Too big to fail and failing - Anonymous employee Flight Centre Travel Group Employee Review

Flight Centre is a dishonest company that rips off its employees to rip off customers. It is excessively profit-focused and has a toxic, outdated business model that invariably assures customers are getting ripped off and consultants underpaid. Staff are seen as expendable and the work/life/pay balance is about as poor as it gets. The base wage is low at $32k, which supposedly gets topped up to minimum wage if you don't hit your sales targets through commission (the implementation of which has a number of tax and work implications that further sour the deal!). These targets are unrealistically high and for most people in most stores, and are unattainable in a market where everyone has the ability to research and book their own holidays. Colleagues working in direct sales have told me of the growing customer distrust of travel agents, something that is not undeserved. The company go to great lengths to muddy the waters between "commission" (the profit markup of the company) and "commission" (the take-home earnings of the consultant). All through training novices are told that they will be making 10% commission on their sales and that this means they will be quite well paid. The reality is the company charge 10% commission on all transactions and their consultants make 10% of that - in other words, 1% - meaning selling that $1000 ticket to Europe nets consultants $10, while the company pockets $90. This means that even above-average consultants are poorly paid and see little reward from their hard work unless they're placing a considerable markup on their services, bringing about a conflict of interest between the needs of the customer and the consultant. When most of what Flight Centre sell is already directly available to the consumer at cheaper or (at best) the same price online, this leaves very little wiggle room and either results in customers being taken advantage of or a consultant struggling to earn minimum wage picking up peanuts. An oft-cited perk of working for Flight Centre is free or discounted travel. While it is true that the company send a small fraction of their top performing consultants on famils (familiarisation) to tourist destinations around the world, their frequency is overstated and in many cases is not free so you have to ask yourself if you can truly afford to spend that week in Bali while hotel owners encourage you to sell their product. The company are also quick to pass on financial penalties from suppliers and internal groups to consultants so don't be surprised if you're seeing regular deductions from your pay for things that are either not your problem or beyond your control. I'm actually surprised some of these practices are legal, let alone in use by such a big company. Then there's the hours. Everyone at Flight Centre is on a 40 hour weekly contract but I don't know anyone that works much less than 50. Coming in an hour early and often being expected to stay later for sales meetings or supplier presentations (can none of these be squeezed into a 10 hour work day somewhere?) and the expectation that staff attend alcohol-fueled buzz nights (sales meetings under the guise of a lavish award ceremony) and other events routinely amounts to an extra 10 or more hours of unpaid work weekly. This is covered under "reasonable expectations of overtime" and is not optional. Consultants with families or other commitments are ostracized for not attending buzz nights and sales meetings. In my time at the company, the corporate culture has become increasingly cult-like and is a source of growing discomfort from myself and colleagues. The company CEO, Skroo Turner, is venerated and adored with religious vigor (adoration that is not wholly undeserved - he is a brilliant businessman and the growth of Flight Centre from Top Deck tours in the 80s is one of Australia's great corporate success stores - shame that was then...) and you'll quickly discover that it's the company's way or the highway and if you don't like it, they'll replace you in a heartbeat.