House of Fraser Employee Reviews about "house of fraser"

Cons

House of Fraser claim to be a company that is 'filled with passion' offer 'opportunities to grow' and have lots of 'fabulously talented people' - this just isn't the case. Management are outrageously unprofessional and bully staff. They have no desire for their staff to grow - rather they want to keep them at sales advisor level and take advantage. For those who threaten to leave to go to a job which will offer more opportunity, management then try to guilt trip them into staying and offer their 'management course' which for the many people I saw fall in to this trap, doesn't exist. House of Fraser staff generally fall into three categories: 1. Disrespectful, hostile and unprofessional bullies who have worked there for years because they can get away with anything they like. 2. People who just come in for a chat and have no desire to work. And 3. The small group of genuinely talented and wonderful humans who fall for the outstanding act management put on. Never, ever, in my life have I worked for a company that have reduced me to tears, bullied me and completely taken advantage of me. The saddest thing about this is that it doesn't even stop at House of Fraser City. This is an incredibly serious issue throughout the entire company and urgently needs to be investigated. This company should be shut down as it is an embarrassment to this country. I will not be rating below.

Cons

Long hours and not a lot of footfall in High Wycombe

Cons

Management aren't very approachable and never seem to let you know any important information, you just hear off other members of staff. A lot of pressure to reach sales targets and to open House of Fraser account cards and credit cards. Opening these cards is such a time consuming process that most customers walk away and don't complete the application. It also involved making a phone call to an Indian call centre where you have to stay on hold for ages right in front of the customer and then pass the phone over to them and they have to confirm all the information they already gave on the application form. Also part time staff are also excluded from certain things and are treated by management as not being fully competent as they don't work full time. You also only receive a staff discount if you open an account card. Which means part timers are excluded from this as you have to work so many hours to be eligible to open one. Also you must remember to pay off the money straight away or you'll be charged interest as customers are charged.... defeats the purpose of a staff discount in my opinion.

Cons

Management at house of Fraser don't care for your career progression in the slightest. Constantly undermined in front of customers, I've worked in retail for 8 years and I've never been treated as badly as I was here. Not allowed to drink water on the shop floor and for a full-time employee this actually caused some health issues. Management really need to think about why the staff turnover is so high. Managing staff does not mean bullying staff into doing their job. Worked in fear of getting in trouble, constantly anxious that we would do something wrong, a really horrible environment to work in. I won't be back in this store again and I know many people who won't shop there as they disagree with the working conditions, not only are you losing employees, you're losing customers as well.

Cons

The facilities are awful Even if you work at the flagship store in london the facilities are awful for staff. The toilets were mostly broken and overflowing and the lights weren't properly functional, so you couldn't see yourself properly in the mirror. The toilets often smelt bad. You are also expected to put your belongings in a tiny locker and this can be troublesome if you have a big bag. Some of the lockers are located on the fifth floor. You aren't allowed to use the lifts so fifteen minutes of your lunch break is wasted getting your stuff from the fifth floor. Trust is a real issue No one trusts anyone at House of Fraser, if you are working on the shop floor. Everyone is talking about one another behind their backs and it really breeds a culture of resentment. The floor managers are just as bad with this. Floor managers often moan about their staff even though they work extremely hard. They give them pointless tasks to do like handing out recognition cards when there is nothing to do. Be also prepared to be put under constant surveillance, everything you do is snooped on and everyone is trying to catch each other out There is zero employee recognition Some of the shop assistants work extremely hard. They are also required to register people for store recognition cards and master cards. Even though they do a good job in doing this, the managers get commission for this, not the sales assistants themselves. Sales assistants at house of fraser are also required to wear all black whilst the managers can wear what they wish. Some of the managers are unprofessional in what they wear and the vast majority of male managers are not in a suit. Wearing black makes sales assistant feel even more powerless than they already are. There is limited scope to change anything If you have an idea that you think may improve the shop floor, it normally isn't listened to. It is a company that is very set in its ideas and really does not value the opinions of those at the bottom. There is almost no ability to move up Career progression is limited. Most people are continually leaving because they do not think that their work is valued and that they can have a career with House of Fraser. This partly stems from the fact that there is a real disconnect between the floor managers and the sales assistants, which means that there is not an equilibrium. Floor managers are normally not recruited from the shop floor, they are recruited externally. This means that sales assistants are stuck in their positions for years before they have a chance to move up.

Cons

Where do I start? House of Fraser managers and supervisors were actually awful to work with.
As a sales assistant I was restricted on a lot of things I could do on the till therefore needing their assistance as it was their job. However whenever you called for them they would blatantly ignore you but most of the time they could not be bothered to help you? Overtime this became obvious that this attitude was ONLY towards concession staff members, very petty behaviour if you ask me. There was countless occasions I would call for their assistance and they would be stood talking to other staff members taking their time laughing and joking. This became extremely annoying especially if you had a customer waiting and you could see the customers getting angry with you. 
At the time when I worked there I would say 70% of staff members where female and there was sooo much unnecessary drama that was allowed to go on because of management. The only time management where ever nice to you was when you sold a lot of gift cards/recognition cards. At the time I only worked part time hours god help me if I did work full time hours because it was mentally draining, I would like to think that the place has improved since I worked there but I very much doubt that.

Cons

Managers are unprofessional and rude. The environment working in House of Fraser can be very toxic and uncomfortable.

Cons

The training was awful, they just made a group of 10-12 newbies stand around a till as they showed us how to scan items, there was no actual understanding of the other functions of the tills. This resulted in many tellings off about doing something wrong and it being entirely the fault of whichever poor untrained newbie was on till at the time. Speaking of tills, they are all so out of date that multiple times a week something goes wrong on at least one of them on your floor and nobody seems to know how to fix them- even when it is as simple as a restart. If we want to continue the till discussion there is the very strange rule of you can't stand behind them to fold or do tasks and must be in front of them which confuses the customer to no end and ends with them standing on the wrong side. There are also never any supplies such as pens, scissors and numbers for other tills on your floor, let alone for the rest of the shop. Very annoying during busy times. The uniform policy is really just a load of rubbish, not only was I never told even vaguely what it was meant to be, but I was picked up on random aspects of my outfits on different days. For example one day my shoes weren't smart enough yet the next they would be fine, one day a jumper would be smart enough and the next not and god forbid your socks don't match the rest of your outfit. Petty. The way that the rota's are done is horrendous. Sometimes the shifts will be done a week in advance and others there will be an entire month ready to note down. However you have to check them every day that you are in and call in multiple times a week as they change so often and there is no form of email or application where the rota's can be sent out like most places have these days. As well as this the response rate from an email to a manager regarding these shifts or any other concerns is so slow that it is mostly a useless form of communication. The mentality between the House of Fraser team and the concession teams is pretty disgusting, many of the people I met working for a concession detested the HOF staff as they felt they were being treated unfairly and being made to do their own brand work and pick up the slack from the unorganised HOF team too. They were undervalued by most of the management and this created a lot of bad feeling between the two teams which is totally understandable because of how they were treated. On the subject of staff being mistreated, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that House of Fraser was more like a high school than a High Street Store. There was an awful 'gang' mentality which meant that a nasty group formed and those who weren't a part of it were treated like inferiors. This mostly happened to the Christmas Temps, the Part-Time staff, the Concession staff and the unlucky few who had been there for years but had gone unnoticed and uncared for by anyone. By my second shift I had already been told who to avoid because 'we just don't like her'. This then extended to what quite literally turned into bullying. Unfair splits of the tasks that those with fake superior titles didn't want to do and that they didn't want to subject their favourites to do would always be given to those who were in temporary or part time positions, or to those who were agreed upon as not liked. In my time there I saw temps in tears because a 'fake' superior didn't trust them with simple tasks like bagging items because it meant being too close to the tills and others almost faint after being told to stand in the same position for three hours. The main issue at House of Fraser is the way that the staff are treated. There is very clear favouritism for all kinds of strange reasons, some down to dress sense and sexuality that lead to the rest of the team feeling undervalued and unmotivated to put in the effort as it usually goes unnoticed. The higher members of staff talk down to all those in lower positions meaning that many members of staff feel unable to bond with their team as they are afraid of those who are meant to be helping and training them. Although the training never happens. Finally the recognition/order in store/gift card targets are so hugely unrealistic and when they aren't met you are told of the consequences. The customers either have a card or don't want one, maybe if you installed some working wifi in stores or maybe worked on the stone age internet speed less customers would walk away after waiting 15 minutes for a recognition page to load. Just a thought. Order in store is a good option to have for anyone who doesn't own their own computer, tablet, whatever it is they use to connect to the internet but otherwise it's not something special, it's something customers can do in their own time and most don't want to input their personal and bank details on an in store computer connected to a till. Asking for customers to donate to charity after paying however much they paid for their items was also something that I found awful as not only did it put customers on the spot but it made their shopping experience unpleasant. It's such an awful thing for such a big shop to do. So money hungry. Oh and as a quick end note, you are expected to have 3 sick days a year and if you don't have a good enough explanation you get different coloured warnings and then get booted.

Cons

The managers really push us to open House of Fraser Mastercards and its literally the WORST thing. I worked on childrens wear which was on the top (6th) floor. Not only were all the customers in a rush or saddled down with hundreds of changing bags they had screaming and hungry children so they just wanted to get home ASAP. Being on the top floor also meant that most of the time they had already got one downstairs when they had been shopping on ladies. As well as that, most people that shop there are either regular customers who have already got one. Or people that are coming in as a one off and dont want one as they wont shop here again. They also push recognition card which arent as bad because you can literally scan them and put them in the bag and the customer can do the rest at home. No one wants to spend ten mins at the till and end up with another credit card. We also have a target everyday of how many 'order in stores' we have to do, This is means that if we dont have an item in stock we order it online for them on the shop floor. On a normal weekday we might be expected to do £50. You are only allowed to start closing tills when the store is closed so usually at 8pm and no customers are allowed to be around when you do it.However customers usually hang around a little longer and it also takes around 5-10 mins to cash up a till depending on how slow it is being. This would be fine but you only get paid until 8 o clock. This means that you end up working for free for about 15 mins at the end of each night as you also have to get down to the cash office and hand in your cash bag. Other cons are basically just the usual retail cons. Having to do ticketing on hundreds of items, annoying and ruse customers etc

Cons

Have to use your own credit card to get staff discount