The kitchen can be very stressful most of the time. But, it depends on how you take it and manage your stress. After a while, you can get used to it. The hardest part of the job for me was to start at 5 am in the morning. However, it's easy to progress and get promotions.

Pros

Free food, easy to get promoted

Cons

Stressful, super early shift

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No work life balance

Customer Service Assistant (Former Employee) - Rugby - 20 May 2022

Paid weekly is a good, free food, downside is shifts are early, late, or mid only favourite staff get the consistant shifts and get a better life balance,the rest of us have to put up with it no matter what, even if you moan about it nothing changes. Most of the staff are lovely and helpful it's a shame the few that are favourite can't see what is happening.Apart from that if you can not let effect you apply to work, you make great friends and you can move to a different unit free food is a plus you also get to try new products for free which is good, it's so you can tell the customer if they ask

Pros

Free food

Cons

Shifts can be early morning one day lates another then mid shift

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Insights into Pret A Manger

Based on 166 survey responses

Areas for improvement

Trust in colleagues
Sense of belonging
General feeling of work happiness

Fast paced but rewarding work

Barista (Current Employee) - United Kingdom - 18 May 2022

Decent pay and benefits package, sometimes can get quite stressful. Management is pretty good, and quite flexible with shifts. Free meals and coffee is quite nice.

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Friendly leader and colleagues

Team Member (Current Employee) - Edinburgh - 18 May 2022

A good place to work and a lovely team.It’s busy, process orders, deal with complaints, take trolley to the kitchen, display sandwiches, keep all areas clean.Employees are from different countries and everyone is so friendly. Free coffees, pastries and salads.

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Very busy stressful workplace

Costumer Service Assistant (Current Employee) - Gatwick Airport - 16 May 2022

If You like to work at a busy place, deal with costumers from different culture, never stop only on your break time , this job is for You. You have to work with a lots of people together, busy crowded place all the time. Other than that this job is easy but very stress-full.

Pros

Free food

Cons

Very busy

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Decent working place for a fast food chain

Barista (Former Employee) - Wimbledon, Greater London - 15 May 2022

decent working place. loas of incentive. can progress quick. fun if management is rightfree food and coffee training provided supportive staffawful customers most time

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Horrible

Team Member Star (Former Employee) - London Borough of Southwark, Greater London - 15 May 2022

The manager was expecting people to work like crazy even if the pay is practically the minimum wage. He doesn’t care about his staff and pretended people to come to work even if sick. The only good thing was the friendly team.

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meh

Pret A Manger (Current Employee) - Canary Wharf, Greater London - 12 May 2022

wasn’t even interviewed. just made to work after. wasn’t trained properly but have to know everything and can’t make a mistake. very strict on things like piercings, telling me to take them out or they’ll fire me when i just got them and wear a blue plaster over them. not a good job if you want to work somewhere where you are appreciated

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Fun but stressful workplace

Customer Service (Former Employee) - London - 11 May 2022

I worked 11 months at Pret and had a great time! Met loads of people. It was a good work experience. Free food and drinks are a nice bonus to have! I would recommend the job to someone getting started in London :)

Pros

Free food, free drinks

Cons

Stressful, sometimes management had preferences based on nationality

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A lot of work for little money, but really great teamworkers

Team Member/Barista (Former Employee) - London - 11 May 2022

Very busy cafes, hard work, unpaid breaks. Shifts start at 5am, but you get an extra 5 pounds to the tube for an early shift. However, very cool colleagues and managers.

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wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy

General Manager (Former Employee) - London - 11 May 2022

not well organised and unfortunately they struggle to maintain late night workers to be able to provide the food for their business which affects everything

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Busy thriving store.

Floor leader (Current Employee) - Newbury - 10 May 2022

Never worked in a high street store with so many regulars (same people every day!) the job itself is not intense if you’re used to fast paced environments and can think on your feet. The team are fantastic and always adapt to the company’s changes (which can seem regular) Great pay for the job role - bonuses almost every week (not super hard to pass) I don’t feel like there is much progression unless you are super super career driven, it’s rare they’ll reach out to you for encouragement as you rarely see any form of management except your GM and that’s just luck how they are for you I guess. Overall it’s a pretty decent company.

Pros

Free lunches, free coffee, usually a great team. Customers are overall okay!

Cons

Never really had the brand training (even till date)

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Good place to start from

Hot Chef - Full Time (Former Employee) - London - 9 May 2022

In pret you never stop working, with it you can learn a lot, from skills in the job to improve your language.There are many situations where you can learn how to proceed and behave after.Although is a really hard job they are flexible and most of the times I needed I could take holidays or days off.

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Fast peace workplace

Manager (Current Employee) - London - 8 May 2022

Good place to work for in order of hospitality pay and benefits. Fee food and coffee while in shift, 1 extra week holiday after 5 year worked, competitive pay rate

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Fast paced, but will get bored very quickly.

Kitchen Assistant Nights (Current Employee) - London - 8 May 2022

It's ok if you need a job for a few months and want weekly pay. You could make up to £1000 a week on nights 5 days a week, but it gets very tiring very quickly.Bench productions are never consistent and new products are added out of the blue, giving staff more to do.Barely any teamwork between day shift and nights to make each shift easier for staff.

Pros

Free Food Good Pay, and It's weekly.

Cons

Inconsistent bench productions Novelty wears off fast and very tiring on the hands after a while.

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Un lugar en que trabajar

Hot Chef (Current Employee) - London - 8 May 2022

Un buen lugar para trabajar en el cual puedes decir los días que puede trabajar ,y combinarlo con tu vida ya que puede elegir las horas que puedes trabajar

Pros

Comida gratis, y los días que quiera libre

Cons

Largas horas

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Draining underpaid

Team Member (Former Employee) - London South East, Greater London - 3 May 2022

The only part I can say is i' m greatful to be gone from Pret. It was by far the worst company to work for. I have nightmares now thinking about pret.

Pros

Having left Pret

Cons

Nightmares, burnout, depression

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Productive and fast paste

Team Member (Former Employee) - London Luton airport - 3 May 2022

For my first job it was a great place but because of the Airport it made life difficult but the benefits was definitely great and I was paid good for my first job (£9.40 then went up to £9.88). I would recommend people to apply for Pret as you definitely need NO experience as they train you and it’s very easy to learn things fast.

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Okay but tiring

Team Member (Former Employee) - London - 2 May 2022

Good management and holiday system. Sometimes overly rushed and without insistence, difficult to get favourable shifts/flexibility. Good colleagues/environment overall

Pros

Free Lunch

Cons

On feet all day

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Very Productive and Fun Workplace

Cashier/Sales Assistant (Current Employee) - Brighton Station, East Sussex - 29 April 2022

I have worked here for a year and absolutely love it, it’s very laid back and everyone’s so friendly. I learn a lot and get paid a great amount, would definitely recommend.

Pros

Free food and get to keep the food thats leftover at the end of the day

Cons

Cant think of any!

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Stay away from this company

Kitchen Assistant (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 27 April 2022

I worked for the company for 3 years.I ended up with burnout syndrome and chronic stress. 60+hours a week, no social life, you get two days off but too exhausted to do anything.Way too many standards and unrealistic goals.Company doesn’t care about your physical and mental health.