LensCrafters Reviews

Pros

Decent pay and benefits
Lots of growth opportunity within the Luxottica organization
We carry very good quality products
Great technology advancements within the optical industry

Cons

Hours are unstable if you are an hourly employee.
The company is gearing more toward hiring many part time associates working 4-6 hour shifts rather than full time associates working 8+ hour shifts.

Advice to Senior Management

The direction the company is moving toward since fall 2011 seems to be on the right track as far as making things Simple and Fast and creating a more fun work environment for employees.

Pros

Comfortable environment with time to offer great service to customers most of the time. Able to spend quality time with customers to establish loyalty to brand.

Cons

To little help on floor most of time. Hours cut from help in order to meet budgets. Continue to hire people constantly and not able to offer any quality time on floor for them for proper training.

Advice to Senior Management

Expand hours for help with proper training. Ease up on budget demands and cutting hours. With quality training stores will meet and surpass weekly budgets.

Pros

Free pair once a year and monthly bonuses if you make plan.

Cons

Uncertainty within the company as a whole.

Pros

Cutting edge technology
OneSite foundation mission trips (company paid)
Flexible Scheduling (for non-management)
Great benefits package
Free pair of glasses each year

Cons

Training is no longer a priority.
New sales associates make minimum wage or just slightly more.
Associate commission is based on the store sales plan rather than individual performance.
As a manager you are expected to own your business but are micromanaged by senior managers.

Advice to Senior Management

You don't have a problem getting rid of people at the corporate office or on the store level but it's time some of the field managers positions were "refreshed". They have so many muddled Corporate Visions in their heads they no longer can recognize great leaders vs great sellers.

Pros

optician pay rate ok.
benefits
sick days
bonus structure if you make plan.

Cons

lack of respect from management
lack of respect from upper management
micromanaging
too many stupid rules

Advice to Senior Management

you need to get your act together in treating the front line employees with respect. we are not dogs nor are we stupid. we are the ones making the money for your organiztion, remember. if we are not happy with they way you treat us, why the heck would we want to make money for you?? if we are happy, it will reflect in our sales. have you ever thought of the reason as to why your sales in the entire compnay have gone down? maybe its because you guys are too preoccupied with counting the money in your own bank accounts, rather than seeing what the little guys have to go through. open your eyes, and stop treating us like idiots with your micromanaging.

Pros

If you can get trained correctly, and use the tools made available by the company, it's an easy, fun, rewarding job. If you land a management job, it's good place to learn and hone management skills.

Cons

Hours and positions have been cut drastically. They dissolved the Retail Manager and Lead Retail Associate positions. One girl I worked with had to take a demotion and pay cut or just get let go.

Because there are no hours it's very hard to get trained properly. There are tools that greatly aid the training process but they often get thrown aside because they take too long to finish. After 3 months I found out there are specific procedures and sign off sheets for training lab techs. After 6 months I found out there is a shift by shift learning plan for new Lab Techs. Most of my training was hands on. Also, since hours had been cut I was often asked to work on jobs even though I was not fully trained. I am technically only passed off on the surface side, so after getting done generating lenses I am supposed to hand them off to another tech to do the finish side. Regardless of my training I have been asked to work the entire lab, opening, closing, special orders, 1 hours, you name it I can do it. BUT, I am not getting paid for it. I keep getting told I need to get "trained properly." Now I am trying to fill the holes in my training but it's too busy for me to do that. Also I am never with my "mentor" who is supposed to train me. The biggest travesty of this whole mess is that our Lead Lab Tech AND Lab Manager were never trained properly, it was all hands on / drop on head training. What I mean by drop on head, is that they, and myself too, was just thrown into the lab, shown how to do a few things, most of the time only once, and then expected to just do it. We all eventually learned, but there were much easier ways.

Little to no time to train properly. When you do get time to train, often your trainer is too busy to show you properly.

Our General Manager is often MIA. He goes for long walks to "check the mail," or "go to the bank," or "Lunch." We are often left short handed without him. He often leaves only two employees to run the Dr, Retail, and Lab parts of Lenscrafters. I have on many, many occasions had to tell customers that they to wait for him to show up. They ask how long, and I have no idea because his walks can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours long. He almost completely refuses to answer his phone. You have no idea how much it sucks to have to sit there with a pissed off customer and tell them that you have no idea when the manager will be back. Also when we are left short handed by him, customers are often left waiting because I am also not trained on Retail and I have to wait for someone who knows what to do or has the right codes. This is a daily problem. We have had many customers just leave because they don't want to wait.

Lab Techs are expected to help retail but Retail is not expected to help the Lab. The Lab is often the first place to get neglected. Even with one hour jobs many times we are expected to leave the Lab and the jobs to help on Retail.

They claim that they like to promote within, but more often hire people from the outside to fill management positions. They have 5 "competencies" that they want in management. They will find someone with these competencies and train them on how to make and sell glasses. Yet, they will not take someone who already knows how to make glasses and develop these competencies. One of the competencies is recruiting. Often employees will be favored over others in order to make the recruiter look better. I got recruited by someone who is now in another store. My GM favors his recruits over me. Most of the "promotions" mean having to move to another store which can be hundreds of miles away. The biggest thing is that it seems like the stars have to be aligned for you to get a promotion. You are expected to have your replacement if you want to get promoted. It works most of the time but not all the time. Our Lead Lab Tech was lead to believe he would be promoted soon but then was told he was not ready all of a sudden. In part because I was not ready to be Lead Lab Tech. Neither of us had any idea that this was the case until we were informed that we would not be promoted.

Our General Manager blames everyone but himself for the problems we have. He blames our Lead Lab Tech and former Lab Manager for mishandling my training, yet they were never trained correctly, by our GM. Our General Manager often promises things to us and then "forgets" about his promises.

Over all I feel overworked, underpaid, not recognized, and like all these opportunities for advancements are just smoke and mirrors.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, there is WAY more negatives to the job.

Advice to Senior Management

You have great tools for training new employees but they are not used. We need more training hours that are dedicated to training and not used as the managers "extra" hours to spread around the Retail floor and Lab. Listen more carefully to the "Front Liners" on what is going on. You have a lot of terrible managers and great employees. Find a way to hold the GM's accountable for making sure training is done. Maybe have a short survey that is to be filled out every time a new employee clocks off. Make that survey a part of the clocking off application of the computer. Audit your stores and fire all the bad managers.

Pros

Flexable hours
Good school schedule if arrangements are made in advance
straight foward job: you are either selling glasses or making glasses.
comission based so the more you sell the more you earn plus your base sallary. $9-10 per hour to start

Cons

when the store is not busy hours can be cut and you can be sent home.
Sales styles is usually scripted and ever so often the script changes so you have to get used to the changes.

Advice to Senior Management

More role playing with associates for improvement of sales

Pros

Schedule flexibility and opportunity to make commission on sales. Management is positive towards employees. Free pair of glasses/sunglasses for each year you work for the company.

Cons

Annual raises are pretty small and employees have to do extensive computer training and certifications in order to receive real raises.

Pros

making glasses and a free pair a year

Cons

no recognition or advancement through the company

Advice to Senior Management

they need to really evaluate associates who do more than idiots who've been wth the company 10+ years who dont know how to do anything

Pros

Benefits and pay are good for Management.

Cons

Constant change and mixed messages.

Advice to Senior Management

When a plan is working, don't try to improve it.