employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

Harbor Freight Tools

Engaged Employer

Harbor Freight Tools reviews

3.6

63% would recommend to a friend

(3,451 total reviews)
avatar

Eric Smidt

67% approve of CEO

58% positive business outlook

Harbor Freight Tools has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 3,451 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
2.0
Jan 26, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Co-workers make work fun. Employee discount on items.

Cons

Schedule always come out late. Management talk to other staff about employees. (including e-vale) No notice of schedule change unless employee notices and writes it.

1.0
Jan 22, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1. Full Medical Benefits 2. Employee commission for warranties and Inside Track Club Memberships sold 3. Decent entry level pay for Assistant Managers

Cons

1. Company pushes VERY VERY hard each employee and manager to sell warranties which are most of the time 50% the cost of the item. Failure to make daily 1.75% or higher sales goal on these warranties is met with harsh criticism that you are too dumb and incompetent to sell them to customers. 2. Assistant Managers are Glorified sales associates, maintaining, setting and pushing all freight with very little help and harsh criticism for not meeting company goals on time. Although company asks for 8 people to unload trucks you are left with 3-4 including the on duty ASM to complete which is an impossible task to unload a 54 foot truck in just 5 hours and push it to the floor. 3. District Manager excepts no excuses and details company policys but doesn't except fact that a store may be short on associates to help because in the end Payroll is more important and warranties and Inside Track Club memberships are #1 priority because its free money for the company. 4. NO OVERTIME, but explicit demands to do tasks which are impossible to complete within given guideline of time again because of lack of employees and payroll. 5. Assistant Managers are told they will work 40 hours a week, more like 30-32 hours a week after lunch taken. Short 6-7 hour shifts 5 days a week rather than 8 hour shifts 5 days a week. 6. Poor organization of information to support tasks due in stores. Company tries to roll out information but it becomes held up with Store Manager or DM and then is brought to associates attention after due date and associates are held accountable for information that wasn't provided prior to task needing to be completed. For example Store Manager receiving email from District Manger while store manager is off. District Manager calls and complains to ASM's and writes us up for not completing something that we had absolutely no access to at anytime. 7. NO PROMOTIONS: for all employees are considered to do all tasks in store positions that are to be filled such as warehouse manager remain empty as Store Manager suggests everyone needs to be sharing that job, this leads to poor management of the team as they do not know who to look for to complete unloading of the truck or tasks. Store Management refuses to place people in postions and give higher pay. 8. PAY FREEZES: I have worked for HFT for 2 years, and 4 reviews have come and gone. I have received a 98% review each time however Store Manager and DM have refused any pay raises to any ASM yet have given to other stores in the area. This is due to again not meeting excessive demands for daily sales of warranties of which customers do not want to spend 30-60% the cost of the item they are purchasing on a warranty that covers the product for only 1-2 years and covers NO accidental damage.

2.0
Jan 20, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Not Many. Benefits package is okay if you're lucky enough to be a permanent employee. Some departments have better morale and camaraderie than others. Building is in a nice community area.

Cons

Long hours, very poor compensation. The pressure is on to work 10-12 hours a day, even though 'overtime is not authorized'. Many employees are hired as in-house temps to avoid paying benefits. No advancement. Yearly surveys to 'improve' the morale situation in the company but nothing changes because upper management feels that they can just get new employees, if the current ones complain too much. Constant turnover, people abruptly quitting or being fired. Management will recruit and locate middle-to-upper managers and abruptly fire them in less than six months. Recruited managers are often unqualified for their positions and are set-up to fail from the start. They do this to not pay them what someone truly qualified in that role would cost the company. Upper management brought in incompetent consultants to streamline internal processes that changed nothing and ended up costing the company more money while trying to fix all the problems with the changes.

Viewing 3358 - 3360 of 3,451 Reviews

Glassdoor has 3,498 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.