Don’t waste your talent on this company - Partner Uniqlo Employee Review

Short version: — Poor management — Toxic culture (no real accountability means favouritism and bullying run rampant, from the top down) — Little to no regard for employee safety/wellbeing (beyond what is legally demanded of them) — No recognition for what is a very physically and emotionally demanding job (if you’re lucky you’ll get a small symbolic gesture or a perfunctory “thank you for your hard work”) — Expat-dominated management structure effectively enshrines a glass ceiling for those who are not Japanese and/or male Long version: — Store management is, to put it bluntly, terrible. (With the occasional exception, but they never seem to last long.) No people skills are required to be a store manager at Uniqlo—it seems that the only job requirements are the ability to take tests and follow spreadsheets—which means that the people running the store are people who, at other companies, would have their careers cut short by HR after a string of bullying, discrimination and misconduct complaints. Managers (who are rotated somewhat frequently) rarely bother to learn anything about their staff as people or as workers, and rarely spend time on the floor working with them, which frequently results in floor staff being treated in a judgmental and condescending manner. This creates an environment of favouritism, where people who faithfully comply with management directives (even if they’re not great workers) will be rewarded over those who dare (even politely) question authority. In other words, it’s a personality cult without any semblance of personality (or humanity). — If you’re particularly unlucky, your floor and/or store manager will come from the Uniqlo Manager Candidate (UMC) program, through which fresh-faced (but not for long) university graduates are parachuted into the store and rapidly promoted up through the store’s byzantine hierarchy. While most of these candidates are quickly flushed out once they become aware of the absurd pressure and expectations (including lots and lots of overtime!) foisted upon them by a management team that has never heard of the phrase “employee turnover” in their lives, the ones that remain become poor managers by virtue of being trained by even poorer ones. (Granted, things may be different in the smaller stores.) But in my experience, a good number of these managers become lazy and lack respect for their staff, whereas leaders who work their way up gradually generally are more considerate toward staff (but are then shunned by management for not toeing the party line.) — As a floor staff member, you will find your list of responsibilities growing by the day, with little in the way of recognition or compensation. The company’s tight finances have meant that, in my time at Uniqlo, staff members who are primarily hired in a customer service role also have acquired the roles of loss prevention (which the company deems as not essential enough to maintain a small team of loss prevention professionals, but essential enough to use as a means of threatening staff that their shifts will be cut if losses get too high—disregarding the fact that fewer floor staff will likely contribute to higher losses), cleaners, app ambassadors, etc. Management will also find ways of making your day significantly more challenging, such as posting you at the entrance of the store for two hours at a time, where you are meant to both watch out for potential theft and replenish stock simultaneously. On top of this, the amount of stock on the floor is constantly increasing while the number of staff maintaining it remains the same (or decreases), which frequently leads to management blaming staff for not working hard enough despite having to do more work in less time than ever before. — As other reviewers have identified, a cabal of expats runs the company with absolutely zero interest in adapting the company to the local market. This extends to borderline illegal behaviour, as upper management has zero regard for the safety and well-being of their employees and will only act on these matters when forced to do so by government regulators. The company puts up a big front about acting ethically and recognising its social obligations, but fails to actually do so in any meaningful way. Case in point: the company’s HR department conducts a survey of its employees to gauge their satisfaction with their workplace, but the (by and large) negative feedback ultimately amounted to little more than a couple of HR training sessions for managers, as the higher-ups have little real interest in actually improving the company’s culture. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the company’s HR staff has left in recent months.) — The company is frustratingly cheap—how else do you enrich the wealthiest man in Japan—and will skimp on any and all supplies deemed as non-essentials. (May this be the last time I ever work for a company that considers rubbish bin liners too much of an expense.) Considering the volume and traffic of sales at the largest store in Melbourne, one would come to expect a shortened timeframe for the longevity of equipment and supplies (including the store fit-out itself, which is gradually falling apart in places), however, the company will only replace supplies if absolutely necessary, and has even gone so far as to blame the supposed underperformance of floor staff as the reason that suitable equipment cannot be supplied.