United Stationers Reviews

Pros – Employee discounts, fun environment, open door policy, super clientele.

Cons – Some plans are not executed well.

Advice to Senior Management – Get feedback from the employees living the day-to-day task when developing new programs or procedures.

Pros – Pay was good for the type of work. Benefits "were" decent. Ability to work around your schedule if needed at times. Vacation time was fair. 401k

Cons – Company has shown less and less care for workers in previous years. Freezing pensions and lowering top salary. Health benefits have changed and now cost more for less coverage.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop taking benefits away or making them worse. There is only so much a certain amount of people can do. If you keep cutting in departments the quality of work will go down and the injuries will go up.

Pros – It is a solid company and people are great to work with. Teamwork is encouraged and internal processes are very professional.

Cons – Very limited career advancement opportunities. Some departments were favored over others.

Pros – decent pay, pto time and benefits

Cons – they don't do much for promoting from with in and the people they hire from outside think they can relate to a job they have never done before, nor plan on learning this one.

Advice to Senior Management – hire from within and stop hiring super people who only care about stepping on the non salary workers to get a head.

Pros – Stable company with pretty good operations

Cons – no career path past middle management

Pros – Pay sometimes depends if you work at Lagasse ( bad pay) or United (good pay) It all started out good but as management got ahold of dept's things went to hell and in a hurry.

Cons – Management and H/R neither were very friendly. And you would thing that H/R was going to be a Dept. that you could trust. Yeah right. A bunch of back stabbers.

Advice to Senior Management – Be nice to people. And I can't believe I have to say this to the H/R Dept. but DITTO... be nice to people.

Pros – They employee about 5,000 people. They have an excellent dedication to the community.

Cons – Cheap. Cheap with pay increases -not even the rate of inflation, benefits are less and less each year. Got rid of retirement plans. Moved to a PTO system rather than just plain old vacation/sick/personal time. They set unrealistic financial goals as an excuse for their frugal ways while still being able to look good to shareholders. They pride themselves on being a Fortune 500 company but consistantly are at the bottom of the list. United certainly is not a leader in the industry nor as employers. Systems are completely outdated and cumbersome. Not just for the employees, but for the poor customers trying to navigate! Respect levels towards hourly employees are little to none. They are treated as if they should be lucky to have jobs when in reality they drive this company and should be viewed and treated as valuable. It seems the less intelligent you are, the quicker you are able to move up the corporate ladder. Maybe that is because you are then more of a "bot"? (most of management won't even know what that means) I would bet my life all the really good ideas, processes and procedures came from hourly employees. But managers are not too dumb to take credit! Another reviewer stated the management feigns concern, and I believe that is true. It's as if they take classess because they all use the same mannerisms and verbiage. I guess the more apt you are to brown nose, be a superior's pet, whatever you want to call it, the more you can get away with and the less you need to be productive. Every company has cons. And it's just my opinion this one has more than the average.

Advice to Senior Management – Spend some money! Get with this century. Take the lead, stop being followers. You have subpar service), subpar systems, subpar attitudes, subpar intelligence. Strive to be the best of the best. Learn how to spell, speak and act like professionals. Meh, I could go on but honestly, I don't care and you probably have some makeup to put on, or food to eat, a golf date to make or a text to send.

Pros – Telecommuting only in some departments, decent benefits, good senior leadership, great volunteer opportunities, good associate network groups.

Cons – Several employees are living in the past and have a childish mentality that includes telling on people. Change is a word that scares most...but not all departments are bad. Everything new is really from about 5-10 years ago.

I don't know how some people are managers or directors...just because they have been there for about 20 years and used to be the most knowledgeable a long time ago. There are people who don't know how to use great programs like excel or even laptops (wow). Definitely not the best place for young people to work at.

There are 2 different companies - United Stationers has more departments which people are miserable in. Lagasse seems more friendly and open to new ideas....has a younger crowd which definitely helps.

If you try to apply for a job in a fueding department, they probably won't hire you because of your background. There are also too many new people in some departments that have no idea what they are doing.

Advice to Senior Management – Layoffs aren't always a bad thing. I couldn't ever be promoted in my dept unless I waited 10+ years. It would really be beneficial to find out how employees feel and do a massive clean up. There are a lot of people who are going to hit retirement...and in order to get fresh new talent, you need to make sure changes. It is a pretty good company but there's a few departments that are ruining the image.

Pros – Decent pay and vacation/pto. Discount with Att&t or Verizon. In Suwanee, GA, Gwinnett County.

Cons – Management doesn't know what they are doing, all about service level, could care less about dealers/ customers as long as they make their goals. Understaffed since high turnover rate. Company is struggling to compete with prices with competitors. Used to be a fun place to work, NO where to move, no growth at all. Very easy job taking orders and returns.

Advice to Senior Management – Make it a fun place to work, value your employees! Customer care reps are who drive this company! Make them happy, don't stress them out. United should be like Zappos! Not a funeral home! Don't up prices in a middle of a quarter. Dealers are not stupid. Appreciate your employees.

Pros – Management and peers are accommodating to your personal needs and you truly feel like a valued member.

Cons – Various computer and database systems at USI could be more integrated, intuitive and interactive