Management is hostile. I was being asked to treat store employees in a way that was not consistent with my values and morals. I understand that hard work is what makes a company profitable and successful, the other side of the spectrum, employee happiness and humanization, should never be ignored. I have worked in several office and field environments and I have never seen a company that values their employees less than this one. They hide behind a wall of great pay and benefits with good pay raises but in reality you can essentially kiss your work/life balance good bye. In order to be promoted you must be willing to move where the opportunity is, that may mean totally uprooting and moving several states away. My experience with management in the north east area was miserable. I am more highly educated (Masters degree) than most people that work for this company and have excellent work ethic but felt as though my contributions were never valued and even discouraged. Not only that but coming out of college, I was taught to use the latest technology available to create value for the company. Aldi is so far behind the times that email was just introduced last year and the CRM and ERP systems are the most archaic I have ever seen.. The combination of lack of experienced and humbled senior management and unwillingness to listen to employees to create a great work environment made this place unbearable and I dreaded work everyday. In meetings everyone is constantly on edge trying to one up the next person on professionalism and it makes the experience tense. Having been working at another company for a while, I can now see how rough the environment truly is at Aldi. The company I work for now is exponentially more profitable, has the same pay, better benefits, the people are friendly and team oriented and are willing to help you succeed. It shows that if you invest in your people in more ways than pay and benefits, you will be successful.
