Everything But Water Employee Review

Current Employee – been working at Everything But Water

Pros – My coworkers are among the best I have worked with in any of my jobs. We, as a result, are close outside of work as well. The camaraderie makes working at Everything But Water a much more pleasant experience during days where we might have to deal with difficult clients. In the swimsuit industry, few people realize that experience really makes a difference in understanding how to make suits work for every type of body shape. It is much easier to gain that experience when the people you work with are the same people you work with all those months and years. There is a low turnover rate in our stores which is something you can't say about most retailers.

Cons – There is a lot of secret talks behind your back, corrupt "retail politics" and backstabbing. It is evident mostly among the lower levels of senior management (regional and area aspects). Most of these managers gained their positions through playing off employee ideas as their own. Also, corporate management feeds this falliable action by always crediting the managers with little to no mention of the "little people", making it very difficult to be heard as an individual. Another thing is that even before this economic downfall, this company (or at least several of the employees) has been cheap about everything they could touch. Many in management who have built up many PTO hours have very little time to actually use it, losing anywhere from 16-80 hours of PTO a year. Management is usually guilt tripped into giving their PTO away to cover their stores which are constantly understaffed due to random, unneccessary hiring freezes. Also instead of boosting morale by doing the annual District Manager meeting, corporate spent the money on minimal bonuses for the stores that weren't really paid out because minimum qualifiers were not met and for store visits.

Advice to Senior Management – One strong tool I feel works for many companies is an anonymous phone #, email address or simple comment box to hear what everyone is saying. The feedback we hear from corporate and our DMs is often seen as repetitive, melancholic and forced. Faking proudness in hard times is making it difficult to find a reason to work; it would help to acknowledge that there are things beyond our control many times.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend