Restoration Hardware Reviews

Pros

It's a decent company that sells great products.

Cons

The products, while very nice, are obscenely overpriced. This can be stressful on the sales floor, though it's way less intense than many other retail gigs.

Advice to Senior Management

Management does a great job of communicating with the people at the bottom. I'd advise they offer low level employees a better salary rather than free merchandise to boost sales.

Pros

Great managment that treats its workers right and the job is not difficult at all as long as you pay attention

Cons

There ane not many downsides to working at this place becasue of how great the management is at the stores

Pros

People First aspect. THe company is always striving to be better and it relects on the employees

Cons

not so much desgin exposure

Advice to Senior Management

They are really understandng

Pros

-Competitive discount
-Ability to move within the company
-Flexible daily start/end times
-Self driven learning, individual growth
-Occasionally work from home

Cons

-Lack of company/department goals and accomplishments
-No formal training or process documentation
-Very little support for change or newness
-No direction or setting of personal expectations
-No weekly or daily touch bases, handle work as it comes
-Very significant periods of downtime,unbelievably slow paced environment
-Work was always split up and not delegated to capable or available members of the team
-Extremely immature, unprofessional environment (within certain departments) where talking smack and snickering within earshot of targets is an hourly occurrence
-Lack of available productive conflict resolution
-Constantly being reminded of "having the right people in the right places" helps create anxiety about job stability mixed frequent small rounds of lay offs is not productive for high morale
-Exclusive lunches and happy hours
-Overpaid for the job description/experience which makes it difficult to remain in the same salary bracket when searching for another job
-Changing job descriptions and company reorganization also contributes to a variance between actual job and job description

Advice to Senior Management

-Take responsibility
-Listen to employees and their concerns
-Understand that people aren't always what they present themselves to be
-Have a clear understanding of what the company goals are and share with the entire team
-Clean up the data, invest in functioning reporting systems that don't require massive work a rounds
-Follow the company's core values, invest in employee morale
-Fix BO, inventory issues, these will allow for a much more positive customer experience
-Remember customers are why the company exists

Pros

With the right management team is can be a really enjoyable place to work. There are also a variety of tasks and positions available to provide variety and keep the job from being monotonous.

Cons

They can sometimes overlook staff they already have when giving out promotions. They tend to think new people are better, but I think that is true in a lot of companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more open to feedback from employees at the store level. They are the ones who deal with customers everyday, and they are often very tenured employees with some great ideas.

Pros

Decent environment and friendly people

Cons

No job growth at the company.

Pros

Great colleagues, dynamic environment, decent pay

Cons

No career pathing. Advancement depends on someone else quitting or getting fired. You may wait years to move.

Advice to Senior Management

Someone once said that a great manager's function is to replicate himself. Try that, instead of stalling people in place because you don't want your cheese moved.

Pros

I loved the people I worked with. I made some great friendships while working there.

Attendance bonus. $100 tax free for a month of perfect attendance. If you have perfect attendance for the entire year, you can an extra $500.

Employee discount. 40% off full price and 20% off sale prices.

Cons

Product information - We did get a couple training sessions a year (usually in the Spring and Fall), but it wouldn't cover what the customers really wanted to know about the products. And when we asked those questions, we would rarely get the answers.

Response from vendors - When customers needed a replacement part or had a question about a product (that we didn't have the answer to) it was a minimum of 10 business days, but most took weeks, even months for answers.

A lot of the vendors are in China. During Chinese New Year, they shut down for at least a month. This delays the vendor responses and some special order items even longer than normal, the customers are not informed of this shut down and have to deal with the delays.

Backorders - There are many and they are so far out it's shocking. Not all, but when I left some items were already on delay until June. 6 months to wait for a table or bathroom vanity is just crazy.

The Supervisors don't want to help. If a customer wanted to speak to my Supervisor, it was like pulling teeth to get them to take the call. One time I asked for help and while going back to my desk to inform the customer it would be a bit longer, the Supervisor I was asking for help from left (as in leave the office for the day) and had never told me they were planning to leave.

Verbal Abuse - Most of the customers that called in were upset, understandably as it was a call center. A lot of the customers yelled. Even that is expected, but they yelled about the company itself. Then there's the customers who are yelling at you directly, obscenities being directed at you, that it's your fault for whatever is wrong. There is nothing you can do about it. There is no protection, no matter the threat. We're not supposed to ask them to stop, though some have, and we cannot just hang up on them.

There's no appreciation for the employees. Yes, there's the attendance bonus. Oh and there's the monthly birthday cake, though they don't even make sure the people whose birthday is in that month even get a piece before everyone else gobbles it up. No holiday party, just a Christmas card signed by the Supervisors. There has been a company picnic the past 2 years, but neither were well planned. They started before the center closed for the day so anyone working who wanted to attend missed all the games and kids activities as the picnics started around 2, the center closed at 5 and the picnic over at 7.

Moral is very low in the call center.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit firing the people who do a good job. There were so many employees that were fired when they had great customer service skills, knew what they were doing and rarely escalated a call. Those that do not meet the (speed) rate they should be working at are still there. Treat the employees with respect.

Pros

Discount, Products, Networking, High-End Retailer,

Cons

Leadership, Lack of Tools/Resources, Items consistently out of stock.

Pros

Lovely products, and my co-workers were great to work with- intelligent, fun, and cool people. My regular customers were a joy to work with, and I considered several of them friends, not just clients. The current assortment of products really are beautiful, and as unique as a chain store could hope to have.

Cons

So glad I'm not there anymore. I was there for over 3 years and saw it slide down that slippery slope. None of my old managers that were awesome are there anymore (good for them!). I've never been in a retail job that had as much internal politicking, and jockeying for position. From day to day, your job security is zero. Even though I was at least 60% of the time top in sales, with MANY loyal customers, the current management doesn't care how good you are, they only care about their so-called Core Values, how well you parrot it back to them, and how high you can jump when they ask you to. Information flow from the top to the bottom is non-existent. Only received one pay raise in 3+ years due to company's cash flow problems.

Managers pit employees against each other in striving for sales numbers, and our pay ISN'T commission-based despite EXTREMELY expensive merchandise. Current managers aren't exactly the cream of the crop either, morale has dropped as long-time managers left. The new manager has focused on hiring people that are pretty on the outside but have no substance, and can't pull their weight, and favoritism abounds.

If you're looking forward to having your youthful dreams crushed by management, apply here!

Advice to Senior Management

If you have good people, keep them. Don't get blinded by your 'core values' so much that you forget that much of what makes RH what it is are the people who make it happen. That's all the people down below, not the ones with their heads in the clouds. You don't pay us enough to be miserable at work. Carlos seems great, it's Gary who's the problem.