Pros
One of the top leaders in regards to pay and benefits within the high-end retail world. The stores are very nice and full of beautiful goods. Beyond this, there literally are no other pros to working for this company.
Cons
I can't speak on behalf of the company as a whole, as most of what I am expressing here is pertaining to issues I've experienced at my particular store, and more specifically, with that store's head manager. For the sake of anonymity I'm not going to specify any details of myself, the location of my store, or of my boss. I will just state that it's a free-staring Christian Dior Couture Boutique. Now, on to the numerous cons: A horrible associate discount, no work/life balance; I've worked 50-60 hour work weeks, every week, for six months straight, yet due to bad/lacking training coupled with unrealistic expectations from store and upper management, I can still never get caught up. The store is made up of rude and unprofessional management and sales associates who have the mentality of teenagers; they cry (literally and often) when a problem arises, and as a result, instead of management being straight forward and correcting the issue, some of the associates get coddled like children; this is solely because they generate huge amounts of sales for the company; in other words, if you're a top sales associate you can basically get away with whatever you want. Upper management and store management give employees unrealisitc goals in regards to sales goals and other tasks. The training program for new managers is almost non existent and does not continue--you're left to basically fend for yourself with no clear expectations set forth by store management. Often you get told you're doing a bad job with something even though store management is seriously lacking when it comes to outlining clear and concise expectations. Store management seems to make up rules as they go along, leading to frequent bouts of miscommunication with staff, which leads to management unfairly (and almost always in an unprofessional manner) disciplining staff. Alternatively, unless you're one of those top generating sales associates, you never get anything close to positive reinforcement. I've worked in high-end fashion retail in both sales and management roles for over 20 years and I have never in my life worked for a store manager as unprofessional as the one I currently work for. Words cannot even describe the juxtaposition of this person's crass unprofessional behavior towards their management staff coupled with the lax, babying unprofessional behavior their favorite employees receive. Oh, and if you enjoy being berated for something you "messed up on" in front of other employees, you'll love working at this store. As a non-salaried manger I'm prohibited, per company policy, from accessing my work email from my phone or from home. This is (I'm assuming, but the details in the handbook are vague) due to the company not wanting non-salaried employees working off of the clock. How does my store manager handle this? By constantly (and I mean almost several times daily) sending me work related, work required NOW, text messages, phone calls, and emails all to my personal phone/email. If I don't respond I get in trouble. If I do respond I'm (along with my manager) breaking company policy, not to mention Federal Labor Laws which prohibit non-salaried employees from working off of the clock. If I were salaried or if this were an occasional occurrence I'd take no issue with it. However, this type of thing happens before and after I've left the store and on my days off, as I previously stated, almost every day and sometimes as late as 11 at night. I've brought up all of this issues with my manager before in a formal meeting. My thoughts either get immediately (and of course in a rude, unprofessional manner) get shot down or I get a vague answer--sometimes I don't even get an answer, rather just an ambiguous sort of half nod. I have no idea what to think about my manager, other that they're literally a crazy person. I really don't think other Christian Dior locations are like the one I work at.