Pros
Dsw was a fun place to work. It's very forward thinking. It promotes self expression and encourages you to express your own style and basically be inspiration for the customers. I had an amazing team of co workers and my DM was one of the best managers I have ever had. I think everything gets blamed on the next manager in line, but the truth is it's their job to support company initiatives, just like mine was when I led a store. There were many days we could've just been written up in a "get it done or get in trouble " mentality but my DM was there along side us until midnight working to get the product out, even when they didn't have to. Dsw is not afraid of change, constant change.. that can be a good thing or a bad thing.
Cons
We'll get this out of the way, the payroll cuts. Yes, i get it, it's no fun working 60 hours a week being away from your family to make up for the loss of payroll and increase in workload. This is the new normal in retail. It's not dsw, its retail entirely. Go next door to your closest retailer, they will complain about the same problems. But where dsw gets it wrong is they are constantly taking, with no benefit to their leaders to stay. Sometimes it almost felt like we were constantly delivered negative information or changes followed by negative reinforcement.
