Basically everything.
You wonder why there’s all these customer reviews about Zara staff looking depressed? That’s because they are. The amount of work that is put onto staff and there is little to no reward for the effort..
Management will take all the credit from head office on a good day, but on a bad day that blame gets put onto the retail team and no responsibility is taken from the managers. No matter what it is - budgets, big deliveries, heavy foot traffic meaning a lot of recovery.
There is no worthy incentives. There used to be a profit share system, this was scrapped years ago. And team motivation has been down ever since. Some of the busiest periods at this store are the most mentally and physically draining, the only reward is simply being able to leave at the end of your shift.
The most that you might get is a Thankyou message followed by some emojis in the group chat, that’s it.
There are so many companies out there that will provide you with an atmosphere that makes you want to stay, incentives are huge for the retail staff where I now work.
Forget about store staff Christmas parties, who cares if you just worked the last year or so and went through however many busy sales periods. But the head office teams will absolutly spoil themselves, doing half the hard work for all of the reward.
The current store manager is racist. Very specifically will only offer promotion in store to staff of her own demographic background, if you’re not from the same country or speak her first language then you’ll be forgotten about and cast aside. Possibly even treated poorly aswell.
Some of the strongest team members of this store, simply because they are not of her own demographic, are essentially bullied. Hard work is not recognised in this store if you are anything other than her own background.
Opportunities would be given to certain staff by their department managers but the store manager would take it away, to then give that offer to another staff that suits her demographic profile.
Store manager is responsible for massive neglect towards one of the departments in this store, which it’s become known is a company wide issue by the store managers of other stores aswell. The staff in this specific department at highpoint get treated as if they are children who don’t know what they are doing (as a former manager of a different department I can confirm the team often worked hard and always prioritise their customer engagement), and overall support for that department is nil from the store manager.
I’ve since moved to a new company in an office type role but where I provide store support, and I see how much my company loves their store teams and the incentives that are provided are incredible. The differences they get as retail staff versus what Zara staff get is astounding, there should not be this big of a gap. The way our office gives praise to our stores is incredible, and it doesn’t just stop at the kind words.
There are better options for your career progression AND for your mental health. Zara is not worth any of that.
You WILL be over worked.
You WILL burn out.
You WILL be unappreciated and under valued, no matter how hard you’ve worked.
And you WILL be under paid in both salary/rate and incentives.
Seek other employment, please.
