Vail Resorts Reviews

Pros

High recognition of all resorts within the vail resorts chain
Good benefits for employees
Friendly and dynamic environment
Competent managament group

Cons

As every business depending on the economic and weather conditions, there were several times when you couldn't complete your weekly hours.

Advice to Senior Management

More focusing on training new employees and supervising their behavior during shift hours, in order to prevent losses, especially in the food and beverage department.

Pros

cool location, some guests are very nice, ski pass

Cons

disorganization, top level management not very nice to line level associates

Pros

*I received a free season ski pass for the resort I worked at and my family received a discounted price on season passes.
*Excellent community to work and play in.

Cons

*It's a gigantic corporation, so often times you don't know what's going on at the corporate level that could affect you later.

Pros

As with all companies right now, they are cutting back on benefits. The insurance is adequate and reasonably priced.

Cons

Micromanagement to the extent of chaos.
Nickel and diming customers.

Advice to Senior Management

Spend some time understanding what the guest experiences and what your employees have to do to perform their jobs.

Pros

Great Benefits and Ski Pass

Cons

So much turnover. They rather promote from the outside and have you train the new managers for the job you applied for. They wait months to fill needed positions and over work current employees. Not good for staff or guest. No parking for employees and you have to pay for a bus pass and employee housing is usually full.

Advice to Senior Management

Get to know your current employees

Pros

$400 Ski Pass?
Sexy company image amongst peers.

Cons

The company tag line is experience of a lifetime, but it is not something they offer to employees, just paying guests.
-No focus on bench strength and career development.
-PTO is awful for a resort company: It amounts to 17 days of pto, but you do not get the 11 Federal Holidays, which means that a state or federal employee receives 4 more pto days (2 weeks + 11 Fed Holidays = 21 days off ) than a Vail Resort employee that boasts a great work/life balance. Sham.
-Pay is a solid 15-20% below competition across the board.
-Leadership has an old guard in place in my division that is completely ineffective and has been holding onto people that are not productive, while firing some of their best people. New ideas and initiatives are few and far between as a large portion of leadership is fine with status quo and not rocking the boat.

Advice to Senior Management

See cons above.

Pros

Vail Resorts has been a great place to learn about business and what its like to work for a larger company. I like the people I work with and enjoy the environment in which I come to each day. The work/ life balance that is emphasized is great for me. I also have appreciated the feedback and learning opportunities I've gained.

Cons

When it comes to fostering internal talent and creating for a positive/ enjoyable culture, I feel that the company can "talk about big talk but not walk the walk". The company is not good at keeping its subject matter experts and passionate people around. Not only is this disappointing from the outside, but it also has a strong affect on the people who are left behind to pick up the slack.

Advice to Senior Management

VR claims its most important asset is its employees. In order to keep this asset happy (and improve on the culture and general moral of the company), it should give its loyal, talented employees incentives to stick around.

Pros

Free lift tickets but that's about it for this company. I don't recommned this company unless you like working 70 hours week.

Cons

High medical insurance cost, minimal vacation time (no Good Friday as an example and no Friday after Thanksgiving unless you use your own vacation time). 401k match is 50 cents on the dollar up to 4 percent.

Advice to Senior Management

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Pros

Getting paid to ski, support to better my skiing occupation, PRO deals, learning how to and become a better presenter, understanding of my balance of work and life. Yearly raises always say "thank you."

Cons

Working and training hinders my free ski days, dealing with a priority list to obtain lessons can be difficult, corporate culture policies creates situations on the mountain where guests and employees may not feel welcome.

Advice to Senior Management

Please eliminate black-out days (holidays) and times (lunch times) for guests and employees to use perks. These tactics do not seems to support an expereince of a lifetime, they make me feel unwelcome as a guest and employee.

Pros

- Young, fun culture.
- Good teamwork
- Free ski passes!
- Very interesting business
- Strong leadership

Cons

- Not very good work/life balance
- Some groups carry more of the workload than others

Advice to Senior Management

- Time to focus more on the bottom line