Campion Education

Working at Campion for a summer stint started out pleasant enough. All the staff were pretty friendly and approachable, and apart from the relatively steep learning curve in regards to the content management systems used, the place has a pretty chilled vibe. Until you start to realise there are some serious issues at play, from the customer experience of the company, to the management itself. 

Firstly you begin to notice that customer systems in Campion are terribly broken, and this is coming from someone who would deal with hundreds of customers per week. Awful communication and rigid, inflexible policies leave you questioning 'actually, why can't we do this?' when the same complaints regarding amending orders and sloppy relaying of information pop up on a daily basis. For example, sometimes customers would be told their books were on back order because of non-stock or awaiting publication, but much of the time they wouldn't be told at all. Customers would call up asking where their books from months ago were, only to find out they were out of stock but they hadn't even been told. And that's just the customer experience story. 

In terms of working there, I think dealing with days on end in the middle of summer when the aircon was broken sums it up. Nothing would ever get done and nobody would ever take responsibility for issues nor communicate to staff that things were being done. Yes, things like the fridge never getting fixed or the kettle being broken are trivial, but when they can't even get their act together to fix these small things it gives you a fair reflexion of the shambolic nature of management. Shift emails would never be sent out at predictable, regular intervals, so planning your weeks ahead would be a nightmare. Then when they were eventually sent out, the shift requests you'd put through in advance weren't even reflected in the roster. 

Although an effort was made by supervisors to build morale and a staff culture, the fact that all the supervisors were between the ages of 18-22 (Often fresh out of high school) and would enforce these dumb school-yard rules around going to the toilet and having to ask for breaks because they were too busy chatting to each other to tell you made some shifts painful to endure. Topple that with the fact that they were all in this weird, 'incestuous' (for lack of a better word) relationship with each other and clearly had their 'favourite' employees was just unprofessional and not a good look. God forbid you'd bring up these issues with senior staff or management for fear of being labelled a bad employee. Most of the time, you knew nothing would get done about it anyway so you just kept your mouth shut. 

On the positive side, the co-workers were really nice but often complained about being taken for a ride too. Many of the frustrations about supervisors and management would start to trickle out as the summer season went on. The fact that they had this nonsense system of 4 and a bit hour shifts so they didn't have to pay you for a full 5 hours pretty much sums up the ridiculousness of this place and for an unassuming uni student who didn't know any better, the $26 an hour salary would seem pretty alright, if you were willing to put up with all the other garbage. 

All and all, I'd steer clear of this place unless they can clean up their act - it's just not a great place to work at the best of times, and at the worst of times you'll be sweating yourself silly in a 35 degree call centre and not be able to cool your drink because the fridge is broken and nobody will take responsibility to fix or replace it. 





A typical day at work included long hours in hot conditions, without proper air conditioning. Lots of workers were fired during the duration of the season, often due to poor work ethic. However if you work hard you'll often be rewarded. Throughout working at Campion i developed the skills required to work under intense heat, not only this but i also learned how to successfully manage problems. I worked with an array of different characters, learning how to manage different people and their work ethics. You'll quickly understand and realize which people are the real deal and the ones who won't last. Management were okay. Some of them were great people, others not so much. The culture at the work place is fantastic, everyone is caring and considerate. Everyone works hard and mostly gets along, until someone gets let go - Then people get frustrated! Easily the hardest part of the job was the unrelenting heat, which could bring the strongest of people to their knees. The most enjoyable part of the job was establishing strong and long lasting friendships. To finish this off, for a seasonal job this place is amazing. I'd recommend it for anyone at university

Pros :Free Lunch On The Occasion, Extended Lunch Breaks On Hot Days And On The Occasion You'll Get Sent Home A Few Days Early And Get Paid For The Full Day:

Work at Campion, despite its nature of being demanding and full of  consistent deadlines, is fairly simple and straightforward. It is easy to become very good, and become a trusted employee, to an extent that you will be given more tasks, both in other areas of the warehouse and tougher/more important tasks. Campion employs many people from various backgrounds, and as Campion's main work period takes place over the course of a few months, you have ample time to create lasting friendships and networks with many people. Campion is in and of itself very comfortable as a place of business and a physical place, maintaining cleanliness is very easy, and managing staff are very engaging and genuinely good people, creating a feeling of ease in an inherently fast-paced and demanding work environment.

Absolutely terrible. You don't do work, you just get fired immediately. You don't turn up to work for a day, you get fired. HR is absolutely terrible and doesn't know what to do. When it reaches 40 degrees in the warehouse, you basically will pass out. They don't follow OH&S standards and needs to be reviewed immediately. Several team leaders dob people in and they get put out of roster meaning they get fired. Team leaders just do counting. The workers do all the hard work like lifting heavy textbooks and doing all the serious work while team leaders do NOTHING!. They get angry if they are behind a lot throughout the season. Fired many workers and the location is terrible as you have to park your car in the streets and it is vulnerable to get hit by a huge truck coming by.

Generally I would start work at 8:00am unless I was granted the opportunity to start early and earn some overtime work. After clocking in I would usually join my team at our station and we would start working. To begin a cage of products would be sent over and we would have to unload it on the bench so that the team leader could count the items. After all the items had been accounted for I would work with my team to sort the items into separate orders. Once all the orders were sorted they were packed and sent to another department to be shipped out. From there we would start the process over again.
During my time there I learned a lot about efficiency and workplace safety practices.

A typical day would involve reciving stock and ensuring we had everything that was delivered, stock take then move stock to shelves for sale. Picking items and posting home deliveries, answering and serving any customers in the store or over the phone.

I learned a lot about retail procedures, increased my knowledge and understanding of customer service and how to efficiantly multi task and manage a small team.

Management were really supportive and assisted in any way they could.

Co-workers were very friendly and worked hard

As this was peak period, there were days where we were stretched very thin due to the volume of customers in our store.

How well the team were managed and got on made each day very enjoyable

You can choose which shift you would like to work, morning, afternoon or night, all shifts do the same type of work, all working together as a big team to achieve our goal. To get school books off to their schools for the new year. During the summer holidays, a great way to earn a little extra cash, while having fun and still enjoying your holidays. Great team of employers and workers. You all become great friends and many people come back year after year, it was that good of an experience.

The job was very busy and sometimes stressful in the December, January and February months, due to the back to school rush. However, there are various tasks available to keep you occupied, as well as some great people to get you through the busy times. Everyone was very approachable. Great place for teenagers to work as there were many people my age, which made it easy to get along with them. The leaders of the team were great, and provided great advice.

My previous work experience also extends from working with Campion Education, a school textbook distributor, within both the retail front shop and the warehouse components of the business, within their peak summer sale period. For the past two months, I have been located within the Nunawading Head Office for Campion, serving as an Accounts Reconciliation officer. In this role, I liaised with the Head of Finance, and processed various payments from our largest client groups, ensuring their accounts balanced against our takings.

The Campion environment was very busy particularly in January as there was the back to school rush. Occasionally customers were a bit rude and or pushy but that's understandable as it is uncomfortable standing in a line for an extended period of time, this doesn't make the job any less enjoyable however and there is always a kind customer around the corner to make the day brighter.

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