This could go on for pages and pages. First of all, I should have known to turn and run fast when the CEO Aaron Walters loaded his lip with a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco and took the stage at our Store Managers conference. He literally spoke to a room full of us female store managers at a national conference while citing bible verses and at the same time spitting tobacco into a styrofoam cup. That image, as appalling, confusing, and honestly disrespectful as it is, will tell you everything you need to know about this company. Aaron speaks of limitless expectations he demands from his store leaders and staff, yet he can’t take a break from a disgusting habit to address us in a professional way? Furthermore, what would happen if one of our ladies was greeting customers at the front door and they just lit up a cigarette? Would that be respectful or acceptable? The answer is NO. I have been to conferences for multiple other companies and have never witnessed anything more unprofessional. There is a lot of comparison at this company to other brands like Disney and Chick Fil-A, but I am quite sure that Truitt Cathy and Robert Iger are not spitting tobacco (or smoking, drinking, etc.) while they are addressing their fleet in a national setting.
Inside the store the expectations are HIGH. The target it constantly changing. Tasks from corporate are coming in rapid fire, then Aaron sends emails saying you aren’t focused on the guests enough and there’s too much tasking.
Some of the district managers are a joke. The company grew fast and they were promoted way beyond their talent or skill level. This leads to daily frustration of not being able to get support, clear direction and at times basic answers to questions. As a company the corporate leaders want us to be like the major players such as Apple, Nordstrom, Chick FIL-A, and DISNEY. The problem is, we are small in comparison. What works for those companies won’t always work for us due to our scale. Here is just one example; in the month of November we were directed by Aaron to implement an assessment to all applicants. We use this assessment on a pass/fail basis. Basically, if you don’t score high enough we can’t interview you. First of all, we don’t get a lot of applicants. By implementing this in November we were hobbled at the store level. This is a time where we need to hire a lot of additional help to run our stores. Unfortunately, only about 5% of applicants score a passing score eliminating most of those who apply. This lead to almost all of our stores being severely understaffed for the holiday season. Instead of listening to his stores, Aaron sent out threatening emails and basically said he wasn’t changing his mind about this process. It was OUR fault for not being staffed. Faith based? Where? Do you think Jesus would have given a written test to his disciples? The whole premise of the Christian faith is about giving people chances and opportunities to do better and live for God. I have women coming into my store crying. They tell us stories about how God has changed their life, they sought us out as a place to work because of our morals and faith. Then, they applied with us and couldn’t even get an interview? It’s an awful, hurtful process and doesn’t reflect God or faith in any way. Being on the front lines and having to face the people we can’t interview is one of the most embarrassing and shameful things I’ve ever had to face in my entire retail career. Also, it is a REQUIREMENT that you have a 4 year bachelors degree to even get an assistant manager interview regardless of experience. You could have 20+ years of experience in the retail space and if you have no degree, too bad, you’re not good enough to work for us.
There are no hard policies. No shipment management systems. Shipment comes every day. You never know what you’re getting, and its a clumsy process at best. You’ll get about a dozen apology emails from the CEO about how they messed up and either ordered wrong product, or product at the wrong time of year. Yet again, this is due to people unqualified for positions they hold. When you watch the welcome video you’ll see a former store manager talk about being promoted to a buyer role with no experience at all. This is exactly where the big mistakes are killing this company. There are people graduating from universities with degrees in buying every day, but instead we have promoted unqualified staff to those roles. This is an area where we SHOULD be seeking specialized degrees to avoid these problems that keep occurring.
Communication is horrible from the top. HR will take days to get back to you for anything. You’ll never talk to a human, you have to leave several messages to get an answer. Even when you do, it’s usually long after when you needed the answer.
I love the idea of giving back and it is what drew me to Altar’d State. We do have an awesome service project in Peru and I love that. However, we constantly say we are better than other retailers because of this, yet other retailers also give to charities. Actually, all of the major retailers have a philanthropic arm and when you do the math, they give back more money than we do both in dollar amount and percentage. You can look this up online as all major retailers release a financial statement each year. In comparison, we give pennies on the dollar to what they do.
Finally, you will never stop hearing about the “great place to work” survey. We pay into a service from fortune magazine to be reviewed as a company. We continue to make the top 100 retail list. We ride that title so hard. What no one tells you is that over half of our competitors don’t even participate so the entire result is skewed. It’s not a comprehensive review of all retailers. So yet again, there’s always a little bit that is untrue in what we say and do at Altar’d state.
