Sports Authority Reviews

Pros

Great group with good leadership
New technology

Cons

Support issues
Lack of holiday time

Pros

Some hard working associates that were fun to work with.
Really love the sporting goods industry.
Fun to see new products as soon as they come into the store.

Cons

Where to begin, associates and managers treated extremely poorly by upper management.
Communication and job feedback completely non existant from upper management.
Promotions based on who sends emails kissing up to DM, rather than upon performance.
Unappreciative, flat out rude executives that aren't disciplined by HR.
Dishonest management.
Used to get a good discount, that's been taken away
Used to get ski passes, those have been taken away
Used to get a pretty good amount of time off, 3 days of that was taken away

Advice to Senior Management

Hold everyone accountable, even executives. Create an actual training program rather than throwing associates into postions and then yelling at them for not performing to your standards.

Pros

Working with some great people,but sadly are not appreciated.
Sporting Products are Fun to work with and Sell.

Cons

Store Manager runs a dictatorship, treats all other employees like they are in 3rd Grade. No communication between management and staff,Shocking recruitment skills, ridiculous deadlines,poor incentives and Pay. i have never felt so worthless, zero respect from management and employees, DM's will not acknowledge you, the micro management is insane,and the corporate make a very simple job extremely complicated, they waste millions on repetition of sales and signs in store. 19Th century IT technology is not helping either. there is so much more,you get the picture i need to get out of this hell hole ASAP.

Advice to Senior Management

Please Please Please Stop !!! start again clear out all the poor management and the pomp-as Directors. you need to focus on staff retention and motivation and training Real Training not hours in front of a PC but on the job and sending people to other stores everybody should rotate jobs everybody should be competent in his or her roles within the store. Trust People more give then Responsibilities. Mangers should Manage not run around like headless chickens. Payroll needs to be more expansive its to tight,we run on very dangerous staffing levels at Night, we feel very unsafe and venerable.give us new equipment to do are Job. not some Garbage from the 80s. O and Change the Muzak its mental Torture.!!!

Pros

Solid, dedicated people who are great to work with and are dedicated to doing a good job
Fast-paced environment, with lots of stretch assignments and challenging opportunities

Cons

Too many conflicting priorities
Unrealistic deadlines

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on staff education
Value knowledge and skill

Pros

Discounts, work/life balance, flexable hours, perfect part time job for young students in high school/college

Cons

No communication with store manager, employees have no knowledge of actual sports. Products are out of date.

Pros

-Getting to know the other employees that work there. Very friendly
-Employee Appreciation Day. 1/2 off all merchandise.
-Good products
-Good for just a job

Cons

-Prepare to be there very late in the night. Even when you have to be back there at 8am.
- Summer hours
- Constant nagging of management to sell ECPs, "add-ons", cash cards, etc.
- Poor scheduling, horrible long hours day after day for part-time workers
- Full time is only about 32-35 hours a week... Not 40.
- Not much room for advancement
- No time and a half for holidays
- Cheesey titles
- Lame promotions
- Favoritism

customer's destroy the fitting rooms, leaving carts full of clothes that need to be cleaned out and put away. Scheduling more than one person in the apparel department for 10 hour shifts would be helpful. Scheduling employees fairly would be nice. Managers are always asking for favors, but never giving anything back in return. Micro-managing is huge! constant interruption during shifts about up-selling and getting customers to walk out the door with more and more merchandise.

Customer's like to yell and throw items at cashiers when they don't get there way, until management is called and the customer gets free coupons and a $25 dollar shirt for $5 dollars just so we can get a sale. The sunday ad is pretty lame. Not many items go on sale for more than 25% off. In order for a customer to get a real deal they need to spend $50 to get a $10 cash card. or $100 to get a $25 cash card.

Prepare to be there up to an hour and a half after store closing. Cleaning and having the closing manager walk the store to make sure you really did straighten that shoe box in the far left corner. Once summer starts and schools let out prepare to double that amount of time.

There are many managers. Store, Operations, Merchandising, hard line and soft line managers. Typically 4 out of the 5 are there at one time during the weekends. The other employees are given really cheesey titles like Fitness Authority or Cashier Lead. These titles are higher than regular fitness workers or cashiers, but pay only varies about 2 cents.

This is Sports Authority...

Advice to Senior Management

Stop micro-managing, stop standing around talking with the three other managers on duty while yelling at employees to sell more ECPs and "add-ons", please try to actually work with employee's schedules, and stop scheduling them on days which they clearly state they cannot work. What is the point of having an "availability sheet" when it is never followed in scheduling.

Pros

the discount is good, some of the employees were cool, good hours, close to home, can be creative at times

Cons

If you dont enjoy retail work, then this job is not for you. Its pretty repetitive in nature, the job pays you what the job is worth

Advice to Senior Management

give feed back to the employees and let them know how their doing when they do something well, not just when you need more ecps or better customer service scores.

Pros

Worked with a very good team.
Some good people in various departments.
Corp discount is like crack to employees.

Cons

Nepotism rules.
Serious turf wars.
Corp HQ building is outdated.
Numerous staff in Merchant group that should have been shown out long ago.
Empty promises.
Lack of apparent direction by senior mgmt.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in your staff.

Pros

The starting out pay is way above minimum wage.
Usually the people that you are working with are friendly and about your same age.

Cons

Lack of communication between your supervisor.
A lot of standing without a lot of action.
Scheduling wasn't always done based off your availability.

Advice to Senior Management

Sports authority must find a way to become more competitive with other sporting good stores. The way the store is organized, the products the store carries, etc.

Pros

Pay is good for a college student.
Hours are kind of flexible.
Other employees are nice and fun to work with.

Cons

Management is inconsistent and unorganized.
Extreme favoritism.
Senior salespeople are treated with more respect than anyone else.
Management strikes fear into everyone by threatening that they will be fired over stupid tiny mistakes.
Bathrooms are disgusting.

Advice to Senior Management

Please grow up.