Great co-workers, inconsistent hours, cut staff - Anonymous employee Michaels Employee Review

3.0
Aug 4, 2011
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-My co-workers are amazing! Sometimes it gets pretty hard to juggle a million tasks at once but when you juggle those tasks while laughing and getting encouragement, you feel really loved. It feels great to come to work most days. -The management at my store really cares about the people they employ. The Manager and Co-Manager really try to create a friendly environment. They feel for the employees that have been screwed over by corporate and they are very open to changing your schedule for urgent reasons.

Cons

- Despite the fact that my Managers are great people, they aren't very good at communicating new information to us. I sometimes found out about new promotions and policys over the sound system that's supposed to just inform customers. Sometimes the system says "see a store associate for more details" and, honestly, I wouldn't know anything because it was never explained even minorly. -The hours are absolutely wacked. I'm getting more hours now but I was once given only 4 hours a week for a month. Some are still in that position. My hours this week have been 9am-2pm. 5:30pm-9:30pm. 5pm-9:30pm. 12pm-6pm. I can't really plan anything in my personal life because the hours are so weird! And we only have a heads up a week before, makes it hard to keep track of when you have work too. -When I'm working, I'm typically on the floor. I usually work close and so far the most people i've had working that shift with me is three. one on the floor, one on resister, one closing manager and one person in framing. It's really really hard to recover the floor, take customers to products, and put back returns when your on resister helping out with the busy lines. I typically have a 30 or a 15 minute break but I almost never take it because theres just so much to do! -There are so many design flaws in the store. There are only two sizes of bags and the biggest one is not big enough to hold some of the medium sized merchandise in the store. The bags are also too thin and I find myself double bagging almost everything. The counters are way too small as well and the resisters are flipped into all kinds of crazy directions which causes confusion for the customers. The aisles are too small and some of the aisles aren't numbered which makes it really hard to direct customers to places. -The new Store of the Future cut some really good people. One person in particular should have gotten the new position but instead she was demoted and someone else, who didn't deserve it frankly, got the job. Whoever did the hiring process obviously didn't talk to anyone who knew their choice for the position. We all would have recommended someone else.

Explore other reviews about Michaels

5.0
Jul 17, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Environment is beautiful and safe, Team is very helpful,

Cons

no cons, its that good!

2.0
Jun 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some great co-workers, employee discount, on site office benefits including a gym and cafe for breakfast/lunch, full suite of employee benefits at reasonable prices

Cons

Ridiculous amount of stress. Retail in general is often stressful but the amount of stress at Michaels is unnecessary and over the top. Constant last-minute changes by leadership to creative, promotions, products, and any other kind of changes. Things will be finalized and signed off on and delivered, and somebody will make a change at the last minute and things are constantly having to be redone. People are worn down and worn out. It’s the highest turnover rate of any place I’ve worked in retail at the corporate office. I’ve seen people take jobs and be gone within weeks. Leadership in some departments are extremely micromanaging and controlling even with employees that are tenured and have multiple years of experience. The stress level for both tenured and new employees is very high. Projects get discussed over and over and over again, decisions are made and then revisited again after decisions were made making delivery late and causing people to work unnecessarily in order to fix things that could’ve been done correctly the first time. The company tries really hard to make the workplace fun and offer activities, motivation, and incentives. Unfortunately they don’t offset what the environment is like working inside with some of the teams and expectations to actually deliver the work. Would not recommend.

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