Crabtree & Evelyn Employee Reviews about "upper management"

Pros

Family environment, easy tasks, and small store

Cons

No communication with upper management

Pros

Co-Workers Generous Employee Discount Product was decent

Cons

Upper Management was disorganized and lacked communication skills. The environment was always negative and you never got praised for doing a good job, always felt like we were being lied too or kept in the dark with certain matters. The pay wasn’t good at all. Was always told you could move up in the company and boy was that a joke..

Pros

- my store team in particular was amazing, our management team were always encouraging us to do our best and were so incredibly passionate and organised in the way they worked - the products on the whole were lovely - enjoyed the incentives when the store reached their budgets (£50 to spend in store when we reached target, £75 if above budget etc) - our store won awards for its high standards, and was beautifully decorated

Cons

- Supervisors and key holders were paid the exact same as standard brand ambassadors, despite having way more responsibility given the fact we did banking/cashing up as well as opening and closing the store. - products would go out of stock for months at a time. When we would contact head office we would get no response as to why. Customers would get angry about this and stopped shopping in store in favour of other concessions/Amazon. - head office would tell us certain ranges were being discontinued, then later change their minds. Therefore customers would get angry at us for “lying” to them. - prices were way too high for what the products were worth - the brand are trying to appeal to millennials yet a bottle of shower gel was almost £20 in most lines, and their new home fragrance collection was priced at £42 for a single candle and £50 for a diffuser! What millennial can afford those prices? They don’t have the clout of brands like White Company or Jo Malone so I don’t know what they were thinking. - too many sales in store (50% off everything ran for two whole months- losing us so much money) which led to our regular customers bulk buying and not returning for months/years at a time. It also ruined the reputation of the brand when we went back into full price as customers were used to constantly having offers on and would just walk out. - we were told our store would be closing down with just 3 weeks notice. Despite head office clearly laying down their plan to close us months ago. They had no plan for us. They refused to take our calls or respond to emails - we couldn’t get our redundancy figures, any updates on when our consultation meetings were or even just notes from the meetings when they happened. The entirety of head office and upper management were absolutely disorganised and chaotic throughout the whole process and it severely impacted upon the team’s wellbeing. In 2016 the company had over 26 stores. Now there is only 15. Head office staff are also jumping from a sinking ship constantly- we’d have emails about their resignations on a weekly basis.

Pros

The company's work/life balance is really the best part. You receive a holiday every month other than November and December.

Cons

The biggest problem with the company is communication. There is a huge disconnect somewhere and it impacts business drastically. Many of times they would delay product launches, advertise a GWP and wouldn't receive the GWP for weeks later. They also planned on discontinuing products because they were on a list and realized they weren't supposed to be discontinued. The company made a huge mistake with a new inventory system which caused all stores to manually process any inventory procedures and that has been going on for months. The POS system does not have sales properly programmed, so you must calculate everything beforehand and do mark downs. There has never been a theme that was 100% programmed into system. Finally certain upper management will take advantage of employees and do shady practices to keep them ahead.

Pros

Good staff discount Easy to sell products good quality and great for gifts Good work home life balance Nice customer base

Cons

Bad upper management unorganised very last minute with any changes Terrible stock management Frequent changes to management structure unsettling for staff

Pros

Flexible hours, wonderful coworkers, clean and safe working environment. Decent pay for a side job (a little under 10/hour). Not physically demanding, which is a huge plus for someone with back issues like me. One of the nicest-smelling places I've ever worked.

Cons

When slideshows on new products are sent out, they are often filled with spelling and grammar errors, or are missing pieces. Upper management is not usually responsive when needed, and technology failures are rampant.