The corporate demands placed upon every Sales Associate are enormous. There are minimum goals for the number of new Belk charge cards the Associate opens for customers, the number of email and phone number captures made at the point of sale, as well as individual goals for the seemingly endless stream of "pre-sales" in advance of in-store events. This is in addition to meeting personal weekly sales goals and processing and putting away incoming stock from multiple truck shipments each week while continuing to service customers on the sales floor. If an Associate misses their assigned goals in a given review year, they not only will receive little or no wage increase, they may even have their hourly wage reduced. Those who have the misfortune of working in a commission-based department, such as shoes, do so in an unprotected environment where customers are free to check out product in other departments. The commission is also computed only on weekly sales in excess of their hourly base wage and forces Associates to compete against one another for customers and sales, usually in an overstaffed department. The bottom line is that Belk's expectations greatly exceed anything resembling commensurate compensation and benefits.
