Belk Reviews

Pros

One of the only positive aspects of working for Belk was the employee discount and the option of paying by check or cash for your purchases. Belk does not force you to use their store card to receive your discount like many other retailers do.

Cons

One of my biggest complaints is your hourly wage is never guaranteed. You will receive a pay cut if your personal sales does not fall within their chart. The higher your hourly wage the higher sales volume you have to produce. They make the goals so astronomical that it is almost impossible to achieve them if you are in a low volume store. Belk executives like to brag that they are the largest privately owned retailer. However they run the company like it is a one store mom and pop operation. I would never recommend anyone to work for this company.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice to the leaders of Belk would be to treat your employess with respect instead of acting like they are pions when you make corporate visits.

Pros

Highest paying retail job.
Paid time off, with a catch.
Paid sick leave, with a catch.
Most of our ASM's (area sales manager) are understanding and educated about their jobs.

Cons

Your pay can be cut if you do not make your sales goal, even if you're a penny short.
Paid time off is treated like you are still on the clock, you're averaging $0 sales days.
Paid sick leave is treated like you are still on the clock, you're averaging $0 sales days.
Some ASM's are under trained and educated about their jobs.
Too many responsibilities placed on ASMs, they are run ragged.
Sales associates are expected to get 1 credit card application for every 20 hours worked, this can be hard at times.
Sales associates have way too many responsibilities, cleaning, stock, merchandising, inventory.
All above responsibilities have to be completed by sales staff and hours worked count towards your sales goal, even though you are helping the store, you're averaging $0 a hour (risk of pay cut)
Example: our store is in remodel right now, sales staff is asked to come in before store opens to help, but we are still placed on "selling hours," and run the risk of loosing our pay rate.
Horrible lack of communication.
Sometimes, horrible lack of training on all levels.
Horrible lack of organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Advice to corporate & senior management: Better training for ASMs, they need to understand fully how to read merchandising maps (planagrams), how to navigate the work bench & find the information they need to perform their jobs. There needs to be an improvement of the overall communications system at Belk. The work bench is not enough. 10 minute morning meetings should be utilized properly (RRC, sales, major merchandising moves info, i.e. important vital info. not petty recognitions and BS!) Morning mettings should strictly be 10 minutes (our store manager likes to talk for 30 minutes half the time about NOTHING). Stop pretending like you care about your associates through petty publicity (i.e. The tornado victims in Alabama video) people who are truly concerned about doing good things don't worry about the publicity they get for it and send a video to every store in their company showing what they've done. Take care of your associates and move on. Either offer true paid vacation and sick leave or don't. Don't count vacation and sick leave against our sales per hour. That's just complete crap! If you are basing our pay on our sales then that is fine. Don't ask us to come in and help with remodels, drive to other stores and pick up fixtures, merchandise, do inventory, i.e. perform major tasks and still count these tasks and project hours against our sales goal forcing some of us to loose our pay. I don't know how that's legal! Properly staff! If there isn't enough support staff to complete the job then you obviously need to hire more support staff. Don't ask the sales staff to cover for your lack of support staff. An entire department store cannot be covered by two cleaning staff members. If you want to compete with Dillards and Macys then you cannot operate like JC Penny. WE NEED MORE STAFF TO COVER MORE CUSTOMERS, CLEANING, THE STORE REMODEL, DAILY STOCK, ETC... Stop wasting money sending thousands of useless signs!!! Have a STRICTLY online signage system so only the signs that are needed can be printed. Have clear and direct job descriptions for ASMs, The store manager, HR, etc... Stop offering bonuses or incentives to the store manager to keep turnover rates low, supply costs low, etc... We run out of boxes, bags, wrapping paper, every year... and it just pisses our customers off!!!

Pros

1. Decent pay if you make your sales
2. Management seems fair most of the time
3. If you request time off most of the time you get it.

Cons

1. Some managers seem to have NO CLUE what they are doing
2. They expect too much physical work from sales associates (i.e. stock, cleaning, ect...)

Advice to Senior Management

Sales associates should no NOTHING but sell, janitors clean, and stock people should be hired to put out the stock, if pay is based on selling, not putting out stock.

Pros

-Good work climate
-Kind co-workers
-Adequate Pay
-Opportunities to make more money (credit)

Cons

-If management in your department is "scatter-brained" it causes discrepencies between everyone from store manager to customer.. COMMUNICATE!!- effectively
-high-turnover (bye friend or good worker)
-low opportunity for growth in company
-for part-timers like myself, not enough training in shoes.. i.e. shoe audit, floor display plan, etc...

Advice to Senior Management

Keep hiring good students, we appreciate it and are doing our bests for you!

Pros

Competitive pay, benefits flexible scheduling

Cons

you will most likely have to work weekends and holidays. you have a set credit goal to acheive each week.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to appreciate the sales team more. they also could be more understanding and helpful when the associates get overwelmed.

Pros

The family friendly atmosphere of Belk made it a geat place to work. Everyone is very encouraging and wants everyone to succeed.

Cons

The hours are not to great. But that is expected with every Retail Job. holiday hours are a pain! Although they do provide food on the craziest days!

Pros

Decent health benefits, employee discount, opportunity to relocate

Cons

Insufficient training programs, inconsistent use of policies and procedures from Region to Region, and Division to Division.
Insufficient annual review process, often does not take place within the allotted time frame.

Advice to Senior Management

Be aware of what is really happening in your stores. Stop the announced "visits" and start making REAL unannounced visits to locations. Then you will see how your individual stores are being really being managed and how they really look when "visitors" are not in the stores.

Pros

Good benefits package. Associates are wonderful. Great relationships with customers. Upscale merchandise. Emphasis on great customer service.

Cons

Pay for performance. Drive for credit. Management unwilling to recognize a job well done. Sometimes desperation for sales and credit. Not much of a team environment

Advice to Senior Management

Make it more of a team environment. Appreciate that your associates and Area Sales Managers are doing the best that they can. TRUST that they are doing their jobs!

Pros

Provides an opportunity to meet and assist the consumer.

Cons

Lack of advertsed merchandise. Unrealistic credit application goals. Poor working atmosphere. Numerous unmanged staff members who lack professional training and work ethic. Unattainable goals for sales associates.

Advice to Senior Management

Train and supervise the entire staff. COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE.

Pros

4 weeks vacation.counts against your quotas can result in paycuts

Cons

can get paycuts ,vacation not always available when needed

Advice to Senior Management

more patience with employes and more flexibility with times off and vacations,more hands on when it comes to work