Pros
Annual complimentary eyewear, two pair every five years. Quarterly 70% off employee sale. Decent health benefits, dental benefits, 401K and pension plan.
Cons
The new CEO, Giorgio, is out of control. They brought him in to apparently increase profitability before the merger with Essilor. He has completely destroyed anything good about LensCrafters’ internal culture. He leads by fear and sends out threats to the entire company on a regular basis. It’s employees last at LensCrafters. I was there long enough to become fully vested in my pension plan (plus years more after that), and the last year was pure hell on earth. Store Market Managers are constantly in fear for their jobs, as we were told that managers not making the new unrealistic sales plans would no longer be with the company. Store Market Managers are essentially glorified pencil pushers. There are forms upon forms to fill out – every store has a tracking binder and managers and associates are required to track metrics on at least five different forms, many of them duplicating information from form to form. There is a dashboard that tracks much of the information (but not all), but you’re still required to log it all on daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly forms. And then you just throw the forms away. It’s completely insane. Then there are the bulletin boards, white boards, and dry erase posters that are required for tracking. You have to take pictures of all these boards and send them to regional management to ensure compliance. And if your boards aren’t colorful enough, you have to redo them. Some of these boards contain the same information that the tracking binder contains. While I was not personally in danger of losing my job for performance, I left because of the culture. This company is oppressive. The CEO is incredibly threatening. It’s no longer a company that puts employees first, or even close to first. Employees are treated as the least important part of the company, and they’re told they’re replaceable.