Keeping up with business trends but masquerading as a Retail Cooperative.
Pros
Employees are quality and provide great working environment. Company culture is inclusive and progressive. They try to do the right thing. Pay is adequate there is a lot of talk about work life balance. Selling environment is not pressured. Customer needs come first Strong employee personal relationships and connectedness regarding outdoor adventure and fun.
Cons
There is flux at the corporate levels of retail and it trickles down to the stores upsetting the flow at the store management/employee level. Employees /managers with time on the books are identified as not agile, not flexible, less creative with solutions and less cooperative. Managers are retained based on how they perform in the “new agile, we’re competing with Amazon” environment. Experience is seen as inflexibility and young managers who often have significantly less EI and sense of the needs of the employee teams and customer service are promoted past older managers who have stronger relationships and are more likely to be servant leaders. There are periodic clean outs of store managers with years of service. No explanation is given and they are replaced by less experienced and significantly less expensive short time managers. The culture presents as employee centered but just like every business it is fairly ruthless in terms of coaching and documenting. Employees MUST pay attention to coaching and respond. There are no second chances. Sales associate pay is fairly retail standard. Mostly start at minimum wage but the pay coupled with inconsistent hours makes getting a second job very difficult. If you are indolent, unfocused or not customer centered your hours will diminish until you leave on your own. On the positive side, good employees are rewarded with more hours.