Upper management is relentless. The pressure they place on local managers is enormous. That is part of the gig and I get it. My main complaint is their approach and the way they go about gettng what they want (exceeding sales, profit, and growth numbers, perfect inventory, perfect receivables, perfect execution on pretty much everything). Absolutely no recognition of what is going good and what you may be doing well. Every ounce of focus is put on what you are doing wrong. If you beat sales, beat profit, have great AR, but your new product sales are down...look out. You will be berated and forced to explain why you are unable to produce results in that one area. The tone is condescending and threatening. It breeds resentment. You are micro managed to the 10th degree.
What's worse is what upper management preaches about their fabled Corporate Culture. Honesty, integrity, professionalism, treating employees like gold, and putting the customer first. Such hypocrites, their perception of themselves is so skewed it's actually scary. They preach it, but they certainly don't practice it. Customers are taken advantage of. Each rep walks into each customer for service knowing exactly how much money they need to get out of that customer in order to make their daily number. There is no clearer example of Cintas first, customer second than that. Clearly it's about what Cintas needs, not what the customer needs. The customer is going to get as much product as the rep needs in order to make their number, it has nothing to do with what the customer actually needs. Prices are ridiculous and price increases happen all the time with no advance notice to the customer base.
I will say that it wasn't always this way. Top management in the division has made it this way. Leadership is a thing of the past for the most part. Now it's all accomplishing micro managed task after micro managed task. Zero development of people, zero appreciation. Hoperfully, this will swing back the other way at some point.
