Overworked with little recognition - Assistant Manager DSW Employee Review

1.0
Oct 26, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Decent brand names, although most of it now is dsw private label shoes ( made by ALDO, which means it’s crap) 3 weeks vacation to start for full time/managers Discount WAS good until they changed it to rewards I enjoyed some of my part time staff Decent pay as an assistant

Cons

As an assistant manager, there was a crazy amount of workload, usually we would receive emails or notifications literally at the last minute to completely change everything. Layoffs/ elimination of positions throughout the company,( one management position per store) starting at the top- I’m not sure replacing people that have been with Dsw for 20 yrs with someone from Nordstrom, which is a completely different ball game makes any sense. The district/regional managers were all tight with Human Resources, which means any sort of issue sent on the “anonymous” hotline was squashed immediately and not taken seriously. Threats of being written up were constant even though we did the work of ten people, often times the work of our manager too. I would advise against working for dsw, like most of the other reviews. Especially in a management position, it’s not worth it.

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5.0
Jun 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The job it self is easy and not very fast pass.

Cons

Not always easy to get time off.

2.0
Jul 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

30% Employee Discount, sometimes around the holidays they'll have an additional for employees. Sometimes you'll get along with other associates.

Cons

- Poor hours, which goes both ways, you could either get not enough or too many hours. I was pulling around 30hrs a week for the first few months when I first got hired. - No appreciation or acknowledgment if you're actually doing the work and not just focusing on looking good for the customers. - Poor management. No communication in between the superiors, none of the updates they get (as far as procedures and what not) get passed down to the employees that actually need to use that information. - You won't be able to do anything about thieves, other than make them known to managers, and attempt to watch them while juggling a thousand other things. - No room for growth unless you've gotten hired through nepotism or you're willing to lose your soul for that job. - No adequate raises. I started at 15.50$ and ended at 17.70$ and I worked there for nearly 4 years (2 months shy) putting in a ton of effort.

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