Pros
This company overall embodies everything I want in a company. Integrity, Family oriented, Taking care of the customer, great product at reasonable prices, and the joy of really being able to help customers truly have a better tomorrow. For a retail job, its amazing. As long as you aren't scared of being a team player, helping out/respecting your warehouse/delivery personnel, cleaning, talking to different people all the time, self-motivation, and occasionally, days working alone. -as sales associate: you focus only on learning about the company, the product, how to sell and how to take care of your customers (some people who are promoted are thrown into the position not knowing how to do books or payroll) -assistant managers do receive a little override. Depending on your location, you are responsible for anything that may arise in the store, but get paid greatly less than the manager, even if you work more hours or handle more of the store responsibilities. Depending on the location and number of stores an assistant is responsible for, you may end up actually getting paid less than your sales associates, since it is commission based and you may end up focusing more on the store logistics than assisting customers. -Store managers get paid an override approx. 2 to 3 times higher than the assistants (Depends on the location and number of assistant managers). They are responsible for the entire store. Every store manager is different. Some focus on logistics, others on customer service, and others on training/mentoring their employees. If you are lucky, you get one that is somewhat balanced. -Only Promotes from within. (Both a pro and con... its hard for some who have had years of management to start over again.) -Training/conferences at every level, allowing you to interact and network with peers and leaders throughout the whole company. -Team work is preached. -Overall great pay for a job with little health risk or required education.
Cons
-Assistant Manager have a lot of the same responsivities as store manager, with little authority to make changes. -Promotion bottlenecks at the assistant manager level. Most store managers have been with the company over 10 years and don't plan on leaving (Which shows what a great company it is to work for), while the number of new stores opening seems to not satisfy the number of assistance waiting for their own store. -Store/Assistant Managers have little authority, other than write up an employee when issues arise. -Some store managers take advantage of their position. Taking extra time off, leaving store tasks to assistant/associates, change policies depending on who it benefits etc. Some stores only get visited once every two/three months from higher ups. Due to this, employees may feel they cannot talk about issues in the store from fear of retaliation and/or being black listed/labeled hard to work with. (This not only can affect moral, but also productivity and communication) -Not every store follows the team mentality. Normally the store follows the lead of the manager. If they are focused on developing the whole team, the team wins/loses together. If they are focused on their pay check, then everyone in the store is focused on only themselves. It is hard for higher ups to see this when they aren't around. -Depending on your work ethic, you can end up working over 50 hrs a week(especially when your store is short staffed, on vacation, training) and you don't want it to affect your employees with family.
