Container Store – “Once upon a time (a long time ago).......”

Pros

Great Employees. The only reason I stick around is because of the bonds I've formed with the other full-timers and part-time staff. I love these people like my own family.

Full-time Salary is good for retail.

Discount is good.

Cons

New scheduling system is awful. It randomly assigns your schedule from week to week and we no longer have consistent days off. You have to submit your time off requests up to 5 weeks in advance and yet our manager only posts our schedule 10 days in advance. It's extremely hard to plan anything short term or even make appointments.

It seems like all the decisions made in the past 2 years to help our company get through the economic crisis have all been at the detriment of the employee. They tell us that we're lucky to have our jobs but it's borderline abuse. We still see countless examples of frivolous spending; full page color ads in the New York Times, $500,000 on new lighting for 5 stores, tons of money on in-store graphics and art-work, etc. I wonder how much those die-cut ladies for the travel tables cost each store during the Travel Sale? Did they really help us sell more travel items?
In the mean time they've cut or taken away our 401k matching, wellness program, 1 weekend day off, salary freeze (going into the 3rd year now), holidays, company celebrations and countless other small things that add up. Our CEO even said in a company conference call that if we didn't like things then we could leave, "We need the turnover" he said.
I long for the days when our company's principles were about family and a work/life balance. When we all felt PROUD to work for The Container Store, and when we treated our valuable employees as that, VALUABLE. We hire the best, yet they think that we won't see when all the small things start to disappear. We used to celebrate these things. We used to make this a place where everyone wanted to work.

"NO LAYOFFS EVER", What a crock. This is a lie. We do seasonal layoffs every year, and while "seasonal" employees know this when they accept their position we don't just lay off the seasonal people when the season ends. The stores use this time to re-evaluate EVERYONE on staff. As a full-time member I have been in the GM's office and given my opinion on all part-timers seasonal or not and whether I think they should stay or go. I have seen plenty of seasoned veterans get cut during this time and lumped in with "seasonal layoffs". Also I know of at least 3 Full-timers that were let go due to a "reduction in staff". That is a layoff. Stop writing articles and doing interviews saying that we've never done lay-offs, it's simply not true and is disappointing coming from a company that used to have more respect for the truth and their own principles.

Advancement. Unless you have an "IN" with someone that matters then forget about it. I have seen New Stores fill management positions with people from outside the company and not give those from within a chance because they were not in the same market as the new store.
We do not have a place to go to find company postings of open job positions or a way to apply for them. Most of the time you don't know a position is open until they are announcing the new person in the role. We find out these things in morning huddles and intra-store voicemails. When I started I was so hopeful and encouraged at the opportunities that were out there, now I realize that all is not how it appears or was first portrayed.

Company VP's are out of touch with the plight of the stores.

Advice to Senior Management

Give us back something in return for our loyalty and hard work. We are committed to making this company as successful as ever, and it's not even our company. If you can't give us our 401k matching back then give us 2 consecutive days off. If you can't give us our salary increases back then how about giving us an extra holiday. No wellness program, what about a $10 gift card to use. All of these things can be better if you just started thinking outside the box you are putting yourselves in, don't CONTAIN YOURSELF! Get creative, show your appreciation in other ways that don't cost the company as much but still show how much you support us. Little gestures go a long way. We don't want it all back overnight, but we want to know that you hear us.

Get a system where you post job openings on the intranet. Let us have the option to apply for other postions. Don't rule us out because we're not in the same market. Don't rule us out because you're afraid you might have to pay for our moving expenses. I thought advancement was all about getting the best people into the right positions. How do you know if you limit yourselves to a market or store? If you're serious about our careers and you want us to stick around then have a more OPEN process. How can we set goals for ourselves if everything is cloaked in secrecy?

The VPs need to get into the stores. They need to work on the busy weekend days when our system crashes for the 10th time that week and we have angry customers in our lines. The GADS need to get out of our back offices and get on the floor. You're asking me to work harder, better more efficiently all the while still providing the same outstanding service we are known for while the Senior Management positions still want to maintain status quo like nothing's different. It is different, you can't have it both ways. You can't maintain and change at the same time.