The Gap Reviews

Pros

Great coworkers. You will be recognized if you work hard. They will praise you during work so all the coworkers know who you are. Managers will know YOU if you do a great job. Fast paced and you have to be able to think on your feet.

Cons

Some customers. Customers think you are dumber than them. You must know how to keep your cool in many situations.

Advice to Senior Management

Tell us how to get jobs in corporate. Communicate with corporate better so we do not feel lost in our store.

Pros

The employee discount was superb.

Cons

There were so many tasks for the amount that I was paid.

Advice to Senior Management

treat your workers better

Pros

The people that you meet, whether it be customers or co-workers, can provide an endless amount of opportunity and job satisfaction

Cons

The middle management of the stores definitely exercise the Peter Principle quite well. For those that don't know, the Peter Principle focuses on the effect of people who are promoted just outside of their talent level, so they are basically doomed to fail. A lot of this has to do with the hiring policies of individual stores though since it probably varies. Management at my store lack the leadership qualities that define a true leader, which should go hand in hand with the title of manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide a more seamless hiring process. Know the applicants inside the company and outside of it too, set some standards to personality gauging or something! Longevity shouldn't guarantee a promotion simply to avoid an awkward conversation of why they shouldn't be a manager. More and more Peter Principle managers are reaching higher and higher within the company. This leads to a lot of frustrated workers......trust me.....Also, know your markets. All of the brands within Gap Inc. really seem to be troubling in the differentiation process. Any given item at Gap has the same amount of likelihood to be marketed towards Old Navy, Banana, or even Piperlime customers. What's the strategy, where's the vision, where's the expertise, what's the target market? Too many questions, too little answers. Employees want to know, they have their own inner drive, their own motivation. They just need a final push from the company to actually reach a higher plateau that can definitely be achieved. The problem isn't that this company's afraid of change, it's that it fails to define what those changes are.

Pros

Wonderful discounts, good benefits, in-house cafeteria with pretty good food. The headquarters in San Francisco had an in-house art gallery focusing on the art collection of the founders, the Fischer family.

Cons

Eat or be eaten. Everyone is very supportive to your face, and will cut you down the minute you turn your back. Management changes often, and that means you will be doing an about-face every time you get a new manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat everyone equally, investigate employee complaints and problems, invest in some better IT infrastructure. The current IT setup is a joke - there is no support whatsoever.

Pros

Great discount on new items
Overall pretty fun people
There is an employee website where you can get lots of company information and access your account

Cons

over scheduled
low pay
constantly reminded that you need to get gap cards yet you get no rewards or incentives to get them
we are not educated enough on new products

Advice to Senior Management

Know your employees, and care about what they want in this job.
Educate more and lay off, if i'm doing my job I don't want to constantly be reminded to do what I'm doing.

Pros

GREAT discount, good clothes, relatively flexible with hours if you are part time. Good place to gain sales experience.

Cons

If you are looking for a place to start from the bottom as a sales associate and work your way up, you may want to look elsewhere. I know it happens, but it is rare. After a while I realized that they hire most of their management from outside the company. There is a very high turnover in management, and even if they do not leave, managers are regularly transferred between stores in the area. I do not really see the point in this. Weekly hours were generally determined by who was doing the scheduling and whether or not they liked me, and it became somewhat draining to have to rebuilt rapport with a new manager every couple of months. Near the end of my employment with the company, i found that i had been doing the work of some kind of hybrid assistant manager, as i had more responsibilities than a regular sales associate, but did not make any more money. This is when i decided i was done.

Pros

Excellent benefits and work envirnoment

Cons

Low salary and bad hours.

Advice to Senior Management

Raise salaries and reduce hours.

Pros

There were miles of distribution flow to understand about how efficiency can work well to finish each job on time and within the budgeted cost planned.

Cons

The daily operations were only concerned with speed, not efficiencies. There are no outlets for usage of all brain power on site to maintain and innovate strategies for success.

Advice to Senior Management

Change the focus on the distribution center to progress in an orderly and efficient way, rather than risk safety and security of personnel by focusing only on speed.

Pros

Really care about employee growth and development. Managers spend a lot of time with their employees providing guidance and mentoring. Great values as to the role of the corporation in the larger world community. Senior Management is smart and competent.

Cons

Pay in retail generally is not that great. Limit as to how far can be promoted because of cut backs at Director and above level. Very young (like 20s and early 30s) employee population who can be arrogant that they know it all.

Advice to Senior Management

More diversity in age at the company. Its too young and the lack of experienced managers at the Director and below level shows in the company performance. More money for salaries.

Pros

Great training, amazing culture, tremendous benefits. Casual wear. 4 weeks starting vacation.

Cons

Company continues to scramble to find it's footing. When business is bad, your job can feel bad too.

Advice to Senior Management

Think long-term.