Stride Rite Reviews

Pros

Pay is at or above minimum wage. Very flixible schedules for personal or school life. SMIT program: Store Manager in Training. Educational Assistance for Full-Time employees in a business related field.

Cons

Small staff so high importance on workind during your scheduled shift. Slow pace atomosphere at times. There are only certain time periods when traffic is heavy. Part-Time hours can be as less as 4hrs a week! (Depends on associate and store volume)

Advice to Senior Management

Let the store team know what they are doing RIGHT! Bring back fun games that are incentives to meet goals!

Pros

Management rarely there ( also a con)

Cons

Management was a husband and wife whose two children were store manager, one for louisville's two stores and lexington's two stores and the other for the remaining 3 locations
Having their children run the stores was very difficult, the daughter was our manager who basically ran the family making it very difficult to complain about how management was ran.
The family as a whole was blunt making it hard to have a conversation and feel like you were being respected because they also talk down to you and would get aggravated if you called to ask questions about coupons or returns but would then get mad at you if you gave a discount for something they decided not honor as a franchise.
Played favorites with most undeserving of employees and turned lexington and louisvilleby saying one could sell circles around another but employees never recieved any incintive to meet sells and were never given a quota.

Advice to Senior Management

Make an actual manager for each city so there is always someone employees can call to ask question and to make the schedule since current management is unfair.

Pros

-Management works with your schedule
-Boss Cares
-Nice Coworkers
-50% discount on shoes bought online

Cons

-boring
-long hours standing
-discount is at a children's shoe store, so if you don't have kids...
-BORING
-small store, feel trapped
-Upper management SUCKS
-gets super super busy then super super super slow
-you won't believe how much parents care about their 2 month old child's shoes
-you have to sell all the time, and it feels like you're making people spend money they don't have

Advice to Senior Management

Realize your employees are people and are working hard. Give more incentives. Care more. Don't treat your in store managers like crap, so that they in turn don't treat sales associates like crap.

Pros

Working at Stride Rite is great for someone who wants a work-life balance. this job is extremely easy and half the time there isn't that much to do, but when there is work to be done it can be quite heavy, however you do have quite a bit of time to finish it.

Key points
-easy to get time off
-easy to use sick time/ vacation time
-No stress kinda job
-Decent pay for what you do.
-Get to work with a lot of fun kids

Cons

Worst part about this job is that it's the same thing everyday, 0 change so you will be bored all day. The customers (parents) can be some of the most annoying and rudest people in the world. The benefits are expensive and SUCK! I mean like really suckkkkkkkk you're better off without it.

Advice to Senior Management

I understand That Stride Rite is going through a huge transition right now and that there has been a bit of fumbling. But overall you guys are doing a great job!

Pros

Great job to have during college or while in high school. My manager allowed me to have a balance between work:school:family/friends. I worked for Stride Rite for four years, and they helped pay for some of my school. The hours of operation were also very easy to work with. My particular store was not attached to a mall but an outlet center which allowed a steady stream of customers and nothing overbearing. If you've worked there long enough, you will have those return customers that you build a rapport with that you know on a first name basis, even having them wait for availability at times.

Cons

Not in anyway intellectually stimulating work. Parents can get annoying, but it comes with the territory. The same can be said with grandparents, but they spend more than parents do. We are given hourly wages with no commission, this ok, but I wish there was a little commission as more of an incentive because bonuses arent common. If you dont like feet, this jobs not for you, Ive had to work with nasty, sweaty kids feet. Management seems to favor younger management and throws veterans of the company by the wayside. Locations of some of the stores could be a little more convenient instead of being in the middle of nowhere.

Advice to Senior Management

be more flexible

Pros

casual work enviroment, good friends, fun brand

Cons

no growth, no promotion, no communication, no appreciation, too many excuses not enough answers

Advice to Senior Management

Appreciate your employees with deserved promotions and decent pay raises not a measly 3% especially when those below you do ALL THE WORK!! Value teamwork and even ideas the intern may have. Just because you have SVP or Chief or even Director in your title doesn't mean you know it all. Empowerment and support of empowering employees within their desicions as well can reach the store level which can influence the customer in a positive way.

Pros

love the kids. easy job. flexible hours.

Cons

low pay, elimiminated positions, no time off

Advice to Senior Management

treat your employees like you want to be treated

Pros

20% to 50% Discount on shoes. You get a tip once in a while from parents. ( no more than $5, so don't get too excited!!).

Cons

Work with people that don't care to much about anything. Mostly females and always gossiping about everyone. Parents scream @ u all the time. If there is no coverage for a shift they force you to work. If you have a personal emergency don't count with them to get the day off. Some how you need to make it there. Benefits are horribles. I wish we were getting paid by commission besides the couple of dollars they were giving me. I was supposed to get my raise and beacuse the economy it's bad (according to them) i didn't get anything. And I'll feel sorry for you if you get a bad mistery shop.

Advice to Senior Management

Watch the people you hire. U need to follow the policy and procedures. (schedule wise) ;) Your not the only person that has a family. We have a life outside Stride Rite. Yeah, GET YOUR LIFE TOGETHER!!! GET A LIFE!!

Pros

Great job to have during college or while in high school. My manager allowed me to have a balance between work:school:family/friends. I worked for Stride Rite for four years, and they helped pay for some of my school. The hours of operation were also very easy to work with. My particular store was not attached to a mall but an outlet center which allowed a steady stream of customers and nothing overbearing. If you've worked there long enough, you will have those return customers that you build a rapport with that you know on a first name basis, even having them wait for availability at times.

Cons

Not in anyway intellectually stimulating work. Parents can get annoying, but it comes with the territory. The same can be said with grandparents, but they spend more than parents do. We are given hourly wages with no commission, this ok, but I wish there was a little commission as more of an incentive because bonuses arent common. If you dont like feet, this jobs not for you, Ive had to work with nasty, sweaty kids feet. Management seems to favor younger management and throws veterans of the company by the wayside. Locations of some of the stores could be a little more convenient instead of being in the middle of nowhere.

Advice to Senior Management

None.

Pros

Stride Rite has a great well-known name brand - so that alone makes having worked there look nice on your resume. They also have a great building and perks - 50% off shoes and sometimes free shoes. They also are very good about work/life balance, from what I experienced. They also have a fairly young group of employees, which can make for a fun working environment.

Cons

Despite it's well-known brand name and other perks mentioned, Stride Rite is extremely political! Senior management will definitely correct you if you leave off the "Senior" in someone's VP title (how dare you!). Senior management also tends to treat anyone below them like a little person...very little respect for the worker-bees. They also don't pay very well compared to other companies, and for such a large company, they have very small marketing budgets making meeting goals nearly impossible.

Advice to Senior Management

Honestly, "get your head out of your you-know-what." Listen to what the little worker-bees have to say...they have good ideas. Be open to new ideas and change. Also, don't lose touch with your team - make time to touch base and make sure they are happy and being treated well.