W.W. Grainger Reviews

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Schedule, freedom, company environment, company culture

Cons – Sometimes there can be conflicting views...you can end up with less than ideal territory

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great job security, good benefits, competitive wages, tuition reimbursement. Grainger has a healthy approach about helping you further your education and have very generous profit sharing. It was recently named as one of the top 100 to work for in the US because they make a conscious effort to be flexible with employees.

Cons – difficult to advance career, it can be very political if you don't know people who will support you and help you move in the right direction.

Advice to Senior Management – promote from within more

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great pay for hourly workers
Great benefits
Some great managers
40 hour workweeks

Cons – Micromanagement at the middle-management level
Always adhering to the LEAN principle, always trying to do more with less
Silly "motivational" meetings every morning
Very hard to make upward or lateral moves in the company
Not-so-up-to-date proprietary sales technology

Advice to Senior Management – Drop the micromanagement and the LEAN stuff, the company & the system flat-out work and has worked for one hundred-something years. other than that. great company to work for.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Autonomy, pay, growth , career builder

Cons – too much administrative work to do at night

Advice to Senior Management – development employees and align mentors

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time

Pros – Structured Career Path, Reputable company

Cons – Not very flexible when think outside the box to achieve better solutions for customers

Advice to Senior Management – Competition is adapting to provide customers with solutions that can help save time and money too. Value the opinions of those that are in the field..

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Best Industrial Distributor out there.
Customer Loyalty.
Competitive Pay.

Cons – difficult to communicate between functional areas
confusing goal setting process

Advice to Senior Management – They need to understand that our customers do not always see the differences between us and our competitors as distinctly as we do.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger part-time for more than a year

Pros – Fun to go to work, can get busy and hectic but it's pretty much a good time

Cons – Can get busy and mostly frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management – Put yourselves in the work flow and understand the day to day of the company

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good compensation, good benefits, and well known and recognized company.

Cons – During my time there, there was an extremely high attrition rate of the District Sales Managers, along with the territory sales reps. This doesn't allow for development of synergies between representatives and management nor representatives and clients for medium to long term.

Advice to Senior Management – Yes, it it understood that people with continue to buy from Grainger as it has a strong brand recognition, however, imagine the % of growth potential to be realized in a med to long term relationship with one representative with an account. Multiply that per account and the numbers are quite astonishing.

Most of the objections or non positive perception from the client initally were ,"What, another Grainger representative? Wow, seems like you guys have a new rep every few months."

That said, Grainger is still a leader and has increased its stock price share from $80's to over $100 per, so, as stated in the beginning, does (attrition) it really matter as long as profits are growing and shareholders are happy:? Probably not.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Company Benefits are excellent especially the Profit Sharing

Cons – No Consistency in the work process from one credit department to the other.

Former Employee – worked at W.W. Grainger full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – mgmt team is good.
great benefits...almost too good.
headquaeter office is beautiful and includes cafe, conv. store, dry cleaners fitness center

Cons – mgmt team is all fighting for the top CEO spot. they don't always work well together. sometimes it takes a long time to make decisions.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company