Job Title: Director
Location: Oakbrook, IL
Submitted on: 11-Mar-03
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Job Title |
Workplace
Survey |
| Director |
In the beginning, it was a wonderful work environment. They lease and
operate college/university bookstores. They acquired the lease at my
university in 1992 and most of us chose the option of staying with the
company. I was immediately given a raise. At that time the company had
about 350 stores across the country. As the company grew, it became
increasingly impersonal. It is the largest "family owned" corporation
in the country. We were encouraged to take "ownership" of the store we
ran and had a solid amount of input on merchandise (outside of
textbooks) we wanted to carry in order to increase sales. Of course,
orders were placed through a central area to maximize discounts. As the
size of the company swelled (to now more than 700 stores) this automonmy
was removed from the store managers and directors and placed in the Home
Office.
For salaried employees, hours could be brutal at times. Working a 65 to
75 hour week was not unusual during the peak weeks and seldom was less
than 45 to 50 hours put in even during down times. The dress code is
business casual for most locations and although is not strickly
enforced, is strongly encouraged. Diversity is practiced to a great
extent. A wide varity of benefits are offered. While I was there the
company went from the usual medical/dental/life coverage to offering to
also offering long term care, eye care, and coverage for "significant
others". They even offered pet insurance.
Opportunities for advancement were wonderful throughout my tenure. I
began as an accounting clerk, to a store manager of a small ($900,000 in
annual sales)to store manager of a large ($4,000,000 in annual sales) to
Field Training Manager, to Director of a group of stores. In my opinion
the downturn of the company began when they started recruiting too many
people from the outside that were not familiar with the "college
environment".
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Follett Corporation Interview Surveys
