Williams-Sonoma, Inc. reviews

I feel for anyone who still works there at WS or PB or any shared services. If you are considering getting a job here - really, think twice - it's not at all a good place to be. I would wait until they change CEOs - hopefully this will happen soon. I hope that the Board of Directors will see what she is doing to this company and do something about it. When I arrived at WS years ago and Howard Lester was still CEO things were different. There was integrity, there were less VPs taking up all of the corporate payroll budget, people were recognized for their hard work. Now - it's every man or woman for themselves. They promote VPs constantly and then they don't allow teams to have enough lower level employees to get the job done effectively. They go on hiring freezes quite often. The only way to get the resources you need is to be in the "in crowd." This is a very very toxic environment and I highly discourage folks from starting a career here - there are plenty of other more professional places to work. The CEO makes no bones about it - the store managers are completely to blame for all negative trending business in brick and mortar in her eyes and she is ready to fire anyone at the drop of a hat. Everyone is replaceable in her mind. This message cuts through loud and clear to those around her which breeds a culture of back stabbing and blame-storming. It's amazing how many people have jumped ship this year alone - people who have been with the company for a long time. People who have even recently been honored with high awards - just gone. From all levels - SVPs on down to Managers.

I read these reviews before I applied. I thought that these were just one-off experiences. No, they're not. I have years of customer service experience, and my first day working for this company was the most unprepared I have ever been on the phones. We were rushed to complete modules while our jobs were threatened. There were no demos, no mock phone calls, no roleplays. All of this were definitely possible with the features our Adobe Connect classroom was capable of. I left a good job for this, and now I am more stressed than I have been in a while. Two weeks of training should have certainly been enough time. The idea that I work at a company that is throwing 100 new employees on the phones, weekly, to get yelled at by angry upper-middle-class customers is bizarre. The idea that I work for a company that won't even acknowledge their failures, or try to retrain employees is baffling. You should have outsourced your call center to a business that has experience answering calls. Also, there was randomly announced mandatory overtime and my shift can be extended at a whim. I am an adult, I've worked too hard in this world not to be able to work a simple 40-hour a week, consistent shift. I probably won't be back tomorrow.