Pros
This was a great stepping stone, they give the management staff free reign creatively and it pays off when the stores do well. The commision rate earned by management and full time employees was good considering the price of the product. The co-workers for the most part were great we all got along very well and enjoyed working together. They tend to hire people who are sales driven and the environment in the stores reflects that. For a company that still has leaps and bounds to go it helps that the customer's are great, very passionate about the product and from a commission standpoint the product sells itself!
Cons
The pay was well below market value given that this is a globally recognized fashion brand. The company is owned and operated in Canada by people who have no real sense of today's retail market who really need to get with the times. They are unable to keep good staff because they are not willing to compensate talent accordingly - undervalued employees and gossiping is something you will find in every single store location. When I was hired here I trained myself and used what I had learned from previous companies I had worked for to make sure I was successful given the limited training that was provided to me. There was no growth above being a Store Manager no matter what positions they said they would "create" - it was evident because the "district supervisor" was not actually fully integrated into the role, having to manage new store openings and work 12 hour days to keep the stores in the GTA from "falling apart" because they didn't seem to trust the employees that were there. The supervisor for the GTA was completely overwhelmed by the pressure put on them from upper management (head office) to the point where they regularly had nervous breakdown's and crying fits in the stores. This individual is under qualified and far too emotionally involved in their role making them difficult to approach and impossible to respect. They lack in proper HR practices in relation to how they screen potential candidates and why they choose to let people go.