Pros

-very flexible hours
-decent pay for the kind of job it is
-friendly coworkers
-don't micromanage too much

Cons

-understaffed on weekends
-poor training for new joins

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on training new employees on all aspects of their positions so they're not running around without a clue on what to do

Pros

Great employee discounts, 50% off. Flexible scheduling for high school or college students. Other than that, not much else here.

Cons

Wages are plain ridiculous, most often starting at minimum wages with yearly increases of less than a quarter. No advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to reduce turnover and increase employee enthusiam by taking proper care of employees. The current overall feeling of lower end employees is of expendabilty.

Pros

Great discount. Great place to learn business fundamentals and possibly obtain experience with managerial duties. Get corporate work experience.

Cons

A huge push for banana republic credit cards, however once you understand why these cards are so vital it becomes much easier to get.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to find and develop potential employees who can lead the company. Managers are excellent at developing employees to become GREAT employees.

Pros

Working in a college town, the management team at my store was very understanding of school and personal committments, provided you were professional enough to request off far enoguh in advance and to do good work while you were at work (I was, but some people could never understand that it's too late to ask of Saturday when you've had the schedule for a week)...

The discount rocks and we had a good team environment in our store.

Cons

Middle management (i.e district & regional) is oppressive and out of touch. I've had better pay in retail and there are no benefits for part-time employees. They could at least invest in a matching 401k for part-timers. I've worked at another San Francisco based retailer that required 401k plans of ALL employees that were not seasonal.

Advice to Senior Management

Middle management needs to really learn the ups and downs of daily business, outside of reading the numbers.

Pros

It is a very good place for students to experience retail job. People are really nice. This company respect multicultural and diversity. Everybody works hard and delivers great customer service. Additionally, employee can get pretty decent discount for new merchandise.

Cons

1. High pressure of promoting Banana Credit Card. As a sales person, I do a lot for my customer, however, I must follow them all the way to the cash-wrap if I want to open a credit card for them. It is annoying to follow people around store when they are shopping. If I don't, when customer gets to cashier, they will get the records not me.

2. Benefits are pretty low. As a sales associate, I sell a lot for my store. Will I get some rewards or some benefits? No one mentioned to me. Why I work so hard for this company without any benefits?

Advice to Senior Management

1. Opening a credit card is a team work. Stock workers prepare good merchandise, sales help customer get right outfits and cashiers help them check out, all of which adds together then make one BPC credit card. I hate the note which specify the particular name who opened a card.
2. Make a clear rewards policy for the hard worker.

Pros

Great discount on really cute clothes!
This is actually the only pro that I can think of to be honest.

Cons

Verbally abusive upper level management, low pay, working nights and weekends, inadequate training, high turnover, little recognition and low integrity

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on training, providing a more standard schedule and recognition to all members of the team. Take a second look at human resources practices.

Pros

Amazing discount and benefits. You can utilize your cross brand partners for coverage, internally promote sales associates/ managers. Gives you a good foundation for management skills.

Cons

No room for growth. Upper management no relatable. They don't truly value work/ life balance. No career plans for employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Involve your managers/ employees more in decision making/ ask for input. Find ways to recognize your sales associates/ managers in a better way.

Pros

For the most part, BR and GAP, Inc., in general offer their employees competitive salaries and good benefits. The discount is also a good compensation.

Cons

The one area that is often overlooked at Banana is that GAP is supposed to be about quality of life and work and it's not always there since they make you work long hours

Advice to Senior Management

The advice that I would give to the management team at Banana is to stay in front of your GM and DM. If you have an idea, call your DM...it's too easy for the GM to claim it as their own

Pros

Open door policy, the benefits are great, paid vacation, great discount on clothes, if you need to move, there is a Banana in almost every city, so transferring is very easy.

Cons

you start out with a low pay, and a year later when you get your review, they only give you a crappy $0.30.

Advice to Senior Management

If they want to keep their good employees from looking somewhere else, they should give them a more decent raise.

Pros

The work is not very demanding so if you want you could possibly work part time while you're still in school.

Cons

There is no room for advancement. The work culture is pretty relaxed but your career isn't heading anywhere so it can only be temporary.

Advice to Senior Management

I would say, that the only way to make your customers happy is to make your employees happy. Think about giving part time employees some benefits.