Pret A Manger Employee Reviews for Barista
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Barista111 reviews
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Fast paced but rewarding work
Barista (Current Employee) - United Kingdom - 18 May 2022
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The most useful review selected by IndeedDecent 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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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 right free food and coffee training provided supportive staff awful customers most time
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Insights into Pret A Manger
Areas for improvement
- Trust in colleagues
- Sense of belonging
- General feeling of work happiness
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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Draining
Barista (Current Employee) - England - 4 April 2022
They ask from you too much for too little. Managers are rude and take their stress onto other employees, customers are insufferable and treat you like garbage but you have to bite your tongue and smile at them. There’s no work-life balance and the company doesn’t care about anyone’s mental health.
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Interesting
It was interesting. Had an exposure with an international team. Work might get stressful when the overall shop isn't running in profit. Good perks,
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Good in the start got worse overtime
Barista (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 24 March 2022
Was great place to start in 2016 but after covid it got worse and worse. The coffee rush got worse after the subscription and it wasn't the same quality of work as it used to be
Pros
Free lunches
Cons
Long hours, overtime, too many things to do at once
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Never again!
Barista/Server (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 2 March 2022
I was recruited through a friend of a friend who know i worked in restaurants long time. I was drawn in by the salary promise but the pay is so poor comparing to the work load. No worklife balance, they basically expect us to be on call 24-7. I don't recomend working there.
Pros
A few friends made
Cons
Everything! Worst company i experience.
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Productive and fun workplace
I worked there as a barista. Team were really nice and helpful. Salary was good if I compare to the other coffee shops. We had weekly bonus as well time to time.
Pros
Free launches
Cons
Busy
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Terrible place to work
Management team only cares about making profit for the business no matter that in the process they overuse the staff. I have worked as a barista and is very stressful and exhausting, their system of doing things is awful, not organised at all, a big mess. They don’t offer any kind of training and expect you to know how to do everything from the first minute you start. Avoid
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Great banter
Barista (Current Employee) - Birmingham, West Midlands - 13 February 2022
The other staff are very sweet and they have to be polite to the customers. I particularly like the late shift because we can have the time to interact more with the funny customers.
Pros
Free lunches
Cons
early shifts
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Jobs at Pret A Manger
Barista positionsstay away from pret!
team member hot chef barista leader everything (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 2 December 2021
pret is the worst place i worked at and gotten even worse. 2 people running around all day and customers are angry rude que to the streets. pret makes money again but let us in a pile of ruins. stay away from this company. they don't value employees not even customers, only money.
Pros
lovely colleges who are broken down from work
Cons
disrespect, humiliation every day, slave wages, mental health breakdown
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hard work
Barista (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 1 November 2021
like all the hospitality jobs, pret is hard work for less money . The management is bad, they are rude probably because they are stress. A lot of pressure
Pros
free lunches
Cons
bad management
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perfect effort/pay balance
Barista (Former Employee) - Luton Airport - 21 October 2021
Been here for the past 3 years and a half where I thought I'd work for 6 months or so. The pay is good enough for the retail environment but there's something special about Pret. You have the power to give things on the house (of course there's a limit), but seeing the customers getting a little surprise be it a coffee or a cookie on the house really made my day. You could become barista (make cool coffees in the front) or hot chef (put your music in the back and cook good and easy stuff) after the initial team member training and later be offered the position of a team leader (not really worth it in my opinion). Had to leave because of moving but it's a nice place to work, the pay is the same for all ages and above minimum wage and it goes up every april and also you get mystery bonus and early start bonuses and night shift hours bonus too so the pay could really add up (especially with the holiday top up thing they have). They also pay weekly so you never have to check your money, their platform for requesting time off is really friendly and you get free healthy food on shift. Cool!
Pros
Free food, weekly pay, nice environment
Cons
sometimes when it's too busy and someone calls sick you have to prepare as usual
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Used to be great, terrible after the cutbacks
Barista (Former Employee) - West Sussex/ Hampshire - 28 September 2021
I was based in one of their stores in the south, was always very busy but also manageable. It was good pay and you always got your contracted hours, plus paid breaks and a £1 bonus per hour if your shop passed a mystery shopper bonus. Our store got shut down and we all got made redundant. A few months later I managed to get a position for the same old role I had as a barista, but in a different town. Staff were all exhausted, like my previous it was still busy, but every day was overwhelming and undermanned. The £1 bonus was scrapped, paid breaks were scrapped, our slightly higher than average wages didn't rise with the April minimum wage increase, so we had essentially had a pay cut - and in general everyone had to do a lot more for less. A couple of members of staff had a mental breakdown in my time working. Both sites employ lovely people with a great work ethic, but in the end that's not enough to make you stay and the new post covid grind will wear you down. I actually quite liked the individual shop management, but the company in general is now tight and cutting back wherever it thinks it can. Personally I believe there are far better paid and less stressful jobs out there for similar positions, and I would not recommend working for Pret in its current state.
Pros
Free lunches, guaranteed contracted hours, seems to employ staff with great work ethic
Cons
Long hours, always busy, understaffed, previous bonuses and incentives all cut, expected to always work more than contracted hours/ poor work life balance, poor pay
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Do not work here !!
Worst job I ever had, long hours, 5am starts, refused breaks when I suffered from mental health issues. Gave me one day of training then expected me to know everything, told me that it wasn’t their fault I was slow when asking for help. Awful company awful job awful co- workers. AVOID AT ALL COSTS
Pros
Weekly pay but it’s not even worth it
Cons
Everything about the job
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Everyday is not the same at Pret when u work there
Coffee Barista (Current Employee) - Marylebone High Street - 2 August 2021
It’s good company if you have good manger and good team to work with everyday is not that same and you can win money if you do good service £50 or £100
Pros
Free lunch
Cons
Long hours per day
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Overworked and extremely fast paced
As a barista you will be expected to make 20 coffees a minute or will be considered too slow. There are standards and procedures that should be followed but they are all ignored when it gets busy. Quality is so poor across so many shops to the point where customers don’t know what a good quality drink is. Type of customers depend on area, high street shop is the worst by far.
Pros
Free lunch and coffee
Cons
Poor management, overworked and underpaid.
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wholesome job
Head barista (Former Employee) - London - 25 June 2021
Great first Job. good place to work and meet people also the charity work you get to do is somewhat selfless. you must give them ago best company when it comes to people on the high street,hands down.
Pros
everything
Cons
leaving
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Rude overall
Was doing upwards of fifty hours a week when suffering with mental health was not allowed to drop hours down at all which meant I had to go off sick and then was not paid holiday left over when left
Cons
Long hours
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Regressing as a work place
Barista - Team Leader (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 22 May 2021
Employee benefits are constantly regressing (even before Covid), work place is very exploitative, and consuming, hours can vary from 28-50 a week, six days a week and rota is usually provided very last minute
Pros
Free food
Cons
Everything
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Every shop is different
Barista (Former Employee) - Manchester - 8 March 2021
I had a chance to work different shops in the area and everyone was different with kind of customs, being busy, opening hours, days etc. Company is providing a very good training and gives you a chance to improve your skills with many different ways.
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3.1 out of 5 stars for Work/Life Balance
3.3 out of 5 stars for Salary/Benefits
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3.0 out of 5 stars for Management
3.2 out of 5 stars for Culture
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