Walgreens reviews

3.0

34% would recommend to a friend

(37,055 total reviews)
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Mike Motz

26% approve of CEO

25% positive business outlook

Walgreens has an employee rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars, based on 37,055 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Walgreens 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

37K reviews
2.0
Mar 8, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you work at the right store with the right crew and the right boss it can be like a small close knit family.

Cons

If you work at any other store be prepared for the suck. Since the Walgreens family left power in the company it has become much less customer oriented and much tighter fisted. The current CEO Greg Wasson is running the place into the ground by trying to make it more like CVS. This increases profit margins by cutting customer service. Customer service was the company's hallmark and without that it's just an expensive Walmart so why wouldn't customers go to the cheap Walmart. The result is that they're squeezing the employees. Benefits have been dropping. The vision plan has gone from an insurance plan to a discount plan and I got a better discount on glasses last time from the discount the doctor was offering to new customers walking in off the street. The insurance has gone down in coverage and up in premiums. The profit sharing plan has gone from $3 per dollar you put in to an even match just in the 5 years I worked there. They're also removing the props that support employees. They're going to start making regular clerks do returns and exchanges because they're about to drop the entire assistant manager staff. If you're looking for a managerial position don't go here. They're about to drop the entire assistant manager position chain-wide and offer to rehire everyone at $13 an hour. At that rate they're only going to be able to keep crap people who will shirk and steal from the company because the crap you have to deal with isn't worth that little. That means the store managers and EXAs who are salaried are going to have to work extra hours left and right to cover shifts people quit on. The store managers still make decent money although their bonuses have been getting squeezed and cut, but the EXAs were already making an equivalent less per hour than an assistant manager and now they'll have to deal with a lot more and put in even more hours with no raise in pay. All-in-all Walgreens used to be a decent place to work (to listen to the older employees it was even a good place at one time) but it's been in decline for a decade or more now and shows no signs of getting better.

3.0
Jul 28, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Walgreens offers excellent pay & benefits. Being a national company that has a store on virtually every street corner across America means there is likely a job opening wherever you want one. There is also lots of opportunity for growth into the mid-level management positions of Pharmacy Manager (in charge of one store) or Pharmacy Supervisor (in charge of a district of stores). NOTE: While the fact that these mid-level management job opportunities exist is a PRO, they exist because these jobs are frequently vacated like hot potatoes - which is more of a CON. Walgreens frequently hires new graduates (who haven't worked a day as a pharmacist, but are waiting for their license to come in the mail) right into the role of Pharmacy Manager - so a big PRO from the perspective of opportunity to jump right in (over your head) at the manager pay grade. Because many districts are frequently understaffed, overtime is is often readily available - which is another big PRO if you just graduated & are looking to earn as much money by working as many hours as possible for the first few years out of school to pay-off your loans.

Cons

Walgreens pharmacies are practically ALWAYS open, so while you would think this would offer a lot of flexibility with a work schedule, it just means you are required to work ridiculous rotations of 7+ days in a row, several nights per week, every other weekend, and if you're lucky, you will be required to work only half of the 6 annual holidays, every year, for as long as you work for this company. Pharmacy budgets for tech hours are always ridiculously low; pharmacists are frequently over-worked, with ever-decreasing budgets for tech hours & ever increasing demands to perform additional tasks & duties (sell more shots!). The mid-level management positions of Pharmacy Manager & Pharmacy Supervisor have a very high turnover rate (due to managers quitting). Pharmacy Managers are not really allowed to manage, but are micro-managed themselves & treated like babysitters; they have no real authority, but are issued all of the blame regardless. The end result of this very high turnover is that districts are typically short-staffed, as such, underqualified & undertrained individuals are often promoted just to fill positions which, in many cases, must be legally filled or the pharmacy would have to close down. While Walgreens "talks the talk" when it comes to training programs & leadership programs (and they can point to leadership development courses that they offer) - it is all worthless if what you learn in the training is neither valued nor implemented in actual, daily operations - they fail to "walk the walk".

3.0
Oct 22, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good stability, above average salary, ok work/life balance for retail environment, advancement opportunity for those willing to work and be professional, and total compensation package is still above average with profit sharing. In regards to pharmacy, is an industry leader with a proven track record. Overseas expansion & opportunities could easily be in the near future as well with recent mergers.

Cons

Consistently changing goals and expectations. Many time assigned goals are a bit unrealistic and out of managements control, yet performance ratings and bonuses are attached to them. Too much supervision between CL Walks, DM Walks, RXS Walks, LP Walk, OPT visits, Conference Calls, District Lead emails, Meetings, etc. Estimated 12-18 days per month that key personnel are not driving results in their store & completing key executional tasks due to driving corporate and district initiatives. Customer service is very difficult and stressful and suffers due to the micromanagement of these goals. In addition, company is in Phase 1 of a proposed $1 Billion expense cuts. History would typically illustrate that Phase 2 is more operational budget cuts in the store or major changes (hours or salary/bonuses).

Viewing 7 - 9 of 37,055 Reviews

Glassdoor has 38,543 Walgreens reviews submitted anonymously by Walgreens employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Walgreens is right for you.