There is no effective avenue to address dishonesty by supervisors. Managers stonewall on behalf of fellow members of store management teams in the face of conduct clearly at odds with the stated standards of ethics and behavior elaborated by the company. In short, notwithstanding the standards found in the written materials of the company, R.E.I. is just another retail operation employing rather limited and, often, not very bright or ethical, store managers and supervisors. The reputation of the company is window dressing and employees are subject to all of the underhanded, childish management conduct for which the retail industry is so rightly known.
Employee evaluations are founded on pretexts and lies; whether to satisfy the ego or political goals of the manager in question, or to keep a cap on labor costs, or both, you may never know. An employee is made to understand implicitly that taking issue with such an evaluation, whether orally or through comments to the evaluation, will be less than helpful to their cause. Awards are dispensed by the managers to reward loyalty to them and to facilitate the achievement of other goals within the company, such as individual advancement, and do not have reference to the stated standards and processes for determining recipients of such awards and recognition.
To a terribly disappointing degree, R.E.I. is simply a fraud with respect to its much ballyhooed philosophy and values concerning its treatment of employees, at least at the retail store level. If you work at an R.E.I. store, make no mistake: you are regarded as fungible, of little value, and your contribution will be recognized and rewarded only if, and to the extent, your supervisor finds it useful.to him or her at the time. If you are being treated poorly or unfairly, there is not really anything you can do about it.
Next, and less importantly, but providing additional illustration of the endemic problems, scheduling policies concerning allowing a weekend day off are not followed and reviews are not held when due. Sometimes they are held many months after they are due. If this happens to you, and a supervisor is embarrassed over it, well, YOU can count on paying for his or her discomfiture on that, and future, reviews.
Everything that is wrong with working at our R.E.I. store is caused by the bad character of the managers. They range from being simply weak, to childishly glad-handing, to actually dishonest in their intercourse with employees. Think of a middle-school yearbook staff, and you will have an idea of the caliber and childish conduct of the managers of the store. During this difficult economic period, they are garnering benefits from a great corps of employees and pat themselves on the back for the results enjoyed by the store. I assure you that folks are going to leave, and are trying to get out now. The store managers and supervisors are too dim to realize this or even care. The attitude of the greater company is of no moment, because they are inaccessible to and, so, impotent, as far as the situation of store employees is concerned.
All in all, what a disappointment this company is.
