Jewelry Television Reviews

Pros

The co workers are the best...and the discount for our own purchases aren't half bad.

Cons

If you earn PHO 's you can't use them..and if they approve a discretinary day why can't they approve the PHO's you need for it??? You can not plan vacations earnestly because they will not approve until hours before if at all!

Advice to Senior Management

I miss the old JTV..but who can stand in the way of progress???

Pros

Good employee discounts on jewelry

Cons

Unbalanced workforce management
Desk and chairs not ergonomic
Lack of company communication
Too many non-titled chiefs
Working all holidays except 1
Promotions based on not what you know, but who you know
Does not want career driven individuals
Pay-scale is lowest in area
Turnover rate is high
Executives have NO call center experience

Advice to Senior Management

Stop telling employees "it's my way or the highway"; individuals who have talent WILL take it elsewhere. Your not competitive enough with pay for that type of talk. Get in touch with reality.

Pros

JTV is very good at working with you if you are really disabled for any length of time. Their discounts for employees are very good.

Cons

Supervisors do not notify IT of problems (glitches) you are having with their system. The reason I know this is that the same problems happen over and over again. How can IT correct these problems if no one notifies them when they happen. Our supervisors do not supervise as they should. When they are most needed, they can be found either in the break room or chatting with each other on the floor. They also have their favorites and it is quite noticeable to everyone. They need to be trained again and again.

Advice to Senior Management

As for Tim Matthews, I have only seen him in the call center twice in the past year. How can he lead people he knows nothing about and places himself above them.

Pros

I feel blessed to HAVE a job in this current economy and it is easy to complain about a company without realizing that Tim Matthews and other senior management are working to keep the remaining employees employed! Everyone seems to have an opinion about how much better they would do things, but very few could actually DO it! Running a company takes a lot of experience, intelligence and vision and Tim Matthews and his management team have that. What they need are hardworking employees who support them instead of blasting them in blogs. From what I can see, the jewelry looks great! The diamond closeouts are some of the best JTV has ever had and the silver jewelry is really beautiful too. If the jewelry is not what you would like, then that should be a review of the buyers. Of course other jewelry companies and individual sellers are going to question JTV's quality. They are our competition, not our friends and many of them are not doing very well in this financial climate. What JTV needs is for us, the employees to work hard and pull together, putting our egos aside to make the company successful, despite the recession. Then we can keep our jobs and the customers can continue to get more of our beautiful jewelry.

Cons

The negative attitudes of some present and former employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep working the long hours and making the daily decisions that you do to keep JTV successful and to keep JTV's employees employed. I sure appreciate it and a lot of other folks do as well. While this economy is not easy for anyone and the path that companies travel in light of that is unchartered, I am proud to see us traveling it and continuing to fight the good fight!

Pros

The majority of co-workers are great to work with. They have a very good employee discount for purchasing jewelry and gemstones.

Cons

Rules and policy are inconsistent. Needed information to perform duties, are most often shared after the fact. There are too few supervisors with leadership abilities. Way too much favoritism. Since the take over by the investors, the company seems to be falling into the ‘corporate greed’ syndrome. The 401k plan was suspended/discontinued months ago.

Advice to Senior Management

Some of your highest paid employees kept during the layoffs, are useless and contribute to the low morale problem within the company. You, the Ceo/President, Vice President and owners of the company, need to take a more active roll in placing/keeping management and supervisors. This is a small company trying to stay afloat in these trying economic times as you keep telling us, so look after your interests instead of relying upon others that are more interested in the buddy system than in what’s good for the company, customers and employees. The ‘open door’ policy that you continually talk about needs to be fact. Nepotism is fine in a company….but family and friends should only be given jobs they are qualified for. It makes it that much harder on everyone else if you are constantly trying to make excuses for or correcting their ignorance and/or inexperience. Customers relate that they are constantly sending letters/email stressing their dissatisfaction with certain things and are being ignored. I don’t mean ignored by not having their letters/emails acknowledge, but ignored by not fixing the legitimate concerns they have because it is a family member/friend. Surely you are aware of the above problems, if not, you should be. When you decide to take a hard look, then you will once again have a company to be proud of, and one your employees can be proud to work for.

Pros

Jewelry Television is loyal to the community where it began operations. In the current failing economy management has been able to keep the company going and continues to be one of the largest employers locally. Jewelry Television still has over 1000 employees. If management is able to do this in bad times imagine where we will soar when the economy rebounds. Jewelry Television has an affordable health care plan and offers a 401K. Employees can earn several paid days off during the year which can be used for vacation or sick leave. On the job training in various departments is a plus. Employee discounts are offered on purchases. Many local businesses also offer discounts to employees of Jewelry Television. It is an active, ever-changing fun place to work.

Cons

In order for the company to survive this economy tough decisions had to made. People were laid off and some benefits had to cut. Personal responsibilities have increased to fill the void left by a decrease in staffing. Everyone is expected to multi-task and cross-train. Workloads are heavy now, but that will decrease as the economy improves and staffing increases. Hours have been cut there-by reducing take home pay, while insurance cost has increased.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to make sound decisions that keep Jewelry Television operating and as many people employed as possible. When the economy rebounds reward the employees that have helped the company through these hard times.

Pros

Your co-workers for the most part. The employee discount we receive on jewelry purchases that we make.

Cons

Lack of communication and management skills. Communication is not transferred from supervisor to employee until after the fact on most projects and then that makes the employee look like he/she doesn't know what they are doing. Management, back before they had the lay offs would actually work with the employees, management now, does nothing but look around and see what is going on and I've heard that in some departments they actually listen in on phone calls, but they will not get on the phone and take calls. Morale in the company as a whole is as low as I have ever seen it.

Advice to Senior Management

We need to get back to seling better jewelry at affordable prices.
Bring back the good'ol boys and get rid of Tim Matthews. Bring back the feeling of a family atmosphere.

Pros

Co-workers. Most of the people at JTV are good people and you develope a family like relationship.

Cons

Management and Communication. There is none, its a joke. Supervisors expect you to perform your job however, they don't give you the info until after the fact. Also, most of the supervisors that we have now will not jump in and work with us, they work against us. They will let you know when you do something that isn't done they way they want it done, but they will not actually help they whole department work.

Advice to Senior Management

Get some of our old supervisors back that actually knew how to do their jobs. For leadership of the company, bring back the Good'ol boys and send Tim Matthews on his way. Bring back that family feel and still be able to sale good jewelry, not junk jewelry. It seems like all we are selling right now is either high end diamonds or junk jewelry. We need to become a respectable company again.

Pros

In the old days when Bob Hall ran the company, he encouraged innovation, and self-direction.

Cons

The new management has no experience in cable tv sales, internet sales, jewelry or gemstones. He is not a people person and has laid off about 1/2 the company. He bought a multi-million dollar Hawker Jet to fly around the country but refuses to commit to improving quality.

Advice to Senior Management

resign

Pros

Flexible working hours. Do you like surfing the internet? Middle management candid and as supportive as they are *permitted* to be. Cost + 10% employee discount. Relatively modern technology stack. Open minded support of free and open source software. Ubuntu on your work laptop. Some Macs available.

Cons

Terrible benefit plan (and it gets worse every year. HR has no clue how to negotiate). 401k match suspended. Work environment either insultingly old-fashioned or with more paranoid security than a nuclear weapons facility. Priorities keep changing, and upper management doesn't provide feedback or resources to actually achieve the priority when it actually is defined.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop wondering why your revenues are going out the door when you carry less and less varied products at worse levels of quality.