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Harbor Freight Tools

Engaged employer

Wild expectations, Terrible management, You are just a 6 digit number to them. - Sales Supervisor Harbor Freight Tools Employee Review

2.0
22 Nov 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Best pay in retail. Good benefits. Great amount of paid time off. If you can deal with the wild all over the place scheduling then this is the job for you!

Cons

Management is TERRIBLE. Turnover rate on store managers at my location over the nearly 10 years I worked there, we had 7 store managers, 5 of them since 2019. I understand what they were being pushed to achieve was unacceptable honestly, but some of them were also just terrible choices to hire when we had great people in the store looking to get promoted. The district and above management sucks, they push the store management to wild metrics that kept going up in requirements, the lower employees would have to meet those metrics. They got rid of a SPIFF system for the sales people which at the time seemed good because the pay rate went up, but it didn’t really keep going up enough and then new people would come in and feel like they were getting shafted when they found out that supervisors and above got a bonus based on how well the people at the register did on metrics, which honestly it was unfair to them to not get any benefit for the work they did. If the management doesn’t like you they can and will find a way to trump up accusations against you to get rid of you and HR doesn’t bother responding or caring when you try to get in contact with them. When you call the complaints hotline (if you choose not to stay anonymous) your district manager will talk to you and simply disregard any complaints and tell you that you were clearly wrong. Work life balance was a joke. There is no discernible difference between the sales and logistics full time associates (especially supervisors and managers), either way you would be scheduled to open and to close in the same week every week, it was not up for debate, there are no “closers” or “openers” you were expected to know and do both jobs, it was actually explained to me that we were expected to be 51/49% split between the job we had as a title and the opposite job, that makes absolutely 0 sense, and they don’t tell people that before they are hired. They don’t care if your specialty is sales or if it’s warehouse work, you were expected to be nearly as good at both. And they don’t really promote to store management from within. , they will pass up great assistant managers and bring in someone who is incompetent at best, and doesn’t even know what half of the tools are used for and lasts all of 3 months, and then pass up the same assistant manager 2 more times when each of the people the hired fail at the job within a year each.

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Harbor Freight Tools Response
1y
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us. Here at Harbor Freight, we value people above all else. We value who you are, what you’ve experienced, and how you see the world. We believe in investing in the growth and development of our Associates and providing them with the opportunities to thrive and succeed. We want you to know that your feedback is important to us, and we take feedback like this very seriously. We always encourage our Associates to connect with their HR Partners and share any concerns they may have with them. Thank you for dedicating over 9 years of your career to Harbor Freight, and we will share your comments with the appropriate HR Partners.

Explore other reviews about Harbor Freight Tools

5.0
20 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Amazing company to work for they do care about your feedback!

Cons

Hitting the goals they have set for you can be challenging most of the time!

3.0
7 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Salary, $18.28/hr, benefits, enjoy working with customers

Cons

Management has changed. Store is in chaos. I've been there nearly 4 years and I'm very unhappy with some management.

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