The pay is not that great!! If you’re hourly the only way you make your money is overtime. Oh but wait we can’t work more that 44 hours a week. Even though my location is the 2nd busiest in the state. They want us to work like a dog but won’t let us hire anyone in the back!! Or up front. We cold use 2 more up front!! Like you expect us to do everything you ask but not have the staff. We have lost 2 service managers because the 1 was a women and they didn’t want to try and keep her even though she was number 1 in sales for 3 years straight and the 2 person was because it was so busy he couldn’t handle it!! Upper management is a joke!! They could care less about you!! It’s never you guys are doing so good keep it up. But here’s a few things to work on. Nope you get a fist slam and they tell you everything bad you did instead of telling you how well you did understaffed. Even if the profit is way more than what you made last year!! They are creating more store but why???!!! If we can’t have fully staffed stores now, how are you going to staff a new store!! The sales people get no incentives. You have to sell 1000 things just to get your spiff. That’s if you hit your number. If you don’t hit your number you don’t get any of your bonus that you work so hard for a month. The bonus structure is terrible if your manager. You have to hit so many things just to get a bonus. The safety coordinator has to do all the safety stuff. Which is what I do. But they don’t give you anything fo
ProsThe store manger
ConsShort breaks. Under paid, exhausted from being over worked. Super long shifts, flat rate for techs. Upper management.
Do you enjoy working for an uneducated bully a street thug? Do you like being yelled at and humiliated constantly in front of customers and co-workers? Do you enjoy thankless work and really rude abusive customers while standing 12 hours per day? Do you have little self worth as a professional? If you answered yes to any of these questions by all means join Firestone this is the place for you. The following review says it all:
“Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here...
Service Writer/Advisor (Former Employee) - California - September 21, 2018
What Firestone wants are compliant and obedient robots. You will be expected to memorize written scripts and deal with customers according to the scripts. Mystery shops and phone shops are routine. Incoming calls are recorded, monitored and critiqued regularly. Feel like you’re being watched, evaluated and judged? Well you are…constantly.
Be prepared to surrender your rights as a human being at the door your very first day on the job. Kiss freedom of choice, your life, your family and your dignity goodbye because you are now the sole property of Bridgestone/Firestone and they never let you forget it. Expect to be bounced around from store to store to store because the turnover rate is unbelievable and they absolutely cannot keep people. Think you’re getting a job at a store close to home? It's a lie. Unless there’s only one Firestone store in your town I see a long commute in your future and a lot of your income going straight into
What Firestone wants are compliant and obedient robots. You will be expected to memorize written scripts and deal with customers according to the scripts. Mystery shops and phone shops are routine. Incoming calls are recorded, monitored and critiqued regularly. Feel like you’re being watched, evaluated and judged? Well you are…constantly.
Be prepared to surrender your rights as a human being at the door your very first day on the job. Kiss freedom of choice, your life, your family and your dignity goodbye because you are now the sole property of Bridgestone/Firestone and they never let you forget it. Expect to be bounced around from store to store to store because the turnover rate is unbelievable and they absolutely cannot keep people. Think you’re getting a job at a store close to home? It's a lie. Unless there’s only one Firestone store in your town I see a long commute in your future and a lot of your income going straight into your gas tank. You probably won't be staying at the store where you were hired.
You will be required to clock out for lunch (under penalty of death), but you will rarely get a lunch ...and 10 minute breaks? Forget it. Raises are also off the table so don’t ask. You will be on your feet your entire shift and if you opened the store chances are good that you will also be closing the store. With few exceptions, all the stores are chronically short staffed and odds are very high that you will be the only one in the “front shop” greeting customers
A credit card company masquerading as a tire and service company
You may not be told in your interview but you will be judged almost entirely based upon your ability, or lack of ability, to sell Firestone credit cards. They are difficult to sell unless you offer a ton of money off, even then people will still say no. The goalposts are constantly changing, one week they’ll be pushing one thing and if you’re not killing it with the thing they’re pushing you’re terrible at your job, the next week it’ll be something else they’re pushing and you’ll be expected to push the new thing but don’t forget to keep pushing the thing from last week. It’s exhausting. You will work a lot and expectations will be high, often higher than you’re capable. Work/home life is generally poor unless you’re the person in the store that can’t be relied upon, and you won’t last. You’ll meet a lot of great people, both in customers and coworkers. However, the customer culture is horrible. The customers have been conditioned to expect everything free or discounted and they’re aware that the threat of a complaint will result in free services. You’ll be cussed out, yelled at, and leaned on by customers and you’re expected to respond politely and try to make the customer happy no matter how much flack you’ve had to take all day. Your likelihood of being promoted is based largely upon your ability to sell credit cards and whether or not your area manager likes you. You’ll work Sundays, holidays, and any other important days you would rather not work even if you’re told you
ProsDecent pay for retail, benefits, occasionally lunch is provided but you won’t have time to eat it
If you are considering any Management position with Bridgestone, "Huge Mistake"
This work environment has led to illness, exhaustion, persistent migraine headaches, excessive stress and frustration coupled with a never ending flow of constant systemic incompetence on so many levels. Clearly Unsustainable actions forced upon Service Managers and Store Managers alike, such as, Cutting hours and reducing staff based on threats from the Area Manager. Including forced technician relocation, in other words, Area Manager shows up, and say's, #2 Tech. Pack-up your tools, you are transferring to another location. Not a choice mind you, If you don't want to go, you can get a job somewhere else! in turn, drastically cutting the man power in the shop to a bare minimum, yet, still relentless in demanding increases in sales and technician productivity. You will bleed to the bone, then told "We can do better" Upper Management is relentless and abusive! What you are left with is, significantly over worked, under paid, burned out and exhausted Store Managers, Service Managers and Technicians alike. Frustrated and disgusted employees across the board. As a Manager at any level, expect to work "All Alone, Often" you will be left to run everything, with no support from the Area Manager. They refuse to hire any talented people, they can't and are unable to. "Why" The company's Pay and Compensation is Poor and substandard. Hiring exceptional or even good qualified talent both at Management and Tech levels is not possible, they can't afford to take the huge "Pay Cut" just to
Numerous positions some hard work/fast paced but eventually can get easier jobs.
I currently work at Bridgestone in La Vergne and I am a Tire Builder which one of the first jobs you can get into. If you are a lazy person any starting position you won't like that and we don't want you honestly, they offer bonsus if we hit our Target goal and have to many lazy people interfering with that already. I like to work and get stuff done makes me more proud of what I do and makes the days go by faster in general and keeps management off my back. So if you're that type of person it will work out great
12 hour days 2 week rotating shift
2 on 2 off 3 on 2 off 2 on 3 off
Starting pay estimate-
Tire building- $18 starting
Truckers - $13-15 depending on department
Maintenance 27-28
And other operator jobs 8-16 warehouse is the worst pay by far
Are examples of what you can start out with.
Tire building is the highest paid but is also the most work and most watched by managers. And no you won't know what position you until you are in orientation. After a year and a half you can apply for other positions.
Raises- 6 months 50 cents
Year and a half another 50 cents or $1
3 years you hit top out and it jumps up by alot 6-7
Topped out tire Builder can make 27 hour if they are a certain new piece of equipment it's 28.
There is overtime everywhere but tire building by far gets the most along with maintenance. Usually no mandatory unless nobody signs up. There have been times in the past where you can get unlimited ot but average is
ProsPay, I like 12 hour shifts, if you work hard management stays away
ConsTakes awhile to get off nights depending on position
A typical workday at Bridgestone Americas Portland Distribution center consisted of inbound and outbound order requests being processed by qualified workers. This meant having the ability to drive a forklift was preferred, but could be learned. The mornings were frantic for the inbound receipts and the afternoons were usually very fast paced for the out going customer shipments.
I was educated on how to operate all types of equipment that this distribution center used. I also gained a vast knowledge of the warehouse management system that was put in place to help speed up production. This system allowed for all workers to inquiry any questions they might have about certain stock locations and all the information needed about a certain tire. I was also taught how to use time management and prioritization skills to my advantage. During my time as a inbound or outbound checker (A checker had to correctly identify that all tires coming into or going out of the warehouse were accurate with the customer order) I was able to organize for different aspects of the job, while ordering my tasks by which was most important to complete first. More importantly, working with the my peers to coordinate all these tasks to make sure all jobs were completed by the end of the day.
Management at Bridgestone was structured. This made for easy decisions to come down from the top. When something needed to be implemented managers usually came up with a creative way to achieve the goal. They did
I really respect what BSRO is trying to do within the industry. The company is going to great lengths to abolish the automotive industry's stereotpye, or at least its association to the stereotype. It's something to pay attention to. Give the company a chance if you're a customer (that would make all of us). Their Vision is much improved to what you already expect to experience when getting your vehicle(s) serviced. The rest of the industry would be wise to pay attention. Not there yet though...
With that said, too many organizational restructures in the too-recent past have caused job stability concerns within the field-retail structure, where revenue is generated.
The best part of working here is serving my teammates and peers.
The worst is the continual changes to the organizational structure, and ongoing politics, probably found in most organizations its size. No doubt the company will correct course, but from the retail-field perspective...it's unclear. The two entities, Home Office and Retail stores, are operating perpendicular to one another, not parallel...though that would be a revelation to both parties.
Job culture, at least for my role, is terrific in that I am trusted to execute my job description, to serve my peers and their teammates, and to do so without being micro-managed, which only makes me more agile and productive.
The store teams work their tails off. The Store Managers and their leaders WANT to own it, and WANT to believe in the company'
ProsTerrific Vision, Streamlining decision-making, becoming more decisive and absolute, More agile, Improved Business Acumen/Savvy
ConsChanging culture, lack of vision clarity to the field, Field and Home Office perspectives are perpendicular, polarity
Liked coworkers and all willing to hear ideas from any source
Even as a temp, I was there almost a year I was one of the few temp encouraged to participate in safety meetings and attend employee only functions like bringing my kid to play at Main Event as though were an employee which was really awesome for having been welcomed into the Bridgestone family! They also plenty of times would not only encourage but listen and implement any suggestions I had for things like equipment to use for load size which reduced loading times and turn around and stuff like that made one feel not just a temp but a valued asset and appreciated member of the team. But, when they even talked about hiring me as a full time employee they not only didn't have the decency to inform of their decision one way or another but at the time I wasn't tripping since they were only offering $14/hour for full time Transportation Clerk and for a full time employee and as much as I did to me that wasn't near enough to survive on. But, their whole application process was pretty painful in length and time consuming from the like 2hour application process online, but then have the face to face interview, the background check, and the hair strand drug screen they do at hire and random for every employee for entire employment period, the whole process for that to be completed to the time of actually start date would be like 3wk period and I didn't have to go thru all that remaining as a temp which they allowed me to stay on still even after turning down the full time offer
Prosteam playin culture, employee aappreciation events, management let me get as much overtime or hours i wanted
ConsNot great pay
2.0
Administrative Assistant | Nashville, TN | Jan 23, 2017
Needs Improvement
Here's Bridgestones' Culture! Management is dictated by shareholders "view" of company growth and profitability! Nothing outwardly wrong with this other than the inter company structure between management and employee. I worked for this company for over 4 years and because of this culture "key" managers where encouraged to develop new inter company incentive programs to streamline job functions or processes. They were not just encouraged but paid bonuses to do so. Upper Management allowed the departmental management to implement these processes to great expense to the company, pull employees away from their existing tasks with no additional pay for their loyalty and efforts and when the project failed as most did...their employee(s) where held accountable for the failures for a poorly planned and implemented project from the front end. The employee(s) are thrown "under the bus", receiving poor reviews and once you receive a poor review you best just count your days because there's no turning back and certainly no guidance or direction from management or Human Resources. If you apply and think that the job description you receive is you actual job be forewarned! It's whatever other task your manager(s) have dedicated to you so that they can put their "next big idea" on their review and receive yet another bonus. I saw this over and over again! Projects that were not properly managed and implemented from the front end, failed horribly, wasted valuable time and energy
ConsPoor inter management stucture
5.0
Business Development Manager | Gauteng | Jan 6, 2013
Productive and fun workplace
Day to day operations:
Building of franchisee relations along with effectively managing inter-dealer relationships
Management and maintenance of supplier relationships within my region
Complete franchisee evaluation reports for each outlet every 6 months, followed with action plans to be implemented within 6 weeks to ensure Corporate uniformity & standardization
Facilitate marketing through in-store promotions, maintaining all merchandising material, billboards and displays in accordance with the guidelines provided
Ensure regular updates on all product and service catalogues
Ongoing reviews will include: monitoring of sales, purchases, monthly targets and quarterly incentive targets
Growth plans, SWOT analysis
Compiling of monthly management reports
Ensuring good business practices: buying correctly and selling in order to achieve maximum turnover, increase and maintain GP, advise franchisees on product mixes and marketing conditions in his specific area, advise franchisees on all aspect of running a profitable and efficient outlet
Identifying the training needs in the respective region and ensuring that acceptable standards are maintained through comprehensive training courses
Research and analyze competitive activity
Actively encourage and assist the franchisees with planning upgrades, revamps or relocations
Franchisee Recruitment - identifying new growth opportunities, identify new potential sites and interview new applicants for the franchise.
Training: preparation and
Questions And Answers about Bridgestone Americas
How are the working hours at Bridgestone Americas?
Asked Jul 5, 2016
Horrible! We used to do 7 day work week (ROTATED SHIFT AFTER 7 DAYS) at 8 hrs per day with a possible 12 hr day drafted once or twice during that work week. Now it's gone to 12 hr days with only a day or two off and you're right back in there for another 2 or 3 days of 12 hrs. You can also be drafted on your day off to work 12 hrs which means you could essentially work six 12 hr shifts with a one day break in between. You rotate from days to nights every 2 weeks with only a 2 day transition period if you're lucky you didn't get drafted during the transition. The worst decision the company could've ever made, going 12 hrs!!!!!!
Answered Aug 28, 2020
Store working hours are a bit aggressive. can lead to burnout.
Answered Aug 19, 2019
What kind of drug testing do they do urin, hair, swab?
Asked Jan 12, 2017
Urine for Jacksonville FL
Answered Sep 16, 2020
Hair for corporate office
Answered Oct 2, 2019
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Bridgestone Americas a better place to work?
Asked Aug 26, 2017
8 hour work shifts would be great. I've seen plenty people waste time and let tickets sit on the board. Give em 8 hours to come in and work, no time to slack. Would get a better quality of technicians also. 90 probation period after 3 months that real tech comes out, that's when they either start slacking off or keeping up their good work ethic. Have a senior technician sit in on interviews, the managers get played during the interviews by some good acting I guess.
Answered Dec 22, 2020
More team building exercises. More company recognition of the employees.
Answered Nov 7, 2020
What is the interview process like at Bridgestone Americas?
Asked Apr 19, 2016
Name a time you dealt with a difficult customer?
Give me an example of your leadership?
Answered Sep 7, 2017
Nothing nerve racking.
Answered Mar 26, 2017
What questions did they ask during your interview at Bridgestone Americas?
Asked Dec 1, 2016
Lots of PMP/PMBOK related questions for the PM role.
