Poor senior management. Everyone in that organization is over-jobbed. For example, the current VP of Stores has previous regional management experience, but has never run a complete retail division before. My regional manager had only previous DM experience etc.. This was a similar pattern across the division.
Poor merchanidsing/product changes. Lucky has done a poor job of listening to customer feedback regarding product in the stores. What was once a fun, hip lifestyle brand, now echos that of Gap, JCrew, and at times even Ralph Lauren.
Little to no respect for its employees. There are only two FT positions in the store (if the store is high volume) and payroll has been cut down to 165hrs a week. That is enough coverage for one manager and one associate on the floor at all times. (Try having 40 customers in your store and 2 of you). Now I get that payroll is the number one controllable expense for a company, but your are also expected to process your 100 boxes of shipment (all of which you have to remove price tags on because of a merchandising decision that was made to "help" the stores but instead creates more work) and execute a major floorset change with no additional hours to use. This can put store managers in a bit of a stressfull situation. Its no wonder that every district is in the red by thousands of dollars on their P&L statements.
No HR competence. A store manager was recently fired due to an event that happened in her store while on medical leave. There is a lawsuit pending.
Poor PT associate benefits. As a store manager. I was required to have at least 15 associates on staff, however when you do the math (165 hrs- 40 for me, 40 for my ASM, 20 for my 2 PT supervisors) that left me with 45 hours to split between 15 part time associates. So I was challenged to "continue to hire the best" yet I couldn't pay the "best" more than $9 an hour AND if they were lucky enough, they might have been able to get more than 1 shift a week. Needless to say, the employee turnover rate is attrocious.
This was by far the worst mistake I've ever made in joining an organization. It wasn't until I started with my new company that I remembered what it was like to have a boss that supported your own growth and development, and to really enjoy coming to work.
