Pros
It's an internationally known company and looks good on your resume. Clothing allotment is nice but you don't get to choose the items and you have to pay taxes on them. They do not tell you when these taxes will be taken out of your paycheck, it's always a surprise so be prepared. If the items you receive through clothing allotment do not fit or are not flattering, there are no returns or exchanges.
Cons
Where to begin. . . They will tell you that you are the CEO of your own business and that you are the face of Michael Kors, running your business is up to you to drive sales yet they micro manage everything you do. They do not allow you to spend more than 15 minutes off of the floor at a time as you will be secret shopped multiple times per year depending on the department you work in. If you are not in shop during your secret shop you will receive a score of 0 and this makes up 75% of your yearly review and will effect your raise or lack there of. Corporate does not accept that there are things that come up that require your presence off the floor for more than the allotted time of 15 minutes. Since you will be the only MK employee working within a department store, there are many things that require your attention off floor in order to drive your business at times. The company only allows office time on Tuesday mornings from 8:30am-10:30am which is not nearly enough time to finish all of the required recaps, agendas, action plans, and email blasts that are required from you on a weekly/monthly basis. If you happen to be sick or need to take a Tuesday off then you do not get office time at all and you are required to do it outside of work and have everything turned in by 10:00am on Tuesday morning. In addition, you will often feel like you are doing homework when you work on and turn in your Jet-Set Excercises that are due to you DM monthly. Shop Managers are expected to always hit deadlines yet corporate always drops the ball. Most of the time you will not even receive your plan, your graphics, or anything you are supposed to receive for the month until the middle of the month. They have protocol and templates for everything that you do, so give up on standing out to corporate. Growth is also EXTREMELY limited. You receive zero support from anyone as you are literally between two companies, Michael Kors will ask you to get your retail partner to execute a task and the retail partner will refuse to do it and say that it is not their responsibility. A core competency is to hold retailers feet to the fire but when you do, there is push back from the retail partner and your DM will tell you to adjust your tone instead of supporting you. Expect to receive a lot of contradicting information depending on who is around. In other words, to your retail partners sugar coat everything and don't actually hold their feet to the fire. Same with your DM but if you are with other MK corporate team members speak less about successes and more to opportunities and then hold the retailers feet to the fire. This position is more like a glorified sales associate except you can't ring, and may not even have access to your own stock. Staffing from your retail partner is extremely minimal and customers WILL get angry at you when they cannot find an associate to assist them. When you challenge your retail partner for more staffing because you physically see people walking out from their purchase since they can't find anyone, their response will be that they are saving hours for the end of the season but even when you hit that season it's still not nearly enough staffing. Health Care benefits and 401K are average but PTO is awful. The company prides itself on the "Jet-Set" lifestyle yet you don't even begin accruing vacation time until the beginning of your fourth month of employment. The accrual rate is 0.83 days per month. In other words after being with the company for 4 months you will have almost 1 entire day of vacation! YAY! Vacation can not be used during black out periods, and does not role over therefore any accrued vacation between February and October must be used prior to Thanksgiving. You will continue to accrue during black out period but these days must be used before February of the following year as they do not role over. When they say 2 weeks paid vacation, your first fiscal year will actually only give you 6.64 days of regular vacation, 3 sick days, and 3 personal days. It is also very challenging to take a full vacation as the company does not often approve consecutive days off. The bonus structure is the worst I have seen in retail as you make millions for the company and maximum bonus is $3000 per year if you hit every month 15% above plan. Plan is often +50% or more from LY meaning to reach your max bonus the expectation is on average to beat LY by +80% or more. Finally, the company is extremely unethical. After you have already quit your previous job and accepted their offer they reveal during training that a core competency is to gain access to retail partner information without your retail partner's knowledge (aka stealing info). If you are caught seeking this information it is your name on the line, not Michael Kors. Corporate will not even give you your LY sales numbers which are required in your daily recaps. The whole position needs an entire restructure. If I had it to do over again I would have NEVER left my previous job.
