francesca's reviews

Bonuses have been cut twice in the last two years. Last year they cut bonuses for everyone except for ABMs and BMRs and chnaged the pay out amount. This year they cut the amount again... Majority of BMRs received less then a 3% increase this year(even with an outstanding review, and goals met),which was the minimum previously. At holiday this year all BMRs were required to not take their holidays days and normal days off resulting in one day off a week. Post holiday you were given your "COMP" days back, however we only had 4 weeks to take them, and there was a lot of mandatory work days during that time resulting in a lot of BMRs losing their "COMP" days. Mandatory overtime during nonpeak times. New scheduling requirements require BMRs to only take one Saturday off a month, work 9 hour shifts on Mondays, and Saturdays and if you take Saturday off you have to work your 9 hours shift on Friday. Company is on new kick where all projects are required to be done prior to opening, however they give little to no hours to cover this. They expect BMRs to come in early, but don't try to leave at 8 hours because you will get in trouble for not working your whole shift. You will receive emails stating new policies regarding scheduling that go into affect they day they email, so if you have children to pick up or plans you will have to figure something out. Work an 8 hour shift but clock out a minute before scheduled time out? You'll be written up. We used to get paid BI-Weekly then they chnaged it to Weekly and now we are back to BI-Weekly. If you and your team win a contest it takes almost two months for it to show up on your pay check. Speaking of pay BMRs make less hourly then the ABMs once mandatory overtime is factored in. With a High turnover rate with BMRs and snooty upper management store manager positions can go upwards of 6 months with out a BMR resulting in other stores covering, high turnover and theft. When hiring for positions in your boutique you must get a DM to perform a second interview for all positions which takes forever. Speaking of hiring, DMs want you to hure candidates for lets say an ABM that already have years of assistant or manager experience but they only offer between $10 and $12 for ABMs making the position impossible to fill. DM will never come to your boutique because they have so much turn over at the DM level that for the last two years any DM I have had has been overseeing multiple districts. Same applies for RM. Two weeks prior you will write a schedule and submitt it to your DM. The Tuesday before the week of the schedule you will get feedback from your DM until they approve it you can not post it. Resulting in your team having very little notice of their schedule. Previously we were to post two weeks in advance to assist the team with work/life balance and the ability for part timers to schedule with other jobs.

Something needs to be done with upper field management IMMEDIATELY. My District Manager (who was promoted from a Boutique Manager) is very passive aggressive, unprofessional, and full of herself. She lacks leadership, direction, and respect for her employees and unfortunately fails to see that the problems going on within the district are a result of this. Fear and intimidation are used as an approach to "manage". There is no support from the Regional Director's and my RD is just as bad as my DM at this point. They barely ever visit stores and/or communicate with teams and then lash-out when things aren't done to their "standards" of which are also not communicated nor written in the company's handbook of policies. The work environment of this company has become highly toxic, nothing like what is was 5 years ago. There are no succession plans in place for Boutique Managers. The new approach to customer service is driving business away. They don't understand that it is so easy to distinguish a genuine sales person from the robots who try to sell you. It's very hard to speak to the quality of the product because everything from jewelry, to clothing, to gift is made so cheaply. This place is crumbling and it's time to get out.