Future Shop Reviews

Pros

Opportunities to grow and develop are there.

Cons

Some politics involved in the final stages of major promotions.

Pros

Many friendships were made, was like a family
Discount

Cons

Angry Customers
Some managers won't back up decisions made
Work all weekend, every weekend
Sales oriented, numbers were checked daily

Advice to Senior Management

Try and back up employee decisions more often

Pros

- Gain new friendships
- Employee discount
- Learned new communcation & retail skills
- Training was very informative
- Good money if you sell a lot/also depends in which department
- Easy work

Cons

- Competitive
- On your feet constantly
- Lost self respect, expected to be pushy in selling warranty. You cant be too nice to customers. Never take no for an answer type attitude (which was not me)
- Expectations are too high
- Physical work unappreciated. Managers only look at numbers.
- full time hours on part timers
- Clicks in the workplace
- Not very welcoming to seasonals

Advice to Senior Management

Managers are very energetic and encouraging with morning meetings. However, they always tell you what to do rather than ask you. They expect you to work FOR them not WITH them. You hardly see them around. It would be nice to see them sell things as well so you can get a real perspective on how to sell properly. Not to mention, it can be discouraging at times when they brag about other peoples sales. It would be nice to forget about numbers for once and just appreciate all the hard work we actually do.

Pros

growing fast if you work really hard
compensation is good when you are a top performer

Cons

politic is very strong
communication can be more transparent from higher management to senior management

Pros

Future Shop does offer excellent part time (and even full time) benefits to retail associates when compared to the competition. The upbeat nature of the stores can be fun at time, knowing you are able to talk to customers about some of the newest gadgets and toys on the markets. Head office and Vancouver are set on taking care of their employees and giving new vision to the company, but this hasn't translated down to a store level yet (therefore just feels like words on a page, even though they sound great).

Cons

There are way too many internal politics. Most store managers have been with the company for numerous years and come from an era of used-car-salesman tactics. This translates to their management style by hounding staff on numbers, numbers and more numbers. Did you just give excellent customer service to a customer who will no doubt return because of it? Well, that's nice and all, but they ignore that and just ask if you got extended warranty and attached more accessories. Even the managers that are more reasonable when it comes to numbers (and more fun to joke around with) still will haggle about numbers here and there, whether in a joking way or a serious tone.

Managers and even front line employees constantly try to find ways to find loopholes in store policies so we don't have to honour them. Price matching policies are there for a reason. If it qualifies then it qualifies. Customers can tell when you are frustrated you have to do a price match (because it hurts the store's profits). If it qualifies, I smile while doing it and don't have a problem with it. Others put up a fight.

Advice to Senior Management

This is 2011. With the advancement of technology and social media, companies need to be come much more transparent with how they conduct business. In terms of retail, customers can small a bad fish a mile away because if the sales associates are telling them one thing to close a sale the customer has the ability to pull out their phone and google it to see if it's the truth. There needs to be a much more focus on putting customers needs first instead of cramming things they may not need down their throat. Sure, present everything in a clear and professional way, but don't have employees fight back when customers say no. We are currently trained to "never take no" as an answer. Customers aren't dumb and they can tell when we are using old fashioned sales tactics. We need to be the leader in customer service and that will bring in repeat customers. If we keep scaring them away with sales pressure, it will spread fast online and word of mouth, causing them to never come back and lose other potential sales.

Read "Creating Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney" by Lee Cockerell. If we can follow those guidelines, Future Shop will be the leading retailer in Canada.

Pros

The Working environment and the people that work there.

Cons

Sales Pressure but if you can handle it, it's a great place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Lead by Example not by theory.

Pros

Compensation is dependent on effort and skill, but management does coach and support your efforts

Cons

Can be stressful, and there is no certainty to the commissioned positions.

Advice to Senior Management

Generally management was excellent. Great team environment and supportive staff.
They want you to sell well, but will help you to do so.

Pros

- Good commission during peak season
- Good part time job

Cons

- Work full time hours but "considered" as part-time worker
- No benefit available for part time
- Get paid $9 to do a merchandiser job when you make more doing sales

Advice to Senior Management

Need to treat employee better. Sales associates are not your merchandiser.

Pros

the money
The time off
Good discount

Cons

jealousy
people envy you
dysfunctional
Lazy sales associates

Advice to Senior Management

get a better hr team to sort out employee issues.

Pros

Offer a good chance to keep abreast of new technology and opportunity to help solving people their problems

Cons

taking un-due advantage of new comers
Non professionalism at store level management
Not really "equal opportunity employer"