employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

Harbor Freight Tools

Engaged Employer

Harbor Freight Tools reviews

3.6

62% would recommend to a friend

(3,450 total reviews)
avatar

Eric Smidt

67% approve of CEO

57% positive business outlook

Harbor Freight Tools has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 3,450 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Harbor Freight Tools employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

3K reviews
1.0
Aug 21, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Salary is competitive and benefits are decent.

Cons

Poor leadership/management - the management are inexperienced and incompetent, they don't listen to suggestions well and keep making the same mistakes. It is also unprofessional of the managers to talk negatively and gossip about their own people openly to other co-workers and other departments. The managers also do not protect their own people, instead, they challenge and throw their own people under the bus in meetings in front of other departments. This is extremely unprofessional and poor management. Poor work & life balance - majority of the people work at HFT have no life, the managers expect you to work 24/7. You are asked to work at late nights, weekends and even holidays. It is extremely unhealthy and inhuman of the managers to ask their people do work such long hours. The workload is unsustainable. Not enough employee to support the quick growth and everything falls on you to complete. Poor workload arrangement - the workload here is not even. some people have a lot of workload but some don't. Again, the managers assign workload based on preferences, not what makes sense. Poor system and process - the company's system and process are very insufficient. Many people tried to change or improve them, but have not been successful.

1.0
Aug 12, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nice coworkers, that's about it. Hiring manager was nice and knew the job was pretty terrible. I guess if you like smelling like tools you'd like working here. I could listen to music when we did restocking. Commissions on larger items paid out well if you were a decent salesman.

Cons

Everything else. Upper management hated customers, had no sense of politeness or promptness. Store was always understaffed, understocked, and underperforming due to system crashes or general slowness. Managers said disparaging things about friends of mine. Customers were rude, racist and seemed to not understand the concept of retail in any form. Sales catalogs, guarantees and programs are all a joke, not worth wasting paper on, currency or otherwise. Products were shoddy; I wouldn't trust a screwdriver from Harbor Freight let alone a big electric saw that could kill me. Store was permanently dirty even when cleaned. It was like living in an alternate universe where societal progress stagnated in late '80s rural Texas and everyone used AOL search and ate TV dinners and watched America's Funniest Testicular Injuries every night.

3.0
Aug 11, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Will match 401k, very flexible with scheduling, GREAT sick and PTO pay -it's based on how many hours you work and I only worked part time but earned almost 100 in a year. Started me at above minimum wage for cashier position and I moved up to assistant head cashier in about 9 months. Also there is small commission for warranties and memberships that you can sell to customers.

Cons

Corporate makes a lot of mistakes with sales tags, POGs, information, coupons, etc. Products are low quality so we got A LOT of returns and sometimes unhappy customers. A lot of pressure on the daily percentage goals for warranties and memberships.

Viewing 3307 - 3309 of 3,450 Reviews

Glassdoor has 3,497 Harbor Freight Tools reviews submitted anonymously by Harbor Freight Tools employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Harbor Freight Tools is right for you.