The company has taken a spiral downhill since being purchase by the German company The Otto Group (former owners of Eddie Bauer & Spiegel) The company was an investor in C&B about 10 years ago and really helped Crate expand its brand and locations. The company the Gordon and his wife built was a wonderful company to work for based on people and product. It seemed the company cared for you back in the day.
Now that the Otto Group owns 100% of Crate & Barrel, drastic changes have been made in policy, structure and pay. In efforts to be the most profitable, the company and the new CEO has started with the C&B store by ripping the soul out of it. Veteran employees of 10, 15 20+ years have been reduced to a number. Positions cut, pay drastically cut for some. Employees were called into one on one meetings with an ultimatum of loosing your position and taking either a sales or a stockroom position or a severance pay to leave equal of one week per year that you worked there. I you decided to stay, everyone is now equal and all salaries are equal within a small range. If you were at a higher pay rate you got cut to the ceiling of he range with the understanding that you would never make any more than that. For some people that cut was 30%.
Changes on the floor have reduced the sales staff to robots wearing earpieces for all communication that consist of 20 people talking in your ear at the same time. Everything now has a process card on how to do everything clocking in, to using to phone, to having your bag checked at night when you leave. Your opinion does not mater, all that matters is that you follow the process cards. I do agree in wearing name tags so that the customers know who you are and that you stand out as an employee, however we now have to wear a smiley face stick on our name tags so "that the customer will leave with a smile" As a 50 y/o I find that degrading and humiliating.
The company has come up with tactics that prevent the commissioned furniture from reaching their goals including moving furniture out of the the furniture sales floor onto housewares sales area, requesting that the non commissioned staff sell furniture (without earning commission), and having furniture staff push coffee makers and basically be a barista to customers.
Managers are very much in a clique, power hungry and make fun of you behind your back.
I do feel very strong about customer service and feel that I provide it, however the new changes have brought the store moral to an all time low with most very unhappy. It's no longer a career, but just another retail job.
