Pros
Review is for the Aritzia Vancouver Support Office from a current employee.
1 - Largely female led company.
2 - If you play along with the corporate lingo and suck up to management, you'll do great at Aritzia until they find a reason to dislike you. Great for short bursts of being management's "favourite". Otherwise, steer clear.
3 - There is a yearly performance review which is never missed. That the review happens at all is great. The manner in which the review is carried out leaves much to be desired.
Cons
Review is for the Aritzia Vancouver Support Office from a current employee.
1 - Quantity over quality. Focus is primarily on "KPI's" and thus, a higher output is always preferred over lower output with higher quality. They say they want both but when push comes to shove, they always default to quantity over quality.
2 - Corporate lingo/jargon that's basically just common sense yet it is pitched as innovative and groundbreaking.
3 - Management plays favourites/toxic work culture. Environment is considerably clique-y and petty. If you're on their good side, things are great. But it doesn't take much at all to become the "problem" and have management give you childish silent treatment for days at a time. They're not subtle with who they like and dislike.
Management and senior staff appear to enjoy audibly griping and complaining about who they do and don't like in the office, but then penalize employees for following suit and doing the same. It's a very "Do as I say, not as I do" mentality which is very childish. MY complaints are valid, but YOURS make you a whiner.
4 - Yearly performance reviews force employees to divulge performance shortcomings. This information then contributes to denials in raises. Aritzia appears to have no interest in maintaining the competitiveness of an employee's salary year after year.
5 - Bad communication. Much of it happens over email/Zoom which becomes a frustrating issue because management has poor communication/people skills. Conversations are often more friendly in person, but instant messaging tends to be blunt and insufficient.
6 - No desire for growth. The company wants to appear as though they foster growth in its employees yet has no desire to grow and improve itself in any aspect other than revenue. Processes and internal systems are old/clunky and management appears to have no urge to change the status quo. If change does occur, it's either at a glacial pace or rushed and haphazardly implemented,
7 - Wages/hiring process. When sending employment offers to selected applicants, the initial offer is extremely low compared to what's common in the industry. It's a common slimy tactic to potentially underpay applicants who aren't aggressive enough to negotiate. Aritzia also seems to be fond of failing to renew/rehire highly skilled seasonal contractors in favour of new, less experienced workers so to keep wages low.
8 - Overtime. Management would periodically request work be finished after the end of a shift if it was considered important while explaining they could not approve overtime. It would start small. But over time, this unpaid overtime adds up to a considerable amount and never appears to benefit the employee later down the line. Many photographers, editors, and sample employees will skip lunches and work after hours to meet poorly set deadlines. Employees spend far too much time bending over backwards to go the extra mile and are rewarded with merely timbits and their raise request denied.
9 - Poor air quality and work environment. Photo bays are routinely repainted filling the bottom floor photo studio with paint fumes for hours on end, This leads to employees experiencing nausea and headaches for long periods of time. Diesel trains run outside nearby and would fill the photo studio with exhaust fumes for hours at a time as well. Incredibly poor ventilation in the photo studio.
Photographers are over worked and have no space to put personal items while they work since their desks are small carts. Post-Production room appears cramped and the desks are devoid of personal items, any visual appeal, or even windows which leads to employees feeling trapped within the basement room.
10 - Terrible location/parking/food. The area surrounding the Aritzia Support Office in downtown Vancouver leaves much to be desired. It's a rougher area in town and parking is very expensive. Aritzia has a parking program where employees request free parking in the parkade nearby but are put in a lottery system via a mobile app which assigns them spots using an algorithm which is not well explained. This often leads to employees having free parking maybe once or twice a week if they're lucky, which is insufficient given how expensive it is to park close by. The parking lottery system is also based on your position/rank at Aritzia, regardless of time served. (Ie: A lower ranked employee of 5 years will lose out to a manager with 1 year at the job.) meaning employees who can not advance in their position/department will always lose out to management when it comes to the parking system. So the workers making less money have to purchase parking more often ($5-$25 per day depending on how close you wish to park).
CEO and people in upper management roles have priority parking directly near the building's entrance right next to employees who have to pay $25 dollars to park in the Aritzia lot.
There are no places to eat nearby either, If you bring your own lunch then your only option is the small, often broken, photo studio fridge. Or if you want to buy lunch, you can make use of Aritzia's own A-OK Cafe where employees are charged upwards of $14 for oily, wannabe luxury food and terrible coffee while blasting overly loud club-style music as you try to relax on your lunch break (if you take one at all). Many employees also use the cafe as an office so a considerable amount of cafe tables are routinely taken up by workers on Zoom video calls. But don't worry, you can always grab a seat near former CEO Brian Hill who permanently occupies a cafe table where he has food and drinks catered to him while you eat your $14 salad on your unpaid 30 minute break.
11 - Photo Studio is staunchly against work-from-home (remote) work for employees. Management makes zero effort to work towards a flexible schedule for employees. Management is of course allowed to work from home if need be though. This largely varies based on department and some are allowed to work remotely. But many creative roles strictly require an employee work in-office, unless you're management.
12 - Unoriginal art direction and purely reactive/unclear company vision. Aritzia looks to its competitors for "inspiration" for its new art direction each year. There's no originality to its artistic vision (Aritzia has also been publicly accused of stealing artist's designs in the past). The company appears to have no interest in making headway toward inclusive sizing or to distance itself from perpetuating toxic fashion industry trends of extremely thin models.