Pros
Loyal customers and field team.
Cons
Chico’s has been pulling back on “culture” for the last 5 years- blaming Covid. They have stripped away employee incentives and recognition, all while increasing expectations. This year they decided to not give wage increases yet they added additional senior leadership positions at high salaries. This year they changed from allocating payroll to a selling cost model, taking stores down to 2:2 coverage and yet increased expectations for ship from store, increased product levels in most stores and increased expectations on customer outreach. If you walk in a Chico’s store, the team is drained, exhausted and burnt out. They aren’t able to keep up with the demands from senior leadership. If you are considering joining this organization, I would recommend visiting a local store and asking the team what their thoughts are on the company- most will not be favorable. They also changed all store managers to salary this year because they do not want to pay OT when it might be required to work 40+ hours to keep your store open to operating hours with the cuts in payroll. The amount of layoffs at home office over the last year have been staggering. The KWG came in with their team and replaced tenured associates who have been around for 15+ years.
