Cato Reviews

If I could give this place NO STARS I would! One of the selling points the company will tell you is that the hours are strictly from 8-5 which it considers to be great work life balance but the company doesn't offer any flex time. There are no opportunities to work remotely if needed. You can't change your hours if 9-6 works better for your schedule. Turnover is super high. The company is still using microsoft office 2007 and Adobe Illustrator CS4. Technology is super dated. The corporate office doesn't offer wifi for it's employees. If your job requires you to have a laptop it has to be plugged in with an ethernet cord to gain access; which defeats the purpose of having a laptop because a laptop was created with mobility in mind. The pay is Trash. Cato will not negotiate or even match your previous salary. Company culture just doesn't exist. It's the most boring place to work. Not enough human capital to support the amount of work that needs to be done efficiently and accurately because it can't fill open positions and retain employees because of low paying salaries. Working at CATO is like stepping back in time to 1985. I would only recommend this place to college students needing experience and/or older individuals who just want a place to hang out until retirement. Most Assistant Buyers have to work two jobs because the salary is only $30,000 annually. CATO does not offer tuition reimbursement like a lot of other companies. The job descriptions are a sick joke. They're only a paragraph long as if that's enough to give you a better understanding of what they job entails. Not much diversity. Company is super cheap! It cares more about its shareholders and bottom line than it does it associates. Communication is complete garbage. No one there has ever taken a course in email etiquette. Training doesn't exist!!! Don't expect to get trained on your job. You're just going to have to figure it out. All documentation is completely dated. It hasn't been updated in over 5 years at LEAST!

If they did a study, I bet this company would rank as one of the worst companies to work for in Charlotte. Cato is sinking and the CEO is too stubborn to do anything about it. Stores are closing left and right and the turnover is unlike anything I’ve seen before. The company also just recently had a huge lawsuit filed against them for discrimination and for some bizarre reason they STILL haven’t learned their lesson. I experienced discrimination first hand here and know women who have lists written out of all of the inappropriate things that have been said to them over their course of working for Cato. HR is useless and only cares about upper management. Prepare to spend 40+ hours a week in absolute misery. And if you’re on the lower end of the totem pole, be prepared to take the blame for everything, including decisions that were made in your department before you even started with the company. It’s an insult how little you are paid for the amount of work asked if you. And for some crazy reason upper management wonders why SO many people leave to work for Belk. They’re so bitter about it that they escort you out it you give your notice and say you’re going to work for them. If my review didn’t make it clear enough already, my advice to whoever is reading this... RUN. Run as fast as your legs will let you. I sure wish I had.