Pros
Great team environment, strong training program for leadership
Cons
Just about everything else. I have been a manager for 3 years, and in that time have had my work-life balance completely deteriorate. I worked hard for my promotion, and have gotten stuck as a co-manager. You cannot get promoted or looked at beyond that point without favoritism from a DM, and in the last 6 months they have fired over 30 of them in a new realignment. New sales metrics have created a way to weed out associates who have limited availability due to other jobs or commitments. The employees we do have are wonderful, but find themselves overworked and stressed about making "every segment go green". Because if they don't hit their metrics, they wont get hours. DM's do not provide much encouragement other than the occasional email that becomes an indictment of stores not converting enough customers, even when they make plan. When I first started at this company 5 years ago, it was all about having a family atmosphere and making you the best manager you could be. My district manager, store manager, and many more in surrounding stores were helpful, encouraging people who loved the brand and its values. And in the last year, they fired or performance managed almost my entire district's leadership out, and have taken a "no-nonsense" attitude to not making plan. We live on the Canadian border and have a ton of Canadian traffic that we relied on for years, but with BBW flooding the Canadian market, we do not have the same traffic but are held accountable to the same numbers. How high is high? You tell me. BBW paid its CEO $25 million dollars last year, while crying broke, forcing us to work ridiculous hours and restructuring our bonus plans so that store managers receive a major bonus, while the co-managers and sales leads who have done all the work supporting these new people in place receive a pittance in comparison. I reached out to both my store manager and DM about wanting to go back to school and furthering my development, and they countered with putting me on a Performance Improvement Plan because I was not "bought in".