Sleep Number by Select Comfort Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Sleep Number by Select Comfort full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – I have worked for Sleep Number for over 5 years, and in that time I have seen leadership and sales staff come and go. I have enjoyed working for Sleep Number up until the last 2 years, I have seen the company go from being driven to help change lives, to focusing more on profits, overloading customers with additional items that they may have no need for.
Sleep Number's dream is to be the worlds most beloved brand, but if your not creating a culture that is loved and appreciated by its strongest advocates "the employees" you can never grow to a level such as Apple.

Cons – Long hours, little to no recognition, a pay scale that is ever changing and becoming more focused on company profits and greed, than sharing the wealth with the people that drive the front line "sales staff".

Advice to Senior Management – Stop focusing on selling everything in the store to the customer, over loading them with pillows and mattress pads. The final step was the platinum rule training, which basically teaches your employees to read customer personalities and mimic them in order to gain there trust so you can get into there wallets.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sleep Number by Select Comfort full-time for more than a year

Pros – Customers really like the Sleep Number Bed

Cons – Corporate and Management never listens to employees

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Select Comfort makes a great product, the company continues to make great strides and the benefits are about average.

Cons – I think the number # 1 problem working for Select comfort at the SC plant and as an hourly employee from the production point of view is the level of respect shown by management, and the treatment towards hourly employees. Management has the idea that they can do what ever they want without any repercussions. Management often abuse their time off, leaving the employees and the plant unattended while the production employees are required to work long hrs. and many weekends. Opportunities for career advancements within the company is only seen at the managment levels and on a buddy buddy system.

Advice to Senior Management – My advice to Bill McLaughlin is to make some major changes in the management at this plant. We need a leader who requires his managers to really lead and also to hold them accountable for their actions.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Great product with a loyal following of customers.
Good base pay for a 40 hour work week.
Relatively stress-free working environment.

Cons – Extreme favoritism shown by district and regional managers to certain stores.
Unfair budgets based on whether or not you kiss your district managers rear end.
Too much emphasis is placed on bedding attach rates.
Mall locations, less than ideal.
Although it is a 40 hour work week, you work every weekend and several evenings each week.
Salespersons concerns are not handled seriously.
District managers not worried about developing the sales force, only about advancing "Yes Men"

Advice to Senior Management – Select Comfort needs to decide if it a mattress retailer who sells bedding, or if it is a bedding retailer who sells mattresses. When your average bed sale if $2600, it makes sense to put the focus on the mattress, not the extras. It's time for senior management to listen to their retail salespeople, who account for 87% of the company business. The sales process is too long and drawn out and easily recognizable as a process and not a flowing conversation. This lovely process comes across as scripted and is encouraged to be used verbatim. An excellent salesperson doesn't require scripts to sell products.

Last but not least, the bullying and heavy handedness senior management is employing right now is despicable! Employees are being threatened with their jobs, when the main reason production has dropped is the economy. Wake up and take a look at the real world. Most of us didn't receive the gigantic stock rewards that you have received in the past year and we are mostly trying to keep our heads above water.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – My store manager and team were great. Thats about it

Cons – All anyone cared about was making threats and treating you like a child or a worker that just didn't care.

Advice to Senior Management – Remember, the people you employee are people. Not your toys you can threaten.

Former Employee – worked at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Good pay and benefits compared to other home delivery jobs. Great product, I was proud to represent something that helped me and I knew that it would help our customers as well get a better nights sleep.

Cons – Very poor upper management. There were many problems within the company that the management seemed to ignore, especially if it was a new policy or procedure that they implemented. The VP purchased a new routing software system that was less efficient than the previous system which made it impossible to meet delivery windows and therefore declining customer service. Instead of fixing the routing issues the upper management started basing bonuses and raises on performance and customer service scores. It wasn't the delivery drivers fault that they could not make a 8 am delivery time when the product did not arrive in the warehouse until 9-10 am.

Advice to Senior Management – Fix the real problems instead of blaming people below you. If you were willing to admit that you made some mistakes and a policy or procedure wasn't working no one below you would care as long as you tried something else to make everyones job easier.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Under 40 hour work week....for a sales job that is rare.
Good benefit package.

Cons – Many changes happening during the difficult economy....restructuring pay and commission that results in less pay. But, the management tries to spin it as a great opportunity and a great change that wont result in a reduction in pay. They try the same marketing and SALE ideas over and over. Little change in the approach to drive sales and create more interest in thier product. Select Comfort is where I experienced insanity; trying the same approach and hopeing for a different result.

Advice to Senior Management – Time for a change at the top. Better training for store manegement. Good sales people dont always mean they will be good managers. People skills, leadership, coaching and training abilities should out weigh past sales numbers of potential store managers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Relaxed work atmosphere and a great product. Ability to get out and make connections within the community and do a lot of event coordinating.

Cons – Little to no advancement opportunities. Struggling company that may or may not make it through the recession - in the meantime, look for your pay to be cut repeatedly. Frustrating lack of adaptation to the current marketplace. Decreased quality control means increased return rates and customer service issues. Pay structure for managment is counter productive in the curent bonus structure format. Hit less than 80% of your budget, get $0. No bonuses past 100% budget. So, if you're not going to be able to hit 80%, pack it in for next month. If you're already at 100%, pack it in for next month. That's not a productive pay structure - for the employee or the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on more and better product marketing.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Located in a suburb so you don't have to commute down town.
There are a multitude of business channels which make it a good place to learn about the basics of many different types of business channel models. The company is not dependant on others for distribution as they have built their own direct, ecommerce & company owned retail stores. There is a huge opportunity for international expansion and product expansion. The employee discount is very good and you can also get some great deals on bedding during employee only sample sales. They are held about 3 to 4 times a year.

Cons – While I believe some of these individuals are now gone, in the past there was a "click" of Directors and VP's who had their favorites. If you were one of them, it was a geat place to work. You could have flexible hours, work from home, get good salary increases and be recognized for your efforts. If you were not one of the favored employees, you work long hours with no flexibility, get modest pay increases and get no recognition. For anyone today it is almost impossible to be promoted to director level without an MBA, no matter what kind of results you produce for the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Many of the company's Directors and Vice Presidents are very poor managers and there is far too much favoritism.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort full-time for less than a year

Pros – If you don't have alot of sales exprience and they like you, they will train you.

Cons – Believe it or not but I have never worked in a place with so many heavy set people. The customers who buy the beds tend to be heavy and many employees are. Find a better job, the commisions are 2.5% of sales which means the opportunity is about 30-35K per year, if you can stand hanging around all day... like a car lot.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay 3x the commision and I will stop looking for a new job.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend