Yes, It Really is That Bad - Store Co-Manager Kroger Employee Review

After reading some of the previous reviews, yes, it really is that bad (definitely wouldn't rather have aids though that's way to far). I can only speak to the Michigan division but this company is a total joke. I worked for Kroger for a little over 3 years and in that time I have seen the company do a complete 180 when it comes to its treatment of its management staff and to an extent, its district staff. Divisional leadership does not care about management at store level period. They are more focused on making sure the hourly associates are being taken care and being retained and don't care about stepping on store management to make sure that happens. The average Co-Manager training group will lose half of its employees in the first year and might have 3 or 4 left after year 2 (mind you these classes start at around 12-20 people). If your planning on having a family just forget it, its not happening. You will be guaranteed 50 hours a week and the only weekends your getting off are the ones you use vacation/personal days for. Every holiday you will be working 6 days, even if its a holiday that you only see a 10% increase in sales like mothers day or fathers day, it does not matter, as a Co you will be working 6 days for those weeks. Yes it is true, they will promote hourly associates to positions above you. Most of the district teams are becoming that way, and Divisional managements response to that is "well you should want to be a store manager". That's fine most Co's do but, there were only 13 out of about 400 Co managers that were promoted to store management in 2017 and a few of those were district leaders that were given stores for the first time. If you're coming from college good luck, if you want your own store and don't want to be a Co-manager, not gonna happen until you're at least 30 so if your 22 out of college that's 8 years before you get a promotion. Basically if your coming from college the 50k or whatever they're paying you now is not worth it unless you want no life for the next decade all for a 3% yearly raise until you finally get youre own store. Like I'm very serious if your in college reading this, take the 45k at whatever the hell other job your looking at, you will waste years of your life here buying into their false promises just to realize years later that you've wasted most of your 20s. Oh yeah, and then there's the union, which basically makes it impossible to fire the terrible associates which makes the good ones pissed off and either quit or slowly breakdown into and average to bad worker. So if you get stuck at a store with a lot of long time employees GOOD LUCK.