Pros
Employee discount is very generous throughout the Ascena brands. Company service & sales model is spot on with it's intentions. Merchandise is (for the most part) picked well and to current trends. You will face the day to day typical retail struggles like workload vs. payroll, poor planning and allocations, but it is not the worst I have seen. The company means well and they are adjusting to the change of the Ascena Retail family. These things take time.
Cons
The biggest problem : Company is CHEAP. The problem with this is that when you don't invest in your people, you get very little in return. I was a Store Manager who in a span of 4 years, experienced tremendous turnover with my SM peers. Unfortunately, the wrong candidates were being hired and were not set up for success. We sold high ticket fashion items that are made in third world countries for very little cost to the bottom line, but yet are very hesitant on spending $ to hire the caliber of staff that it takes to execute the LB vision flawlessly. Where is the money going LB? My guess would be that your executives are making the real green. LB has extravagant Spring & Holiday conferences for executives (DM level and above) while the store managers get a shotty, watered-down version with a DVD of the real conference and the DM gets $150 budget to feed us while we watch and discuss. $150/12 store managers. We get subway sandwich combos and some candy to eat. Ok. The stores Do not get a budget for training. Not even for holiday help. They have to work that into their store budget which means that associates and PT Keyholders learn on the job. Only FT hires receive real training $. Incentives are pathetic to say the least, as the SM gets a box of items from "Lane Shop" which is basically generic branded merchandise (like ponytail holders and key chains that say "Lane Bryant" on them) with blank certificates to fill out when we feel the need to reward our staff for exceptional performance. Come on LB, let's be real. Is a coffee mug going to motivate my team to sell credit cards? They pay most (not all) but most of their managers poor salaries to endure the typical crap-shoot Store Managers face on a daily basis. The customers have been trained by the marketing department to not even think about shopping without a coupon or "Retail Me Not," so you better make sure you have one available. Loss prevention is a huge focus, however the RLPM we had was a joke and on top of his antics, we completed 2 physical inventory cycles in 2014-2015 where results were "tossed" because the DC/Store discrepancies were so skewed, the results were deemed completely inaccurate. Very frustrating.