PetSmart reviews

Corporate and field leadership has gone downhill. I've worked my way up in the company for the past four years, starting out as a Pet Care Specialist in the main store, advancing to Support Manager (a position the company has now eliminated), and am currently assistant manager in the PetsHotel, a position I've held for more than a year now. In this time, I've seen what used to be a wonderful company devolve into a heartless, Walmart-like corporation where profits trump ethics. Four years ago, I was proud to work for a company whose top priorities included doing right by employees and caring for animals impeccably. As leadership at the top has changed and the company was bought out by private interests, the focus has shifted to money, and nothing else. The company wants to squeeze more productivity out of fewer employees, and has cut labor hours drastically. This, in turn, affects the care employees can give pets and customers. In the new, "improved" way of operatinig, store-level employees are just cogs in the machine--indentured servants-- who are expected to perform miracles on a daily basis. As a manager with limited labor hours allocated to my PetsHotel, I am somehow expected to drive add-on services (more dogs in daycamp, more baths and nail trims, etc.) and increase profits, but am not given the staffing to meet the unrealistic standards set by the "geniuses" at Corporate. This also puts associates and customer pets in our care at greater risk for things to go wrong, be it injury, illness, or unprovided services that the customer has paid for and expects us to do for their pet. Without enough staff to take care of everything, it is impossible to provide the excellent service we want to.

Hours- SMs are expected to put in 45-50 hours a week. With labor cuts this routinely becomes 60 hours w/o additional compensation. Labor-1 cashier, 1 petcare associate & 1 manager cannot effectively or safely do everything that needs to be done. OSATs- this only makes sense if you're familiar w/customer surveys. The random survey system is broken but stores are held to ever-increasing rates of customer satisfaction. Turnover- last year a lot of good people lost their jobs in what appeared to be a witch hunt. Lots of tenured SMs (many of whom LOVED their jobs) were hung out to dry for following standard operating procedures for payroll. It's hard to build a company culture when there's no depth left. Vision- the company has changed its mission statement 3 times in the past 2 years. It's hard to get behind a company where there's no consistent long term vision. I understand the need to stay competitive but there needs to be consistency. Services- this is a tricky part of the business because it's based completely on customer satisfaction. The biggest issues always come out of salon, from dogs being nicked accidentally (& pet parents flying off the handle disproportionally to the cut) to people who refuse to pay for a service because they don't like quality of the work. Metrics- there is an ever changing laundry list of metrics (sales, turnover, survey results, total loss, safety, online sales just to name some) that must be met. You run the risk of getting fired if your store doesn't meet all metrics. Of course this is in itself dependent on your relationship w/your DM because not all SMs are treated equally... Physicality of the Job- this job isn't for the weak. Dog food is heavy. Cat litter is heavy. Fish tanks are even worse. There aren't a lot of options in regards to who lifts product. You WILL lift a lot of product. You WILL feel it at some point, especially if you have a bad back, knee, neck, etc.