REI Reviews

Pros

At REI, we are selling quality outdoor products to a customer base that loves to recreate outdoors. Most of the employees share that passion as well so the environment is very positive, which is rare in retail. The company takes its ethics seriously and treats its employees well, providing excellent benefits and decent pay. The review process is straightforward and there is a comprehensive plan for moving up and around the company. Middle and upper management values input from every employee and it shows in our annual surveys: REI ranks high in employee satisfaction. The company is well run, financially stable with steady growth and has weathered the economic downturn in the black while still opening stores. Online sales are rising rapidly expanding REI's reach into areas where brick and mortar stores do not currently exist.

Cons

It's retail. The cons are somewhat typical, but not to the extremes of some retailers. The pay is low, but it's probably at or above market rates. The hours are not guaranteed for non-management employees, so when it's slow, you are struggling to make ends meet. Although, if you're a student or this is a job to get out of the house, it's perfect. Again, it's retail.

Advice to Senior Management

I know it's under way, but updating technology in the stores is really going to pay off in employee and customer satisfaction. This must remain a top priority until slow networks and crashing POS systems are a thing of the past.

Pros

We are empowered to make decisions everyday. fabulous discount and fun working environment.

Cons

Its retail - but we are treated well.

Advice to Senior Management

Everyday there is something that the staff needs to know about but our store has not found an effective way to let us know..... word of mouth, if you specifically ask is how I find out.

Pros

- Good Perks
- Employee sale
- Good People

Cons

- Very politically motivated
- Some back stabbers
- Position holders don't have enough knowledge of their work/ systems
- incompetent management

Advice to Senior Management

- Let the smart ones grow.

Pros

Good benefits and discounts, self-help seminars etc, good smart colleagues mostly, dedicated and loyal, environmental values

Cons

lower pay, internal politics are getting serious, management turnover, declining morale

Advice to Senior Management

Stop burning out everyone trying to be amazon.com on the web or walmart in distribution efficiency! Think gateway to the outdoors and act like it. You're starting to put profits above employees and that's a BAD thing.

Pros

REI is a great place to work if you enjoy a culture of outdoor enthusiasts. The benefits are amazing, the people that work there are great, the products are fun to sell!

Cons

Well, it is retail, so there is no consistency in schedule week to week. If you desire to really make a career of it at the retail level, you pretty much have to relocate at least once. Management positions are VERY competitive and those in desirable areas don't open often.

Advice to Senior Management

Even with recent changes to pay structures and positions, it is still extremely difficult to have a career that pays enough to live on at the retail level if you are not management.

Pros

Surrounded by great people, generally cool customers. It's a Co-Op! Managers are capable, and there is always room for career growth.

Cons

It's still sales. You do have to pick up after people in the dressing rooms. Otherwise, it's a great place to work!

Advice to Senior Management

I think the company is going a great job. I think that sometimes if there is a problem, and someone works hard to change, they don't necessarily get the feedback to know that it is better, and that should be acknowledged.

Pros

Good people to work with at my location, very responsive to schedule requests. Fun industry. Good effort to make communications from HQ reach all the way down to bottom rung of employess.

Cons

Difficult to live on the pay, even with modest performance bonus yearly. It is retail so hours are not always regular or predictable.

Advice to Senior Management

More pay = less ramen. Keep up good work on diversity hiring, scheduling flexibility, strategic direction, community involvement in stewardship, education.

Pros

- Intelligent co-workers with whom you might end up sharing some great bike rides and outdoor experiences.

- Prodeal discount (if you have a non-REI wage/outside net worth to buy them).

- 50% re-imbursement of mass transit commuting (to REI) expenses; better then nothing.

- Bicycle-centric and urbanist culture among many employees.

Cons

- Phoney-baloney "greenwashed" public facade of an ecology and waste/carbon neutrality. REI's "Carbon neutral by 2020 plan" has now been re-branded as "zero waste by 2020." Yet as of 4th quarter 2012 REI now offers free shipping....with no minimum purchase! "Hmmm, time to try that new flavor of caffeinated strawberry glucose-gel-gook!" "Maybe I'll have one shipped to me instead of cycling over to the store to test-ride that bike I've wanted to buy for a while." "On second thought, it would be nice if there was actually a place to park my bike at the store"

- Mysterious and unclear pathways for advancement and few opportunities for improvement of marketable job skills. I don't know about you, but I've never heard the "endorsement" process mentioned at a morning "huddle" or the extremely rare staff meeting. Could it be that current managers, ASMs, and supes, are weary of strong inside candidates being their future competition for store management and other regional management jobs? In regards to skill-set improvement, I once submitted a Individual Development Plan (IDP) to learn new things that would help me better serve customers and develop more marketable job skills, and several of the store managers responded with a marginalizing chuckle at the fact that I bothered to use this formal REI process. The internal job listings that are supposed to be posted in the office...well that rarely happens at my store.

- NON living wages relative to comparable retail stores and slow adjustments to cost-of-living increases in specific metropolitan statistical areas. The labor budgets at REI do not seem to go the retail employees who are the intrinsic value of the company.

- Unequivocally abysmal staffing levels relative to other bicycle retailers that frustrate and alienate customers. Many customers are used to Independent Bicycle Dealers (IBDs) in a 2000 sq foot shop with twice the number of employees ready to serve them, not a sign in sheet to wait 45 minutes "for the next bike specialist."

- Extreme frugality in terms of expenditures on capital equipment, especially technology such as computer terminals to serve customers, CCTV cameras for loss prevention, and safety equipment such as ladders, ergonomic equipment etc. that could improve productivity, reduce workers compensation experience modules, and mitigate general liability claims.

- Recent increases in (questionable) radio and even expensive television! advertising spending and trendy "today only" type internet coupons (e.g. Living Social, Groupon, Google Offers etc.) in increasingly desperate attempts to garner market share. But maybe that's what everybody else is doing these days.

Advice to Senior Management

- Make more frequent unannounced visits (one or many of you) to stores to keep employees and managers on their toes. Spend more time at retail stores with the rank-and-file in some way, shape, or form the way the greatest business people have done.

- OVERHAUL employee survey process to become much closer to the sentiments of the rank and file retail employee.

- Invest more in retail employee salaries to improve morale and reduce turnover and subsequent rehiring and training costs. You might need to get a bit leaner and meaner at AHQ or elimate a few VP of this or that positions. Yes, to do this you also might have to tighten up the return policy for people that come in with years-old stuff "circling the bowl" and worn way beyond it's useful life.

- Move just a few degrees away from hiring a mostly part-time workforce at the retail stores. We're not all college students that need to rush off to class or another job, independently-wealthy trophy wives there for the gear discounts, or "weekend warriors" motoring over from our "real" jobs to work a 3.5 hour closing shift and get a "pro-deal" in on our fifteen. Some of us actually have more than 16 hours a week of availability.

Pros

REI was an amazing place to work. I definitely felt at home there. I have a BS though and found a higher paying job or I would have loved to stay. Seriously best retail job you could ever find! Fun interview process and great people.

My interview was a group interview - don't worry about being a super outdoor enthusiast - just be yourself and appreciate the world we have around us. Warning - STRONG customer service skills are important!!

Cons

Customers return everything and sometimes you want to kill them :p

Pros

Really caring company trying to do the best it can and attracting some top notch talent in the process; very stable company

Cons

Dealing with a changing retail terrain and, like others, where it will be in the 21st century. Lots of change going on.