Pros
The only pro of Dollarama is the staff... you can meet great people and make good friends but other than that nothing is good about this company
Cons
Everything. The store managers are put under so much pressure because of the stupid policies the company operates under. The company consistently does not provide the stores with enough hours to staff the store and then complains when the stores do not meet sales targets. Dollarama "shows" a profit because they make up for any overages by forcing the stores to cut hours so the company can meet quarterly targets. No, I'm not making it up, I've been in management. They have an annual raise system of no more than 10 cents per hour and even then I never received mine. I had to go through two different DM's, two different store managers and head office and never received my mandatory 10 cent raise... I quit after 8 months of fighting for it. The DM'S constantly compare and pit stores against each other which is unprofessional, not right and unfair. Like a person, each store is unique in it's own way, and the DM's do not respect that. They have unreasonable demands and expectations and are not open to communication as well as a store manager defending themselves. In a DM's eye if they tell you to do something, you should do it, and the fact that they've cut your store hours that week by 50% should make no difference. I wonder half the time if ANY DM has EVER actually worked in a Dollarama as a peon at any point in their career. I can safely say that in my district there was only ONE DM who had actually held a job in a store, the rest all came from WalMart. The RM's are even worse than the DM's, having no clue about what it takes to actually run and operate a store. The store managers are required to work 50 hours, the assistant anywhere from 25-44 and full timers must receive a minimum of 25... when a store is operates 85-90 hours/week, has one store manager, one assistant manager and at least two full timers... and is only given approx 280-300 hours to run their store on a weekly schedule... and assuming the two full timers are keyholders then 125 to 134 hours have been eaten up already... the rest has to be used to fill the gaps... you have to have two people in the store at all times and one must be on cash during open hours... it's no surprise that customers are constantly complaining about being able to find an associate or a product... and yet the RM's don't care AT ALL they just want you to meet your productivity, come in under your hours and come in over your sales.... unrealistic. The associates and keyholders (and a keyholder is management) do not get paid enough. They work in aisles that have no definitive planogram or modular... are given guidelines or suggestions called "flow charts" and are expected to decipher that and fill the aisle... the flow charts are BS because they are open to that individuals perspective and god help you if it's not the same as that of the DM or RM because then you're redoing all that hard work. A day in the life of a Dollarama employee involves constantly designing and redesigning 4' sections, constantly pushing carts and lifting boxes, constantly squatting and bending and climbing ladders... all for minimum wage... and as there are never enough hours, you can't get your work done because you are constantly being called for back up cash. Head office and Mr. Rossy does not trust it's stores or their employees at all and do not allow their stores to have any control over inventory. They have no ordering authority, no way to track product and EVERY DAY must count random product by hand because there is no formal POS inventory system. The stores get shipped product every day and are expected to work it everyday and the best part is, it's based on numbers they received from the store 3-7 weeks ago, and decided upon by a person in Montreal. More often than not the store receive stuff they don't need and are constantly waiting for the stuff they do need. Whereas that could all be avoided if they let the stores order their own product or replenished on a scan to POS ordering system. Dollarama may look good in the papers, the stocks, even the financial magazines... but they are so archaic and are so afraid to change. They are a mom and pop shop mentality in a big box world. They need to make SO many changes and stop worrying about the investors and start caring for they employee.... happy wife, happy life... happy employees will work harder for you.... unhappy employees will do like me, tell EVERYONE they can not to work for Dollarama EVER!!!
