VF Outlet Reviews

Former Employee – worked at VF Outlet part-time for more than a year

Pros – Excellent first job for someone who is just starting out

Cons – Retail hours and lots of weekends.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at VF Outlet full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Flexible schedule. Offered great work/life time

Cons – Would like to see a better pay scale for store management.

Advice to Senior Management – Work on ways to compensate employees.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at VF Outlet part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – 1. Flexible schedule - You can pretty much request as much time off as you want and managers will work around you (within reason).
2. Easy - Barely any skill is needed. Because of this, the pay seems to be decent. You're paid to complete mindless transactions, pick-up and process stock, and stand around until a manager walks by and makes you do some drone-work (usually unnecessary work) .
3. Secure - Unless you do something completely unforgivable, you will keep your job. Being late, calling out, messing up on register/merchandise isn't really punished. As long as you meet a mediocre standard, you're ok.

Cons – 1. Meager hours - if you want a lot of hours, you won't usually get them. The most hours given to an employee was about 25-29, and there were only 3 or 4 older employees who worked that many hours. The rest get scraps --these are usually the teenagers and college-aged employees, which makes sense.
2. Not exciting and redundant - I suppose this is to be expected. But the location of my store was borderline depressing. Especially on nights where the mall was dead and you're pretty much working by yourself.
3. No room to advance - don't expect many raises, and don't expect to climb any ladders unless you're desperate or ambitious about this job for some reason.
4. Upper management - Associates on the floor are very disconnected with upper management, but I don't think that's out of the ordinary given the size of the corporation. Most stress falls upon middle management, while incompetent and non-invested employees struggle to care about changes made by upper management.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at VF Outlet

Pros – Quality merchandise at affordable prices. Great working environment if you have a good team, and we did. Customers love the store so you get alot of positive feedback from them which is more than I can say from senior management in the field and at corporate. A lot of value for your money. Didn't feel that I was "micro managed" and my Store Manager always answered any questions, gave help, and encouraged the "Open Door" policy for all of his employees.

Cons – Long hours if you are a salaried employee (avg 50+ hrs wk). Store Management encourages you to go home after your scheduled shift, but reality is that there is alot to do and not enough time or scheduled help to do it. All of the merchandise is checked in and processed at the store, and shipments are received every day. Due to the fact that the prices of the merchandise are always changing, 90% of the goods have to be reticketed before they ever hit the selling floor. Too much wasted paper from a mass amount of markdowns every week. Felt like we were "left in the dark" and got very little direction from senior management/buyers except through daily emails. The problem with that is that there was NEVER enough time to read the emails! Communication from outside of the store was pretty close to terrible. Very physical job since we processed all of our own shipments, so if you don't like to be on your feet and constantly working all day, this isn't the place for you!

Advice to Senior Management – Store Managers and Asssistants are frustrated. The general opinion is that they are over-worked and underpaid and get very little "positive" feedback from senior management in the field. Merchandise from the warehouse needs to come with the correct tickets because it is a WASTE OF TIME and PAYROLL at the store level to have to reticket/reprice almost everything before it hits the floor. Wouldn't it be more cost effective to have a PT-FT stockperson in every store so that your store management can spend their time training the employees on how to sell the merchandise and practice exceptional customer service? And...you are WASTING YOUR MONEY by sending in "Secret Shoppers" all of the time. In a store that is well over 15,000+ square feet, we NEVER had more than 4-5 employees on the floor/ at the fitting room at one time (except on the weekends) so how were we supposed to greet every customer within a few minutes, put loads of merchandise away from the fitting room, practice one-on-one customer contact/selling, process pallet loads of goods, and personally introduce ourselves to boot! You guys are dreaming, sorry. I really think that if senior management would spend more time actually working in some of the stores that they would finally get a clue as to what needs to be done before it comes back to bite them. And it will, I'm sorry to say.

Current Employee – been working at VF Outlet

Pros – Employee discounts, although very cheap.

Cons – Wow! I thought our store was the only one this bad. Must be the 'corporate mentality' to let this exist. How does Steven Fritz not know that the managers he hires treat the employees this terribly?
Yes, they have favorites...but I love all the people I work with. What an irony. They hire great workers...only to treat them like slaves. And when anything goes wrong...the managers blame the employees, to cover their own asses.

Advice to Senior Management – Go on ' Undercover Boss' or something to actually know what goes on in your stores. Great product...terrible managers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at VF Outlet

Pros – *Close to home

*Provided some income until I found a real job

*Decent hourly rate, at least for the local area

*Immediate IBM supervisor was a reasonable guy that genuinely did what he could to mitigate the pain that the technicians are going through

Cons – *Just about everything else, as you will see below.

* Decent hourly rate, but it seemed like much less once you take the aggravation level into account. No health benefits or PTO.

*Management was somewhat less than honest regarding job responsibilities during the interview process. I had been told that “you won’t REALLY be managing people”. Lo and behold, I was REALLY managing people.

*Penny wise and dollar stupid management

*Very unhappy clients

*Awful ticketing system and fiddly/inefficient ticket maintenance procedures

*Very poor computing infrastructure with non-existent/out of date documentation, very little organization, and roundabout implementation. Absolutely NOT recommended for anyone with eclectic/extensive IT experience in modern computing environments

*Myopic and technophobic upper management who treat the basic concept of technological redundancy as just another expense to be avoided, not as a near term expenditure to reduce potential long term losses caused by downtime

*Repeated attempts by management to make use of personal equipment such as cell phones for business use rather than providing such equipment to staff as is customary almost anywhere else. Stand your ground if they attempt to do this or face calls in the middle of the night from the IBM helpdesk in India

Advice to Senior Management – *Understand that when you outsource, you surrender a good part of the decision making process to a self-interested external party with its own methodologies, practices, and expectations. Some of them may not mesh well with your own vision of how the department should function.

*Dump IBM and get a company with some type of road-tested logistics system in place (i.e., HP) that better understands enterprise computing. HP isn’t pretty either, but at least she knows how to cook.

*Hire qualified American workers in IT rather than importing foreigners. Do the country that in large part made you what you are today a favor by putting qualified Americans to work during difficult economic times.

*Implement SMS/Sharepoint or similar system for software distribution. Technicians would have more time to service clientele if they didn’t have to waste time with such mundane tasks.

*Get rid of your IT leadership, and I mean all of them. Most have been there too long and lack the kind of eclectic technological exposure to bring you success in developing your IT enterprise.

*The digital age is upon you regardless of your personal feelings about technology. Do it right or go back to pen and paper. It would be a massive improvement over where you currently are technology wise.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at VF Outlet

Pros – It is a part of VF Corp, which owns lots of lifestyle brands and could offer some career movement within the corporation, though typically that is seen at higher management levels.

The spirit of VF Outlet is good, under the leadership of Steve Fritz. He is open to ideas from all levels. Employees work very hard and there is no fat in the payroll. The company has about 80 locations nationally and employees frequently travel to various locations or brand headquarters, keeping their eyes directly on the business.

Because the outlet idustry is changing to look more like regular retail today, VF Outlet is challenged to change its look and its way of doing business. this creates opportunity for innovation thinking inmoving the company forward.

Cons – It is sort of the ugly stepsister in the corporation and although it returns all of its profits to the corporation, it is kind of looked down upon buy the other brands within the corporation. As well, when VF sells off brands or segments of its division, it does not necessarily adjust its earnings expectations of the outlet division. So VF Outlet has loses the brands and product lines upon which it has built its customer loyalty and is left scrambling to replace the sales dollars and its offers to its loyal customers.

Advice to Senior Management – Recognize the contributions of your loyal, long term employees. They are often overlooked in favor of outside "retail" experience.

Former Employee – worked at VF Outlet full-time

Pros – 1. Generous PTO
2. Competitive benefits
3. Rock solid financially, one of the most sucessful corporations in the world.
4. Excellent opportunities to advance up to the store manager level, especially if relocatable.
5. Very good corporate culture.

Cons – One man's con is another man's pro. I'll simply list some of the expectations you'll encounter if you decide to work at VF. I'll utilize the Advice to Management section to do. If VF actually wanted my advice, they'd ask me. Further, with a stock price sailing into the stratosphere, regardless of what any employee of any level thinks, management clearly knows what they are doing.

Advice to Senior Management – 1. Low Volume store vs High Volume store. The lower the volume the store, the heavier the hands-on workload for management. As volume rises, you are allowed full-time specialized associates. You should research this prior to accepting a position, as it will clearly effect your job satisfaction level. If you are the type that prefers more office time and lots of delegation, you won't succeed, nor will you be happy in a lower volume store.

2. Archaic Fixturing. VF seems to be in a period of flux to some degree, in where they wish to go with their assortment. It's moving slightly away from being simply apparel and a few accessories, to a wide range of merchandise including matchbox toys, pet supplies and Iphone earbuds. Merchandise arrives without a pre-planned spot, schematic and in most cases, any fixturing that would be appropriate to house the merchandise.

Creativity thus becomes a must as a manager. Again, I don't list this as a pro or a con, some managers like the flexibility and enjoy this sort of challenge, while others might want specific fixturing and a planigram of how and where the merchandise will be set up.

3. Recovery, Freight and Customer Service. Every retail outfit stresses customer service, however the reality is that some stores have a much easier time achieving it. There is zero downtime at a VF store for anybody. From the moment you open, you are either processing freight, marking down the goods, or handling go-backs and recovery.

Like many companies, there are surveys and secret shops. While VF preaches and stresses customer service, I never felt like there were any unreasonable expectations. It's not a wine em and dine em operation. You just try to coach the staff to be nice, answer questions if needed, and try to get the workload accomplished. As a manager, you'll need to find that balance. Swing to heavy in one direction or the other, and one will suffer. I think the corporate office would like to think ultimate customer service is achievable in their stores, but I also think they understand how heavy the workload is. Workload never excuses bad customer service however, so don't think you can put customer service on your back burner.

4. Trust Level and Ownership. Was definitely a pro for me, but may not be for you. Ultimately, you'll succeed or fail based on your own ability, and your ability to manage your staff. Some tools are provided, but the corporate office does not lead with a heavy hand. They expect their managers to step up and take charge of virtually every aspect of running the store. If you need somebody to hold your hand on a daily basis, you are going to fail miserably at VF.

5. Overall. It wasn't a very good fit for me, but that was my own fault. I had heard it was an excellent company to work for, and it was. It wasn't the type of retailing I enjoy however. If you enjoy the type of environment and workload that comes with a store such as TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Burlington Coat, etc, VF is probably heads and shoulders above any of them in terms of culture and opportunity. If you like something like Chico's, where you can romance the product and develop deep customer relationships, VF simply isn't going to offer that very often.

My direct supervisor was excellent, and I found the corporate office to be very receptive and helpful.

In summary, just do your homework. VF could be a very good company for you, just don't go in expecting to be on cruise control as a manager.

– I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at VF Outlet part-time for less than a year

Pros – Fairly flexible schedule
Employee discount
It was easy to be hired on. I have no skills and am drop out

Cons – Managers hire family and give their family a lot of the hours
Pay is terrible
People that should be promoted are not- they dont promote within
High priced items
The lockers provided are broken
Only managers get FT hours
Managers dont train you. They throw you in and hope you catch on fast

Advice to Senior Management – You really need to pay more. It is a demanding job for minimum wage. Everybody at my store is so afraid of the district managers. When they come into town its like mass chaos. Everybody is freaking out.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at VF Outlet

Pros – I'd like it because the job was started as clothing only. After a while they changed their rules.

Cons – No Full time jobs; Management does not treat employees equal.

Advice to Senior Management – When customer services requested help, help should come

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend