Going Downhill - Customer Service Dover Saddlery Employee Review

Good discount and flexible hours

Hourly pay could be better, but discount makes up for it

The one star rating is reflective of executive management only. For the people in Retail (and those who supported retail from Littleton - Inquries, IT, Warehouse, Payroll etc) I would give more than 5 stars if I could. I'm so grateful for everything you taught me. The people you work with in the store - coworkers, vendors, and clients. People who are passionate about what they do and horses in general. This is why I stayed for 13 years, far longer then I should have. There is nothing like getting to work with (and learn from) people who share the same passions and interests. The opportunity to learn about an industry I loved. When I started with Dover (beginning of 2009), the companies focused on was on educating its employees. Its reason why retail associates are called product advisors. Our job was to help clients find the best products for them not just push certain products. We were able to spend time learning from vendors and industry experts. We were given opportunities to travel to events and other locations to learn for those environments which allowed us to better help our own clients. Put one horse person in a room and you will get 20 different opinions on any one subject. We developed meaningful relationships with our clients and got to be part of their journey. Getting to development meanfull relationships with clients. Getting to celebrate their triumphs and share in their loses. Watching their faces as they tell you about a recent lesson or first experience. Seeing the confidence when they put on show clothes for the first time. Learning that a product you recommend and researched has made notice improvement in their horses well being. Whatching kids go from pre-first up/down lesson jitters to heading off to ride on a college team or even developed their own business. You get to feel like you played a small part in their journey.

Pay - Dover relies on having employees who are a part of the horse industry and have spent time learning about it before they even walk in the door. However, they refuse to pay for the years of experience they demand from their employees. Over the years I can’t tell you how many times I was told by a executive level director (with no equine experience) that Dovers ideal employees were “bored housewives who just want something to do”. It only got worse when it was sold to venture capital with no equine knowledge. I remember one short lived CEO sharing that their former boss had horses in an attempt to impress upon us that they knew what a horse was. I'm by no means stating that the CEO should be a top level equestrian. However, when catering to highly specific and niche industry, having more people at the executive level who are involved in the equine world or at least people with curiosity and interest in it, could only serve to create mor growth opportunities. Absolutely no growth/career opportunities for retail associates. Once owned by venture capitalists, opportunities to learn began to shrink drastically and the focused on product knowledge started to disappear. At the store levels, managers worked very hard to educate associates but with fewer and fewer resources. It might not seem important but when you’re selling (or buying) critical safety equipment, the person responsible for fitting said equipment needs to know what they’re doing. Additionally, as everyone was viewed as replaceable, there was very little management development support other then the store managers supporting and helping each other. A dear friend, who left not long after I did confided that her annual reviews had been copy/pasted from previous years. Despite knowing many people who "came up through Dover",if they were in retail (and not locate at or within a 50 mile radius of corporate) a store manager was as far as they could go. Deceptive policy practices. When I left, another senior coworker left two weeks after me after providing notice. Please note that the Employee Handbook hadn’t been updated in several years. When I left my healthcare benefits ended at the end of the month. When she left, she was told that her healthcare benefits ended that day (with maybe 48hrs notice). When she asked why and stated the Handbook Policy, she was told that there was new Handbook in the works that changed the policy. A Handbook no one at the retail level had seen or sign an agreement on. Executive level managements complete disregard for the lived experience of its Retail Team and the equine industry as a whole. One the smartest things they did in couple years before I left, was rehire and promote an experienced, well respected manager. It gave a lot of us hope. I truly hope that it signaled a change in attitude toward front line employees, but sadly it doesn't seem like it has. No concept of work/life balance. Not shocking for retail but it was really bad. I had friends who were fought when needing to take medical leave. There was an incident where I was so ill (but couldnt call out because there wasn’t coverage) that a client intervened and sent me to the ER where I was hospitalized for a week. Some many coworkers have similar or worse stories.