National Vision reviews

They only look at sales, rewards bad behavior of employees, district managers routinely favor certain employees. 4 years ago I was offered a job with both this company and a stocking job at a big chain store at the same time. I had no optical experience and because I thought this was a better career opportunity plus was offering more I went with this company. What a mistake that was. The pay raises here are pretty bad. If you get .25 it is considered really good, I know several employees who are really good workers that have gotten half of that. A friend who was hired after me at this other store as maintence is now making more then I am. The company is always understaffed and even if you have requested time off, they will routinely say the needs of the company require you to cancel your personal plans to cover for someone else, usually at another store. Only after you are basically bullied into agreeing will you find out that half the time, your vacation is being cancelled because one of the more favored employees decided at the last minute that they wanted to take time off. Each store is open 7 days a week and will typically only have 3 employees. On non dr days you will be alone in the store for sometimes 6 to 8 hours. If you need a bathroom break, you have to close the store and rush to get back because if someone complains that the store was closed for several minutes, you will be in trouble. If you actually want to eat, most days you have to grab bites between customers and always make sure it is something that tastes good cold. There is a policy about no food or drinks on the sales floor. However with no break room, you have no choice but to sit at a side counter to eat. Again if someone complains, you will be threatened to get written up if they hear about it again. We work on commission and employees who routinely undermine and bad mouth other employees so that they can make all the sales are rewarded. An employee who is a team player, makes sure everyone at least has a chance to make a sale and takes the time to make sure ALL customers (including the ones who are coming in to pick up glasses, get glasses adjusted or repaired and thus will not result in a sale) are taken care of. I have seen employees deliberately ignore a customer who is standing there with obviously broken glasses and instead order someone else who is already working with a patient to go help them while he/she takes the customer who is actually purchasing. But since the pushy employee is an elite associate and makes lots of sales that is ok with the district manager.

Very Sales Oriented business. You have a daily sales and units (eyeglasses) goal that must be achieved and or exceeded. On top of your budgets, there are several indicators that you much achieve and exceed daily. Failure to do so will result in disciplinary action against you. They have a no fault absentee policy. If you miss work, regardless if you have a dr's note or not, it's an occurrence and they will write you up for it. A salaried manager is not a salaried manager. Typically when one is a salaried manager, they can work 10 hours or 100 hours and get paid the same. At National Vision, if you work 100 hours, you get paid for 40 hours, if you work 32 hours, and you don't have PTO or vacation, you get paid for 32 hours. Everything is to benefit them. As a manager, you are also required to work 45 hours per week min. This must be worked as 9 hour days. The Vision Centers inside Walmart does not have a break room There is no refrigerator, no microwave, no break room. You can either use Walmart's breakroom, or go out and buy lunch every day. You are only as good as you were yesterday. If you were producing amazing numbers in your store, and then start to have poor numbers, you will be written up. Again, this company is very numbers driven. When you go to Georgia for training, you will be working from 8am - 1am. You will not sleep, and again, are only being paid for your salary and not a penny more. When traveling, driving or flying on a Sunday is not considered extra time, because you are salary, you still get paid the same. Salaried Managers only get 1 Saturday off a month and are required to Close 2 nights a week. You can never take the last Saturday of the month off. This company is not a family friendly company. You rarely get two days off in a row. When first hired as a Salaried Manager, I was to work 40 hours a week. Beginning January 1, 2014, all Salaried Managers are required to work 45 hour weeks, which in turn was a $2.00 per hour pay cut. You have to make your schedules a month at a time and submit them to your District Manager for approval. There's a lot of micro management.