-the biggest con is that retail hours are sales based. It feels like an archaic system that makes it hard to get hours in the winter time since sales drop (minus holiday shoppers) and storms cause early closings (especially in the New England area) so be prepared to have a second job to fall back on when things slow down.
-Benefits were stripped a couple years ago, despite that I wish New Balance would get on board with other companies to include mental health days as part of their absentee program (I feel guilty for potentially “wasting” a sick day just because I may feel burnt out or depressed and for that reason I often go to work trying to push through the day even if it means motivation suffers) even if it means putting limits on mental health days to prevent abuse (such as three a month or something). I feel like having this would lessen quite a bit of the con listed below*
And while New Balance is partnered with Marathon Health, they are more about biometrics and physical wellness rather than (mental/emotional) wellness councilors.
I also wish that there was better training in regards to recognizing signs of depression and recognizing signs of panic attacks and how to respond to panic attacks as I feel that it would not only help employees but potentially customers (guests) as well if one were to have a sudden attack.
-*Because this is a brand company with two divisions (factory and retail) it very much feels like if one suffers it also impacts the other half because of the generality if being under the same umbrella. Rumor has it benefits were stripped because of call outs from factory workers and that means retail workers feel the pinch as well.
-While most of the team leads I met were friendly, pressure to sell and focusing on guest service while still having the expectation of multi tasking on tasks (only to be accused of not paying attention to guest sometimes) can leave one feeling overwhelmed and like their best isn’t good enough for standards. And when one decides to drop everything and practice guest service only to be denied and the employee tries to be more present by doing minimal activities to continue being in the area the employee is accused of poor time management.
-An example of the above being an employee writing a restock and seeing there’s customers on the floor so employee waits until floor is cleared out before heading to stockroom in which a team lead asks how busy it was and after explaining the floor is empty getting a response of “it better be because you shouldn’t be down here if not.” Seems like a losing situation either way. Solution to be listed in Advice to Management.**