Looks Good From the Outside - Store Manager DAVIDsTEA Employee Review

Work life/balance was incredibly poor. Working open to close or more than 40 hours a week is common in many stores no matter what lies are said by Upper level management and/or corporate. When you are salaried it is an unspoken rule. Many Store Managers do work at home or stay longer because the computers in the store are incredibly slow and old and are not conducive to doing work for long periods of time. The computers are the register computers and even if you are doing an important admin task with a deadline if a customer comes in they are your focus. Hours to schedule or based on sales targets more money you make the more hours you have but also is the inverse. This leads to a lot of one part coverage on SMs and ASMs so you can have more coverage hours for high peak days like weekends. Burn out and turnover are high due to low pay versus the amount of responsibilities. The job can be labour intensive especially when it comes to the cleaning aspect of the job. People can get hurt doing things like shipment because they have to race to get the product off the floor so customers don't see. Shifty corporate personnel who don't take feedback or concerns as seriously as they should. The field has the most contact with customers yet that resource is not utilized enough and it shows. DT trades on the NASDAQ for less than $2 which. They expanded too rapidly and want to quietly close some stores to offset the losses. The lack of transparency and chaos at corporates also breeds distrust for retail employees. The former CEO sued the founder when they could not agree on what their vision for DT's future. With all this chaos the company took a hit of 10 million dollars just this quarter to add to the previous lackluster quarters. So much pressure on sales by DMs to the stores because it now becomes the responsibility of the field to pick up burdens from big mistakes at the corporate level which is next to impossible when there's not enough marketing invested for stores. Favoritism and gossip does take place so always be mindful of what you say no matter what even in times of frustration because it can bite you in the end. DM emphasize taking ownership but could not do the same for their mistakes and instead shift the blame to stores. Creates a work structure that breeds distrust and ultimately will effect productivity. Pay versus your responsibilities was poor. When you are salaried it starts to mean nothing when you break it down to how many hours you work versus how much you are paid you will see the disparity. Ridiculous wage makes it hard to retain talent. It is slightly above minimum wage and the amount of work that you do versus what you get paid makes it hard for the job to be attractive. If its your first job you won't know better but it does give you a foundation for good work ethic. Quality of merchandise has taken a hit and many customer returns due to defective product. Sampling in extreme weather is a mistake and lead to dangerous outcomes. Outdated technology and training program which employees have to basically unlearn when they get in store for in-store training.