Hastings Entertainment Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Hastings Entertainment full-time for more than a year

Pros – there are some very awesome people working at tradesmart

Cons – the pay rate at this company leaves a lot to be desired

Advice to Senior Management – take care of the employees that are worth it

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Hastings Entertainment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great benefits, I had a great direct supervisor

Cons – The director over my department was not a fun guy to work for, some weeks required long work hours

Advice to Senior Management – Be nice, be consistent

Current Employee – been working at Hastings Entertainment full-time for more than a year

Pros – Other employees are usually pleasant to work with.
Flexible schedules.
Full-time benefits.

Cons – Low pay.
Product constantly getting stolen.
Rare, or no raises.
The Waco building is in constant disrepair (leaking ceilings, mismatching carpets, bathrooms falling apart, old air vents constantly spewing dust, etc.). This makes it nearly impossible to keep your department clean and presentable.
Due to the nature of the store (carrying a lot of old used stuff you can't find at Target or Walmart), customers are extremely needy and often won't even bother looking for an item before they ask an associate to find it for them.

Advice to Senior Management – A lot of employees are either getting second jobs or leaving for somewhere that will pay them more. Also, at this particular location (Waco), the building is the store's biggest enemy. It's extremely old, falling apart, and the landlord does not repair anything in reasonable time.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Hastings Entertainment part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Employees were great, customers both good and bad.

Cons – Poor wages, degrading treatment by management and corporate. Every problem was because of employees as as told by management. a Yo yo style of hours given, then taken away. Yet all tasks were still expected to be done with out sufficient, manpower

Advice to Senior Management – Quality of treatment of employees builds a solid company

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Hastings Entertainment part-time for more than 7 years

Pros – - Fun co-workers.
- Interesting job if you have an intimate knowledge of products (if you're a movie buff or have a vast taste in literature, for example.)
- Very flexible schedule.
- Although it might be hard to believe if you read my cons, it's really not the worst place I've ever worked. I don't know how much that's saying, but there you go.

Cons – - The pay rate is atrocious. As mentioned by several other reviewers, new hires (even the ones who work under you) make significantly more than you. I found, through offered information, that after five years of working there I was the single lowest paid employee in the store. And this is after receiving nothing but praise from my direct superiors the entire stretch. Not that I could even ask for an explanation, seeing as discussing pay among co-workers is a fireable offense.

- We are constantly told to do more in less time for no pay increase. The expectations are absurd and our goals unreachable. Imagine, if you will, that you're getting paid to cook a meal for one. Then you're told you need to change it to a meal for three. Then four, and add a course. This goes on until you're expected to now cook a three course meal plus desert for six, and by the way we cut your sous chef's shift to save on hours, so do his job too. And we are not increasing funds from the number we offered you to cook the single course meal for one.

- Understaffing. We are on a skeleton crew every single night even though we are one of the most profitable stores in the area. Everyone ends up staying late anyway because nothing can get done, then we get yelled at for working over shift. I can't accept customer inquiries because besides those of us on registers to relieve the extreme line congestion there are no more employees left to come help them.

- Hastings is convinced that if they're not in the green, it's because employees are not trying hard enough. End of story--it is only ever the employees' fault and there is no other feasible explanation. Customers won't buy laffy taffy for an extra three dollars at nine in the morning? You aren't pushing it hard enough. It WILL sell, and it's your fault if it doesn't.

- Absolutely no incentive. I can't stress it enough. You may as well not try, as you'll be treated exactly the same by corporate as those who don't. I am only verbally praised by direct superiors--I do not have a single thing to back it up. No pay increase, no formal note of an exceptional performance, no reward system whatsoever. The one and only motivator used is that if you don't do more work, you're fired. Hasting's definitely feels that you are lucky you work here, and that the best of the best is the absolute bare minimum.

- The requirement of the suggestive sell. You're not just required to ask, you're required to SELL. If customers do not buy extra things from you, you're made to feel inept and your job is threatened. We also now have to ask every customer to sign up for a membership, every customer for their email address, every customer to reserve a video game, every customer to sell things back to us, and on top of that, to buy overpriced candy. Thirty-second transactions now take five minutes, and the customer is irritated as an added bonus. The lines start to pile up because you have to ask so many questions, but there's no one to open another register.

I'm a good employee. I show up to every shift and am never late. I cover shifts when co-workers can't work them, I give up shifts when they are desperate for hours. I come in early to help with this, I stay late to help with that. I go out of my way to accumulate personal knowledge of products to help people find what they need. I always do what I'm told, I always keep my cool even in the face of disrespectful, insulting customers, I swallow my pride, I bend my morals, I rise to challenges, and what do I have to show for it? A wage I can barely scrape by on and daily threats that my job is in jeopardy because I didn't jam five candy bars down five throats my last shift. What I get in return for hard work is the blatant shrug of indifference and a clear cut sign that reads, "You are every bit as disposable and replaceable as any new hire".

Advice to Senior Management – If employees are as integral to this corporation's functionality as they are to any other's, acknowledge them accordingly. Stop ignoring the big picture problems in favor of the tiny, irrelevant little things and expecting to see enormous results. Staff your stores. Pay your employees. Stop giving yourself such incredible raises if the company is in true peril. It all falls on deaf ears, though, and it really doesn't matter. With the additional total lack of understanding in what has changed in media over the years, this chain will be obsolete and underground before the decade's out.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Hastings Entertainment full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – -Fun people to work with
-Ok discount on most items, discount on books is pretty good
-Regular customers are fun to have a conversation with
-Ok selection of merchandise
-Managers and MITs tend to have great personallities and try and help their employees

Cons – -Corporate has too many "great ideas" that are just bad business
-Employees are horribly underpaid and lack the hours to keep most of the good ones from leaving
-Regional and District managers have unrealistic ideas about how the stores should look and operate while also trying to cut hours to make labor
-There is a real disconnect between corporate and the hourly employees
-Training for both new hires and current employees is terrible. High turnover rate on the associate and MIT level make the problem even worse
-Favoritism runs rampant throughout the company. Friends are promoted rather than employees that have more experience and are better trained
-Lack of hours for employees usually means there is very little coverage during peak hours for theft. This results in a high amount of shrink in somes stores.
-LP would rather blame employees for shrink than look at the big picture
-Known theives are allowed to come and abuse our trade in services.
-MIT training program is lacking, results in high turnover rate for MITs.
-Corporate doesn't promote from within very often when it comes to upper management

Advice to Senior Management – Treat your employees better. Especially the ones that have been on for an extended period of time. I've seen 10+ and 20+ years employees quit outright due to the way upper management and corporate treated them. An increase in wages might keep some of the better employees around. No raises in over 3 years is hard on entry level employees trying to make a living and get an education or support their family. Adapt to the changing environment of the entertainment industry. What worked 5 years ago doesn't work. And what worked 20 years ago really doesn't work.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Hastings Entertainment part-time

Pros – - Nice, awesome co-workers who are stuck in the same boat as you are
- Coffee is decent
- Yeah, that's it.

Cons – - No hours
- Upper level management is too nitpicky and critical
- Wage freezes while corporate lines their pockets.

Advice to Senior Management – This is more towards the CEO: Pay your employees what they are worth. Maybe if they paid their employees (especially their department managers) a decent amount we wouldn't all quit or steal from you.

Also, trust your employees; 99 percent of us are not going to steal from your store.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Hastings Entertainment full-time for less than a year

Pros – Lots of room for advancement for employees with half a brain. Easy access to new releases and new products.

Cons – Upper management plays favorites. The company wants their stores to be classy, yet they attract lower-class customers. Unreasonable expectations from upper management (realphabetize the entire music section in one overnight!). Not enough consequence for negative write-ups, as well as not enough praise for positive write-ups. Pay is low and hours are demanding for what management has to put up with. I've never stayed at a job for such a short amount of time. I felt as if I was going nowhere, even though I was good at my job and enjoyed a lot of aspects of it. Management has no life, especially in a high shrink store - I was working sometimes 7 days a week. One and a half days off just kills a person, makes them not want to come back to work.

Advice to Senior Management – Perhaps be more consientious of the hiring process - the personality test when applying online is helpful, but not as helpful of a screening process as is desired. Improve register checkout system - it is so outdated and ridiculous. Calling POS is too much of a hassle when helping customers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Hastings Entertainment part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – There's a lot of cool people!
The discounts are pretty good.

Cons – Corporate is a joke.
Write-ups are given with out a second thought.
Customers that are known thieves aren't punished.
Associates aren't allowed to defend themselves from customer assaults.
The wrong associates are promoted.

Advice to Senior Management – Promote the associates that deserve it.
Listen to your associates. Remember, without the associates, the store can't function.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Hastings Entertainment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Working with entertainment, and seeing the latest and greatest products. The types of people that shop and work at these stores are usually unique in a positive way.

Cons – Upper Management doesn't communicate the way it should; it leads to the stores doing tasks over and over, and customers are confused as to what we do because there is way to much going on. There's almost never enough associates working at one time. They lost the focus of what's important, Customers and Employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Start caring about the customers, most don't like fine print. Get employees that can help customers instead of getting employees that just merchandise. You hire for customer service, but your hours, tasks, communication, and allocation cause every last associate to task they're day away in fear of losing their jobs.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company