Pros
- Many of the employees are stellar! They live and breath for the co-op and the customers who spend there money with us. - The pro-deals are pretty awesome (you may need a second job to support your pro-deal fund.) - The company’s 401k is absolutely incredible! They don’t match, instead they just put in. The most I’ve seen them contribute was almost 14% which is really insane. - Insurance is alright, something I like is they offer the same two plans for ALL employees regardless of your position in the company. More info can be found on google with you type in ‘REI for your benefit’ - Vacation is pretty average from what I’ve read, it all depends on how long you’ve worked for the company and if your full time or part time. - I’m a fan of our CEO and his get it done attitude, I just wished it translated down to the retail level..
Cons
- Work life balance really isn’t a thing... as I’m sure as most companies do REI has different pay bands for different areas. Some of these pay bands seem to do a pretty good job at supporting folks and making it so they don’t have to work another job (depending on your position.) Others not so much.. basically even in a management position expect to need to work another PT job if you are the sole/main provider of your family. The thing that gets me most about this is REI promotes and encourages its staff to go outside and adventure in your own way - promoting a work life balance. However seeing as most employees need to have another job (including myself) just to make basic ends meet (food, shelter, transportation, phone and that’s pretty much it..) vacation time and days off are used to work more, not get out and adventure. If REI really wants to promote a work life balance the need to again reevaluate there pay structure seeing how so many companies are starting 2-3$ higher than our starting pay. Or stop promoting the balance. - There is a lack of ownership with some (my) of the Store Managers that is rather frustrating, I don’t understand how they get away with some of the things that happen. I’ve often spoken with HR regarding something and 95% of the time I feel as if they do little to nothing rather than help work mediate the issue. I’ve certainly learned a lot in particular to thing I could/should be doing differently but I have yet to see any changes from my supervisor. - Smaller stores seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to payroll. When our payroll is ‘tight’ it is really tight especially when you see a rush of some kind. This often leads to employees feeling overworked and undervalued. In contrast I’ve visited larger stores who seem to always have staff hanging out chatting with each other (I know they have there rushes too) or having the luxury of spending ample time with a single customer rather than multitasking with 4+ customers. - I used to think REI provided a great learning environment for those wanting to grow within the company. Some store managers may be good at this, but I’ve seen my Store Manager change multiple peoples minds due to the way they execute things/manage conflict and ultimately making it so someone who wanted to grow within the company left the co-op to pursue other ventures. As someone who once was impassioned about growing with REI (as were one of my peers) neither of us have any desire to progress while under our current store manager. You’d think this might be a wake up call to someone hire up... - There is really no gear repair for REI branded items, so if you have a piece of REI branded gear needing to be fixed, your pretty much out of luck. This does not instill much confidence in the REI brand seeing as rather than sending it in to get fixed your kinda out of luck which seems to be incredibly unsustainable and not great for the environment. We should have something like Patagonia where we can send product in for customers to get repaired at the cost of shipping one way.