Upper management is very difficult, with many unreasonable/unrealistic individuals making arbitrary and often meaningless/pointless demands on their staff.
Very little incentive for the amount of responsibility and having to wear suits every day.
Corporate structure is rife with micromanagement. and
Horrible pay rate.
Jos. A. Bank used to pay their employees an hourly rate plus 3% commission on all sales. Then in 2006 the company decided to revoke the 3% and switch to a somewhat complicated pay scheme which all but removes any incentive to sell in smaller stores. This scheme consists of what they call a "sales draw" which they tout as a "commission based sales position" (it barely qualifies as one, unless you work at one of the few big city stores with very high volume.) At $8.50 an hour and a 5.5% "draw percentage" you must sell more than $6,200 in one week just to get to the point of being able to make any extra money above and beyond your $8.50 hourly rate. (Make no mistake, at Jos. A. Bank sale prices, that's a LOT of sold product, and a lot of sweat and brain power spent.) For example, if you sell $7,000 in one week at 40 hours, all you are paid in addition to your hourly rate is an extra $40 (the difference between the draw amount and your actual sales for the week, multiplied by 5.5%). The biggest scam about this "sales draw" is that you get NO COMMISSION AT ALL on the first $6,200 you sell, ONLY on the amount you sell ABOVE the draw amount. So when it comes down to it, there is almost no incentive at all to really do your best to sell. So basically, all you are paid for roughly 48 out of 52 weeks of the year is your hourly rate of $8.50, which makes it hard to justify staying employed with them, considering you must wear impeccably clean and presentable suits/dress clothes every day, which is very expensive to maintain on near poverty level wages. My gross pay is around $18,000 a year.
Also, the company does not give anywhere near an affordable employee discount on Jos. A. Bank merchandise, yet they constantly urge employees to wear their clothing.
The upper management treats their store employees and managers with little consideration, respect or courtesy in job related matters or when it comes to your family and personal life. Store managers especially must walk on eggshells at all times, and be at the beck and calll of upper management for any reason at any time, or risk dismissal for even the slightest reason.
I overall agree with another post relating to Jos. A. Bank on this site as well. I just felt the need to elaborate a bit more on the most important aspects of working for them.
