National Vision Reviews

Pros

Great training program, very supportive of their employees,realistic goals,opporunity for growth at all levels,open door communication, very willing to listen and offer constructive feed back

Cons

Pay not as competitive as some of our lesser productive competitors, managers are mostly salaried positions working long hours

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the great work

Pros

Meet new people, learning to be optician interesting & fun. good insurance benefits, people I work with are good people, Manager flexible on hours worked

Cons

LOW Pay, if we have no appointments get sent home that doesn't pay the bills, constantly threatened with our jobs if we don't make budget which is totally unrealistic, cheat you out of holiday pay just because they fall on a Sunday which we are closed. Reade Fahs motto "happy employees make happy customers" must be a farce. They think little of the people in the stores who deal with the public and their marketing department is incompetent . Closed a NJ lab to use one in Hong Kong & Mexico, so much for it being America's Best. I hope that one day when the economy is better there is a mass exodus from this company to do anything else. I would NOT recommend this company to anyone on the ground floor.

Advice to Senior Management

Practice what you preach!!! I would like to know that my comments on IN TOUCH are heard by Mr. Fahs. Does he really know what goes on in the stores? I'd like to know. This the District Managers & area managers should be promoted from stores so they actually know what's going on. Ours isn't even an optician. How can they give constructive criticism if they have no idea what they are talking about?

Pros

equipment and product and machine repair help

Cons

senior management has NO idea the turmoil below......middle management runs rampid and does has they wish. New employees brought in with no training and given position. Checks distributed on 9-16-11 were NO good and not honored by the bank, acknowledgement was given and said checks would arrive on 9-17-11..............NO CHECKS has promised.....to what extent do you misinform your employees regarding their livelyhood? To what extent do you correct employees with overdraft fees loss of power or hunger to their children or pets? DO YOU EVEN CARE?

Advice to Senior Management

Eliminate middle management in place and clean house at the corporate level. Promote within and stop binging in losers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pros

I really like my boss, but I feel I know more than he does. I like Rheade Fahs, the CFO, he's very generous and caring. I have never been denied time off except by a previous manager who felt no one should ever take a Saturday off for any reason. It's great that we are closed on Sunday's and can have a family day or a day to attend church. I feel upper management listens when we have ideas or problems. Lots of issues are addressed immediatly. We have great labs, but some jobs arrive too slow and result in customer issues. Most home office staff are helpful and personable.

Cons

My sales budgets are set so high that I will never achieve them. Therefore bonus is impossible. The customer service scores we receive, called NPS, are slanted as they include feedback on the host store, marketing, price structures and things out of my control. Yet "bad" scores directly effect my paycheck. And mine alone. There is no responsibility taken by anyone else. The entire stores success or failure is mine and mine alone. So why aren't all decisions mine and mine alone. Remarkably unfair to take away compensation for something so arbitrary. Future of the company is shaky and we are supposed to just keep working and not fear for our future. We are too much in the dark. Also tired of working inside a Walmart . Sometimes the clientel is very difficult to handle. Really, the store should close at 6 or 7 since the last hour or so is simply someone babysitting the store. Last year I had a STELLAR year in sales and received a 2% raise. 2%. Not even enough to cover the increased cost of insurance. With my low raises (sometimes none) I feel as if my salary has been stagnant for 5 years. My personal costs keep increasing. My salary does not.

Pros

Close to home, nice supervisors who are understanding and doesn't really yell at you or watches you to make sure you are working. No education is needed (just have to read a bit)

Cons

(This is a review of the factory/lab that makes the eyeglasses, and not any retail stores.)

-Tough quotas to keep up.

- I would only work here if you absolutely are at rock bottom and risks starvation unless you work. (Perhaps it will be better once it goes back to 8 hrs a day...don't know if I will last that long)

-Way too much work expected with this wage. Literally endless and non-stop. I am working as fast as I can and as accurately as I can, and still cannot meet the quota. Cannot support a family with 8 dollars an hour.

-Factory is open 24 hrs a day, so have to get here by 5am(day shift) or leave here at 2:30am (night shift).

-10 hours of standing without option of sitting and no rotations with people who ARE sitting.

-starts to send people home if there is not enough work, so if you are dependent on this job and they send you home...tough luck

-work is easily outsourceable or automated if they wish to do so. (Already have a factory in China and Mexico)
- Do not see any advancement here as some line workers have been doing the same thing for years.

Advice to Senior Management

Please let the lowly line workers listen to a radio or their mp3 players...imagine 10 hours doing the same thing over and over (and most of us are so swamped with work we don't even feel like talking to each other). The morale is SO low due to nature of the work and low pay (guy at Wendy's makes more than me, and only busy during meal times...I'm busy ALL the time) ...at least give us the gift of music and not the noise of heavy machinery noise. Sometimes I don't think the wage I earn is enough to pay for the physical and mental pain I acquired.

-Design better pads for the fining machine, it is absolutely brutal to take it off...my nails are about to fall off the flesh. The old, bigger pads were great and easy to take off, but I guess it cost more so they are using new, smaller ones now.

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Pros

Benefits good. Reade Fahs has great ideas, but needs to make sure others below him follow. Fast growing company.

Cons

Senior Management thinks you should not have an outside life. Advancement seems impossible. Long hours. Pay not competitive.

Advice to Senior Management

Reade needs to listen to the intouch messages himself and react. Salaried managers should not be putting in 60 hours.

Pros

Communication from corporate is good
Excellent benefits package
Managers can pretty much run the store they way they feel best.
The CEO is all about the employees and how they feel about things
Very good training program for new employees

Cons

Upper managment does not provide positive feedback when your store is doing well
Very hard to fire employees
Lots of pressure to perform
Upper managment makes you feel like you are easily replaceable.

Advice to Senior Management

I think Mr Fahs should make sure the managers below him have his same values.

Pros

Consistent and Helpful information from main office
Great intro training for new associates
Still able to help customers look good without breaking their bank

Cons

50 hour minimum work week for salaried managers
If you work over 50 hours...Oh well! No comp time as in other opticals
Salary about 30-35% less than same posiition in competitor's business
Work never "good enough" You could be running 25% over last year in sales and making most internals and upper management will ALWAYS focus on the negative
More paperwork than any other company I have ever worked for...

Advice to Senior Management

Give your managers a pat on the back once in awhile..
Work WITH your managers to increase performance and stop with the threats

Pros

Great company vision, company is goal-oriented, open communication about goals and priorities, good benefits, great opportunity for learning and advancement, enjoy working with my peers and enjoy the work I perform.

Cons

Most dept heads lack real leadership, many support depts are unresponsive, unorganized, and sometimes blatantly incompentent. HR does not seem to be very involved throughout the company. There is significant lacking of organizational, planning, and computer-use skills at the corporate office.

Advice to Senior Management

The corporate office should be "support" - put metrics in place to gauge that. Based on the company's vision and mission statements, staff should rate their leaders and peers should rate each other. It is unfair to hold staff accountable for behaviors and their leadership when there are very few examples of great behavior and great leadership. Most of the company's other leadership does not seem to be in-line with Reade's messages and how he interacts within his company.

Pros

This company has excellent advancement potential. The company expectations are not over stated. The senior management actually listens to your thoughts, opinions, and ideas.

Cons

In certain areas, licensed opticians are not paid at comparable rates to what other companies are currently paying. However, this may be offset by the commission offered.

Advice to Senior Management

Honestly I feel you should keep up the good work. I appreciate knowing that I have a voice in this company.