Way back in the old days, our CEO used to say "Take care of your associates and they will take care of our customers." To me, that was an important reason for me staying with CarMax. I put in 11 years of hard work with this company. I worked in multiple departments and completed management training in an effort to move up within the company. I was a ride or die associate who intended on retiring from CarMax. Then a new CEO took over and the Dallas Regional Team changed hands. So, lets talk about cons. Unless you work in operations, you have a retail schedule. I worked 9-6 or 1-10 Monday through Saturday. This can sometimes be hard on someone if you close one night and need to open the following day. The hourly pay for most associates inaccurately reflects actual work that they do. For example, if you hire a Business Office Associate at $11 an hour, you wouldn't assume they would be closing sale / appraisal deals worth $10,000 - $100,000, ten to twenty times a day and expect that associate to be accurate 100% of the time. Add to that anywhere from 30-50 tasks that need to be done daily with weekly and monthly audits/tasks/reports. It's not uncommon to feel burned out most of the time. Now, when you hire someone at $11 an hour, you can assume sometime within the first month will ask themselves, "What did I get myself into? / This is too much / My pay is terrible!" Inevitably, $11 an hour will not sustain exceptional associates, as they will gain the experience and move on to something that pays more. Then CarMax decided to eliminate positions they felt were in excess of what was needed to complete tasks within a department. In the business office, half of all Assistant Business Office Managers were eliminated. This was a vital position as it supported the Business Office Manager to carry out the goals set forth, and it supported sales managers/sales associates in selling vehicles. This elimination also cut off a route for our Business Office Associate Leads to promote within our department. Purchasing had a similar reduction in managers. What did this rollout look like? It basically meant the Business Office Manager would have to do twice the work, or ask their Business Office Associate Leads to pickup the slack (non-compensated work).
