Pros
Employee discount is 40 % off full price, 20% off clearance also good at other stores in the Acena company umbrella . Approximately once a month discount is 50% off for a " fashion week / Sopie's closet" for employees. The store also gives out products on the learn-to-earn , or wear-it weekend for product or marketing launches. They also have the Passport to fashion quarterly with different deals and product learn to earns. Hours are somewhat flexible. They will work around school schedules/ availability . Fun coworkers that become a second family.
Cons
Mixed bag in managers. Some are professional and great to work with, others are emotional basket cases ,or cliquish,unprofessional, " mean girls" types. Training is patchy,there are never enough hours given for proper training at the sales associate or managerial levels. Technologically, the store is behind, at least the district I work in . The registers and computer were installed in 2005 and should have been replaced years ago. This level of obsolescence causes continual , nagging daily problems ,affecting both associates,management,and customer service. Sales goals include credit card sales. If you don't sign people up for credit cards, you may not get scheduled for work hours. The management gets a lot of paperwork to read( in between customers and tasking -which is when exactly?) formulae for figuring if they get any extra hours for the store which is hard to understand in the first place and sometimes impossible to actually be able to do if the company won't send all the information ( bills of lading,ship to stores, etc. so that the information can be fed into the equation), and growth goals. Our stores former DM kept changing her focus for growth and improvement, such as sales goal,credit card goal, or how many items per transaction. Then she would change the focus the next week without stating that there was a new goal in place , if we did achieve a goal it was frequently ignored and unacknowledged. Payroll system is difficult , and hard to access information that should be accessible . New hires were being given a load able card and told that it was not replacible if they lost it or rehired in at a later date. My pay stubs are no longer sent to me or at the store for pickup. Supposedly they are online accessible but I have not found that to be the case. Wages are low for the position , I make just under $9 an hour and I've been working there part time for several years. We do not make any commission on sales and are only given raises in pay very rarely . My last one was when I temporarily stepped up to management level ( for which I did Not recieve all the training I needed for the position!) . When I was unable to do all that they required of a part time manager ( including a different availability than I was originally told Was acceptable) I stepped back down to Associate level. I did find through this Glass Door site that my " basic level managerial pay" was what I should have been making as an associate . Sometimes having to " carry" deadweight coworkers who are socializing on the clock. As in all working with the public jobs there's about 10% that you love, 80% okay most of the time people, and 10% that must have been raised by hyenas in a barn . They do not promote or advance from within the company much.
