DICKEY’S Corporate Employee Complaints
Dickey’s corporate employee complaints include a toxic work environment, extreme micromanagement, favoritism and nepotism, bizarre rules, an attitude of disrespect toward franchise owners and authoritarian rule by the Chairman Roland Dickey, Jr. Are you a former or current Dickey’s corporate employee? Do you agree or disagree? Share your experience below.
(UnhappyFranchisee.com) While our website is primarily focused on franchisee issues and complaints, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is a franchise company whose home office environment and management practices seem to have a profound effect on the support received by Dickey’s franchise owners.
We researched employee reviews on Glassdoor, Indeed and Yelp and isolated just the reviews by employees and former employees of the Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. (DBRI) corporate office in Dallas.
The reviews posted were almost all negative, with the majority giving a rating of 1 out of 5 stars and a few giving 2 out of 5 stars.
The handful that gave 5 out of 5 stars were so glowing and positive they seemed to be placed by the upper management that the other reviews were complaining about.
We dissected and divided individual complaints into broad topics, including Dickey’s Corporate Culture and Attitude Toward Franchisees. Most topics reflect common complaints, such as extreme micromanagement and bizarre rules that seem designed to please the Chairman, Roland Dickey, Jr.
Current & former Dickey’s home office and field support employees: please share your observations, opinions and experiences below, or send an email to UnhappyFranchisee[at]gmail.com. You don’t have to use your name but please use your real email address (it won’t be visible) in case we need clarification. All comments and emails will be considered confidential. We are especially interested in how the home office experience affects franchisee support and success.
Dickey’s Corporate Culture
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
This is a very volatile, aggressive and unpleasant environment to work in. Not to mention, the office resembles the setting of a school rather than a workplace. Gossiping, whispering behind closed doors, cramped, classroom like seating with bosses who do not know how to lead and as a result, micromanage and harass in order to keep their own inadequacies under wraps.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
The most dysfunctional company I have ever worked for in my life
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Treats employees horribly but speaking to them disrespectful in front of others, unethical practices, treats owners horribly, will call, text or email on your off days, management is incompetent, very high turnover,
etc.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Very poor culture and working environment. Very cliquish environment from the corporate office and very condescending attitudes.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
During my year at Dickey’s I’ve seen more drama there than that of daytime soap opera. You have your office politics, followed by the brown-nosers, the under-skilled and condescending management team…
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
The most unprofessional environment I have ever been in – the F’ word was rampant and I started to get offended towards the end.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
CEO and upper management refer to the culture/”colorful language”… translation: almost every conversation or e-mail will be laced with profanities and offensive comments.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Standard interview question: “Do you have a problem with foul language being used around you on a daily basis in a business environment?”
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
…toxic environment, favoritism and politics, poor pay and strong lack in appreciation by management
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Very flawed company. Secrecy and politics of communication of inner working of company is very high and creates stress between and within departments. Very old school in the way they do things and not open to change. Have a better way to do something and can prove it with data? Don’t waste your time running it up the flagpole once upper management has already made a decision.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Very strict, stiff corporate culture and work environment.. Big-brother like. Always being monitored from what you are doing on your computer, what time you show up and leave, and what you are wearing. Lots of gossip and drama at this company.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
There is a pretty pervasive undercurrent of abject terror surrounding any and all interaction with the Dickey family. Whatever they say goes, no matter how it affects other people.
Dickey’s current employee wrote:
The environment is very, very negative. Cramped offices and cubicles and people are constantly being shuffled around for no reason. No direction, the company just lurches from one crazy idea to the next. Stores are constantly being redesigned, changes are made to food and suppliers, so there is no consistency.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Absolutely NO POSITIVE MORALE or POSITIVE BELIEF SYSTEM about the companies inner-workings or Executive Leadership Team
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Senior management is awful, high turnover, very unprofessional, blind leading the blind in corp office and expect no work-life balance.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
If you think this family owned business is “family friendly” think again! This is the most unprofessional, poorly run work environment I have EVER experienced. The family is a clan of narcissistic loons! Decisions are made on the infantile demands of the Dickey family versus good business management. The atmosphere reeks of tension and misery. Incredibly high turn over.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
It has a bizarre culture. The end of the month graduation is strange. They have it at a restaurant near the office and the kick off for the graduation is a 70’s Camaro being revved up and peeling out.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
believe me when I say it is the WORST place I have ever worked. Worse than cleaning the bathrooms at the grocery store i worked at in high school. I would cry on the way in to work every day.
Micromanagement
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
You cannot be even 1 minute late, or you are included in an email to the CEO. The Chief HR Officer will be there sometimes as you step off the elevator to take names, or she will be waiting by the elevator to ensure no one leaves before 5:30. Forget about Dr’s appts, and leaving to take care of personal or family matters.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
tardy notices are issued on a daily basis for all employees who arrive after 8:30 a.m. — if you arrive at 8:31, too bad, you’re on the tardy list
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Want to go back to high school? You’ll love it here! They monitor when people arrive each morning and send out a list and lunch hour is restricted to between 12-1.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Management micromanages their employees believing they will obtain better results. However this only ends up with an information overload with no practical solutions. They have proven to me that they care more about obtaining their unrealistic results, in spite of logical reasoning and their employees’ happiness.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Constant micromanaging from supervisors who know nothing about building a business.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Management is emailed anytime anyone is over 5 minutes late, never taking into consideration that the person may have worked until 9 or 10 PM the night before (normal business hours are 8:30 AM-5:30 PM)
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
They require FDs [Franchise Directors] to report information 3 times a day that is already on a report that can be accessed easily… FDs spend 80% of their time making phone calls and producing reports instead of making impacts with both team members and guests
Dickey’s Bizarre Work Environment
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
No gum chewing is allowed. If you are caught chewing gum, you are asked to spit it out. It’s a little like grade school to say the least.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
…you can’t wear the color green on St. Patrick’s Day, or any day at that because RDJ hates the color. *sigh* I love St. Patty’s Day
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Unprofessional- cursing while your on the phone with vendors and owners and because you are sitting is desk set up like classrooms the folks you are talking to can hear your fowl mouth supervisor.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
PROs? You become stronger after surviving the hell they call a corporate office, you won’t get tooth decay from being banned from chewing gum at work.
Dickey’s High Employee Turnover Rate
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Their firing process is very fast. The reason they hire so fast is because everyone quits or is fired. They don’t even have time to train you and then you get written up and fired for not knowing how to do things in their crazy way.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
The turnover rate is ridiculously high for a corporate office. You can actually count, on one hand, the number of employees who have been more there more than two years.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
I wasn’t expecting a cake walk when i chose to work at Dickey’s but what it turned out to be was something much worse than I could have ever imagined. Quitting that job was the BEST thing I ever did for myself. One of those ‘take this job and shove it’ moments.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Extremely dysfunctional and people would get fired randomly when superiors were upset.
Dickey’s CEO Roland Dickey, Jr.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
The company is led by the tyrant, RDJ. As you read other reviews, you will learn that it is “his way or the highway” (literally, they will fire you on the spot). He is not open to suggestions on how to better processes, or achieve goals, or even set realistic expectations. And because he is not open to it, neither are any of your supervisors.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
The CEO is one of the worst managers/leaders. He comes up with arbitrary goals that we all had hit which were so unrealistic that it was simply a joke. He always talked about being honest with ourselves and be our toughest critic which is all simply rhetoric. Everyone in the office petrified to give any real feedback or ever tell him what he doesn’t want to hear. If you do you are as good as fired.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
The problem lies in the process and way they conduct business which comes directly from the CEO’s mouth. There is no hope for a company that cannot make the crucial changes in upper management to remove the CEO and clean out his VPs to make room for a team that has not been corrupted by his disillusioned ways. Humble yourself and make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good of your franchisees before it’s too late. Step down from CEO of Dickey’s Barbecue and let someone who actually knows how to run a company take charge.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
RJD needs to get a clue that companies that are trying to grow need someone who knows big business. He is going to have some major lawsuits if they don’t find someone to actually run the company in a more professional manner.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
If you do not change, my opinion is that within 5 years, you will be forced to do so because of lawsuits from the existing franchises.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
the company needs to not be run by a tyrant who doesn’t know what he’s doing on every facet of the business. Until that changes, nothing good will ever happen here.
Dickey’s Family, Infighting & Favoritism
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Promotions were given one of two ways; close personal relationship with a Dickey’s family member or of, once again, brown nosing— not based on your professional qualifications and/or skills.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
The Dickey’s family had weird superstitions and beliefs that you had to abide by or you got the boot.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Promotions and advancement is determined solely by favoritism.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Dickey’s should have an internal dating policy – I get office romances happen, but when you are married and shoving infidelity down the throats of others, it severely brings down company morale. Not only does it lower employee morale, it increases legal liability (something the General Counsel should know), creates a definite conflict of interest (something the Chief of People & Culture should know), and decreases overall productivity of the parties involved (something the Chief Administrative Officer should know – but she will lie to you and act like she knows nothing at all). If Dickey’s does not adopt a dating policy, married people, at least have the common courtesy to be discrete –especially when you are in a position of leadership.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
People are put into positions that they are not qualified for. For example how does a bartender of a local bar become a director right after getting hired? Also titles were extremely random if you were a favorite or a bartender of a local bar you had a job and got a bogus title.
Dickey’s Blame Game
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Everyone is afraid of getting in trouble so if something goes wrong they scramble to find a scapegoat so that management doesn’t look bad for their stupid decisions.
Attitude Toward Franchisees
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
The corporate office approaches its franchisees in an argumentative, disrespectful fashion and the vast majority of franchisees HATE corporate. Corporate also seems to hate its franchisees.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Franchisees also love to complain about the company and can be found online or in ongoing lawsuits.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Franchise sales are pushed to look good but actual stores opening are low. Stores are managed by franchisees and are inadequately trained and not supported. Corporate hires lawyers to bully franchisees that complain and create problems in order to justify terminating franchise agreements. They simply take your money and drop you. You are doomed to fail from the start.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Quit selling franchises to people who can’t afford it and then have the corporate attorney send them threatening letters if they struggle to come up with the money to open a store.
Dickey’s current Area Director employee wrote:
The hardest part of the job is being given the expectation to manage Owners as if they were employees
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
Company expects their franchises to deliver what the corporate stores do not even hit unless they manipulate the numbers from the corporate office to appear better.
Dickey’s former employee wrote:
They bully their franchisees into making ‘investments’ into their business that have no foreseeable ROI and this is especially unethical for those owners who can barely make payroll.
Former Dickey’s employee wrote:
No respect for franchisees.
Other Dickey’s Employee Complaints
Former Dickey’s home office employee wrote:
Forgotten about on the road. Traveled for 9 months and came back to hotel without the bill being paid. Extremely underpaid.
DICKEY’S CORPORATE EMPLOYEES: ADD YOUR VOICE! COMMENT BELOW OR SEND US AN EMAIL IN CONFIDENCE TO UNHAPPYFRANCHISEE[AT]GMAIL.COM.
Also read:
DICKEY’S Franchise Owners: Tell DBRI Your Biggest Concerns, Anonymously
DICKEY’S Franchise Issues: Menu Management
DICKEY’S Franchise Issues: Switch from U.S. Foods to SYSCO
DICKEY’S BARBECUE PIT Closed Location List
DICKEY’S Franchise Owners Share Frustrations & Fears
DICKEY’S BARBECUE PIT Franchise Complaints
DICKEY’S BARBECUE PIT Makes a Terrible Promotion Worse
Dickey’s “The Middle” Family Reunion Sweepstakes Contest Details
Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants Inc. Threatening to Sue U.S. Army Veteran
ARE YOU A DICKEY’S FRANCHISE OWNER? PLEASE SHARE A COMMENT, OPINION OR REQUEST WITH DBRI. COMMENT BELOW OR EMAIL IN CONFIDENCE TO UNHAPPYFRANCHISEE[AT]GMAIL.COM
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RDJ is the best… NOT!!!
Interesting to stumble across this site. I’ve been gone from Dickey’s for many years, but it looks like nothing has changed (adultery/racism/dysfunctional family of people who pretend not to be consumed with their own fame and wealth, no people skills except the southern charm they whip out for the media… inability to verbalize and stick to a plan, indirectness, back-biting, unrealistic expectations, no opportunities for advancement despite demonstration of skill, cliquish inner circles… there’s less drama in the Playboy mansion. More genuine women, too.
Every single one of these reviews is absolutely true. I had to quit because of the incredibly toxic and disgusting work environment. No other corporate office that I have worked at was ANYTHING as ridiculous as this place. It’s a joke of a “family” company and adultery and racism is shoved down your throat. Disgusting.
A lot of this is true they treat their employees that have been there for so long like shit i know someone that has been there almost 5 years and they haven’t even got a raise unless it was a minimum wage increase and won’t give that employee enough hours to even support their family as a single parent
I was fired from Dickeys on Glenwood Ave in Raleigh, NC for not returning my manager’s David Hanners messages over the weekend even though i was off.. [Redacted]
Returning to work on Sunday morning my shift, he said he took me off the schedule for a week. I am the only employee that kept the store clean, courteous to customers, and always on time. The only 1.. I guess he got mad when i told him it was inappropriate to bother people on their days off. Not to mention all the alcohol usage by the employers, you could smell it on them from a 3 foot distance.. Including David Hanner, who always left the store whenever he felt like it.
The drugs that where being exchanged by the employees.. If drug test were to be given it might be 1 staff member left. There was no cross training..even though they said they did.. And no room for a real advancement, poor wages and horrible communication.
Glenwood Ave in Raleigh, NC … CORRECTION!!
I worked in the Dickeys BBQ in Carson City, NV. I just quit. I’m 16 years old and I bent over backwards for that place. I worked on my days off, came in early before my shift and stayed late past my shift. I got hired in May of 2018. I really loved my job, but Gunner the owner has been treating me terribly. Yelled at me for coming in when a manger called me in because someone called in sick. Cut my hours because some other people called in sick and messed up… when they messed up, he walked right up to my and another coworker and said I’m cutting your hours and hiring 2 new people. The managers have told me that I was the best worker and busted my butt for them and then the owner treats me badly.
I’m contacting you in an effort to resolve an issue concerning the Oakmont Dr. location in Ft. Worth, TX…I believe the site manager is engaging in illegal labor practices, and not paying employees….those in question my kids, and others that work there….My kids have been working for her almost one month, and haven’t been compensated yet….and when they reported to work on this weekend she told them they were terminated….I’m hoping we can resolve this without the use of lawyers or any other outside enfluences….
I was the General Manager at Dickey’s in Houston , Tx. The store owner is very childish and unprofessional. He accused me and two others of stealing from him. We were the only ones employed working 7 days a week from open to close. He never paid us on time and told us we pretty much had to wait for him to bring our checks every payday. The owner have been pocketing Dickey’s money by not putting all sales in the POS. Which I have in text messages. The owner owns the whole strip so he combines Dickey’s money with his convenience store. Dickey’s money go through several hands before it reaches the bank. The pit never worked he cooked his food in the oven at his corner store that’s the point of it being called Barbecue it’s suppose to be cooked on the pit not in the oven. Then the owner threatened me if I call the cooperate office about what he’s been doing. But the cooperate office doesn’t seem to care because the owner told me that the cooperate office reached out to him and told him not to worry about it really. Don’t understand that when he’s stealing from them. I will be sueing the owner for wrongful termination. The owner even stated he will put a video on Social media if I down grade his franchise.
I worked inside a truck stop at Dickey’s BBQ for more than 6 months in channelview, tx. There was a change in management, and the new boss didn’t like me from the start, because i have very independent attitude towards my work habits. I was literally the only person working at this location, ten hours a day five days a week. He cut my hours to 8 hours a day. And then over the course of a weekend, I was told he didn’t have the hours for me anymore, but he had the hours for the guy who trained me that he just brought back. That is the most unprofessional thing I’ve ever experienced, not to mention morally and ethically wrong.
I am embarrassed to have this company on my resume and feel even worse for the owners that we as corporate, were forced to hound and attack on a daily basis. Dickey’s cares solely about numbers, and would put check and catering sales over food safety/quality and giving good service. There are stores that operate without thermometers and food handling gloves, but home office only wants its staff to worry about getting sales.
I hope owners read this. Get Roland and Ed, out!