOld trucks, a massively flawed logistics, poor communication
5.0
Route Sales Representative | Dubuque, IA | Feb 18, 2019
Route Sales Representative
Every Route Sales Representative starts as a relief, or "vacation" driver. This entails covering truck routes for RSRs on vacation, as well as using your personal vehicle to cover merchandise routes as needed. You may also be asked to cover a route that is not in your home district. You will remain a vacation driver until a route opens up. This varies by location. You could get one upon completion of training, or you may have to wait a year or two.
Days start early, most RSRs are on the road no later than 5am. It all depends on how far from the warehouse your route is, and when you can get checked in at your first account. I've started as early as 2:30 and as late as 4:45. Most of my days have ended between 2 and 3pm, depending on when I started. I've been done as early as 11am. There is no designated end time....its whenever you finish.
Job entails driving your truck on a pre-determined route (Handheld Computer tells you the route) and delivering product. Some orders are picked the day before, some are picked on site. The end of day process is what varies. It depends what kind of warehouse you have. Some locations you'll do all the work (picking orders, cleaning out trucks, etc.). Other locations, all you have to do is park your truck and the warehouse staff takes care of it. Then you'll run your daily report to see how you stand vs. plan for the week and the period. All routes have a plan that they are expected to meet for both the week and every 4 we
When I started with Frito it was a fast paced job, a lot of hours usually 5-6 days 55-65 hours a weeks a lot for the average person but for those that made and got their own route the reward of commission was great!!!!! Now a days ..... the company does not care about the Small format RSR we have become the black sheep of the company the 55-65 hours that we would put in in order to get a good check have become manadatory or your check suffers , the commission has gone away and replaced with a bonus system that is unrealistic , if you are able to surpass your year prior numbers and come away with a high percentage towards a good bonus enjoy it because the following period Numbers will be there way of getting that money back. If you fall short of your numbers the company has the ability to take back the advance they give you for 4 weeks leading up to your true up, and you could realistically work a 55 hour week and take home 300 bucks for your trouble , they have micromanaged the job to where u now need two devices to log onto before u can run your route if not you will be looking at a write up , favoritism is a very real thing when it comes to relief drivers and being a good worker gets you no where but being the workhorse, and once you start saying no to the extra days because your burned out or u take one to many sick days to recover u become an outcast and sent outside your building , the company does not believe in promoting within, in my 5 years here I have only seen one
I only worked for Frito Lay for a short time, but my experiences were good overall. My training was pretty involved and comprehensive. An average day started between 3 and 5 am, I would travel from my home to the Bin (warehouse), park my car and pick up a company truck. From the Bin I would follow the assigned route to each account where I would go in, greet the customer and create an order while looking for defected or out of date merchandise. Then I would go back to the truck, pull the order, check the order in with the customer, address defects or out of dates with the customer and credit the customer for this merchandise, stock the new merchandise and move on to the next account. After all accounts had been completed, I would return to the bin to reload the truck, synchronize the handheld computer and turn in my hours for the day/week. On the last work day of every week I would perform a physical inventory of both the truck and the inventory within my assigned area of the Bin. Different routes had a slightly different routine, but that's basically the job in a nutshell.
At Frito Lay, I learned a lot of customer service skills and time management. I also learned just how much of my personal life I am willing to sacrifice for money.
Management at Frito Lay was pretty good, but they didn't seem to communicate very well from manager to manager or district to district. I was the person who covered vacations for the route drivers for 2 districts. On more than one occasio
ProsGreat pay, good benefits, good people, and a lot of independence
ConsLong hours and unpredictable schedules
5.0
Maintenance Technician | Rosenberg, TX | Dec 13, 2017
Worth while
Compared to every place I have ever worked they are up to par and or above and beyond what i have previously experienced in my career. Unfortunately it seems like certain sectors of corporate like to focus too much on making an example of people for miniscule, unintentional wrong doing or simple human error and force our resources to punish said individuals for the infraction. I understand if someone is intentionally fouling up efforts or constantly being insubordinate, or constantly make the same mistake and has been given adequate training and several chances to improve and either refuses to give forth the effort or simply does not care. Then by all means, make em shape up or ship out. Dont force resources to punish people for an accident or a simple slip up. After all, we are human. To err is human to forgive is devine. When people see or experience that it brings a negative influence to the entire plant. Try more reinforcement of good behavior and effort. Its more helpful for the work environment. It will also take alot of the stress off the shoulders of these young resources. Corporate needs to learn that when you are trying to mold a resource/manager to oversee your operation, positive reinforcement always wins over trying to submit someone into being a certain way.
I feel as though management has unrealistic expectations and restrictive guidelines forced on them by Corporate. Corporates entire focus is the quantity of product produced. In my opinion, from a maintenanc
ProsMoney, benefits, longevity, security and MORE MONEY
ConsUnrealistic corporate expectations, corporate putting the cart ahead of the horse, corporate promoting a negative environment
5.0
Route Sales Representative | Brooklyn, NY | May 13, 2013
Exiting work place, great co workers and supervisors, very comfortable work environment
Work day begins at 4 am, employees begin to go through daily routine (getting eqiupment, parking your truck into the docking area, shopping for products to fill up truck based on manifest and client needs), after loading truck and geting all documents needed, employees drive to their specific routes and service stores, collect payment and maintain stale, after route is service 100%, all cash collected must be changed to money orders to be documented once employee reaches station to finalize and file all documents collected during the day.
I Learned how to execute effective feild sales, and providing great customer service to all clients and large format stores, going above and beyond for each client to ensure they are satisfied. Also learned how to make adjustments to daily plan due to weather, parking, volume of store etc.
Management were very great, they did not impose on employees and allowed them to be free in servicing stores. They checked in on us regularly just inquiring if we needed support regarding store managers and sales promotion
Co-Workers were very friendly and cooperative, the offered alot of information and support regarding the challenging aspects of the job
The hardest part of the job were the long hours. As I explained earlier, the day begins at 4 am and a RSR may not finish their route until after 6 pm not considering the travel back from the route and finaizing the daily manifest, the turnover is the most challenging working the long hours and havin
ProsComfortable work environment, great supportive management
ConsLong hours on the route/road, lose time with your family due to gruling schedule (especially having young children)
I started working weekends then got summer contracts, now I get offered FT often but I keep rejecting them. Most FT people are leaving or have left; you will see many jobs post for sales rep positions which btw is not a true sales job. The company cut all commissions and now the long days are no longer worth it. Reps were able to push and work long hours because of commissions and make 60-90K. Now you'll make 40-45k max yet you will still be expected to hit targets!!!. So, if you enjoy waking up at 4am to get to grocery stores at 5 am and spending 7-15 hours a day for 40-45k this is a company for you. The company already brought out new products recently but soon they will bring 10+ new brands into the market which means you will be expected to sell more and stock more space than before but your pay will be the same. You don't get a raise in this position. People who have been here for 10+ years make the same now as someone who walked in yesterday and it WILL stay like that no matter what your told. Management lives on another planet. I once worked from 5:30am-8PM during a busy day that I knew was going to be busy so I asked for support; No help was sent; in fact, no one even knew I went home at 8pm. I don’t blame people at my local branch such as my mangers but instead just the company itself. I can now tell all the company cares about now is profit for shareholders and that’s it. Employees have become disposable. The company sends out orders to people at the top of the chai
Questions And Answers about Frito-Lay
What is the best part of working at Frito-Lay?
Asked Dec 1, 2019
Weekly pay. Union. Good pension. Decent healthcare. Good management.
Answered May 26, 2022
Interacting with all my awesome customers.
Answered May 26, 2022
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Frito-Lay a better place to work?
Asked Nov 3, 2019
I would hire more support for fewer hours
Answered Oct 6, 2021
Treat employees decent. If you want them to love coming to their job and doing their job, then make it worth it to them, treat them with respect and in return they will respect you. Hire enough staff so people don't get burned out. Make their work life enjoyable, so they want to stay and give their all to the company when they're at work. Get a good name for yourself as one of the best places to work!
Answered Jul 11, 2021
What is the interview process like at Frito-Lay?
Asked Feb 8, 2016
Very uncomfortable interview process
Answered Mar 16, 2022
Extensive. Be patient.
Answered Oct 6, 2021
What tips or advice would you give to someone interviewing at Frito-Lay?
Asked Nov 27, 2017
Dont bother applying if you have a bachelor's degree in business and relevant sales experience. You will not fit the "mold" they're looking for.
Answered Jun 13, 2020
Situation, action, result. The story is about you and no one knows you better than you.
Answered Mar 11, 2020
How flexible are your working hours at Frito-Lay?
Asked Mar 15, 2020
Frankfort processing can work 12 hour days, 19 days in a row. It does happen alot and will continue that way. Expect to be there 12 hours a day, everyday if you dont have any seniority.
Answered Apr 5, 2021
You have to have seniority for that to happen. Seniority takes 2-3 years depending on your job title.
