Pros
The great thing about Nordstrom is that they hire management from within. All managers started out as sales associates at some point or another, so they have a fair perspective on the difficulties of the job and know the products well. All of the managers were a delight to work with at my store. With the constant communication (via headsets/radios), the atmosphere between everyone becomes a family-like team environment. At Nordstrom, they give you a pretty clear path on what you have to do in order to move "Down the Pyramid." There are no invisible hoops you have to jump through. It's a set path that everyone has to move through. Also, there is a "Future Nordstrom Leader" program for associates who wish to "Move Down." It's a great program, and I personally learned a lot while getting to network with people and management from other Rack and Full-line stores in my area. The open door policy makes it a comfortable and easy environment to confide in management about any issues happening on the sales floor. Management welcomes ideas and solutions from sales associates. Basically, it feels like they genuinely care. I think they do a good job of recognizing and rewarding hard-workers too. Generally speaking, the hours available were good. I only had one shift cut the day-of the entire time I worked there. You can apply for benefits within the first 30 days of working there too. After working 1000 hours (roughly 10 months depending on how much you work) you get a wage increase automatically. They give good incentives on opening rewards accounts, which can add to a lot of extra pocket cash if you're good at it.
Cons
My biggest pet-peeve with the company is the payroll system. Pay periods are the 1-15 and the 16-30 or 31st. There is no in-house HR person to do payroll, so even if you have direct deposit you don't get paid until the 4-5 or the 19-20. If those days happen to fall on a weekend or holiday, depending on your bank, you don't get paid until that following Monday. This leaves the majority of associates having to dedicate an entire paycheck solely to bill-paying. I would say the pay is alright. With my skills and years of experience, I feel like I was low-balled a bit. It worked out well enough where I was making more because of the amount of hours I received. Compared to my last job where I was paid more, but my shifts were constantly cut. That being said, the schedule did change frequently. Nordstrom touts a healthy work-life balance, but at the store I worked at, it seemed like any other retail chain. Getting asked to come in early and/or your shift extended became a common occurrence. Technically, the way they schedule you, you can work up to 10 days in a row too. Not to mention, the actual work is physically hard on your body. I developed wrist, elbow, and shoulder issues from the amount of go-backs we had to do. I consider myself a healthy and physically fit person, but doing 10 Z-racks of go-backs during an average shift is a lot for people. It can become very overwhelming both physically and mentally. Speaking of which, the Women's fitting room was a constant chaotic battle. A 15 item limit, having to count items, unlock rooms for customers, sort and divide the go-backs, answer women's dept. phone calls, and make announcements, is A LOT to ask of one person. It's a constant struggle, and some Nordstrom customers expect a certain amount of attention and a "fitting room experience" like at the Full-line stores. When we're slammed, it's frustrating to both the employees and the customers. While for the most part everyone gets along, there is a bit of a catty, gossipy nature sometimes at the Rack. I can't point my finger at where it stems from, perhaps it's because the majority of people who work there are younger than 30. The downside to the open door policy is that it can easily turn into a tattle-tale system too. Be wary of what you say, who you say it to, and how you say it. Another issue we had in my department were a few people who thought they could get out of tasks because, "They did their time." I don't care how many years you've worked there or if you're ranked at the top of the schedule, you're still a sales associate and you should have to do all of the tasks as everyone else. They received preferential treatment, even though they didn't necessarily perform better. They received consistent schedules, and never had to work a closing shift, but would be extremely critical of the performance that the closers would do. This created tension in the dept. and even caused some people to switch departments because they were tired of it being unfair. Lastly, having to drop what you are doing in order to help cashier can create a snowball effect for departments. On busy days, an entire department (or even multiple departments) can get stuck just ringing up customers for far too long. Ideally, what they think is, if everyone helps then the line goes down quicker and people get out faster, which in most cases is generally true. BUT at my store, the sales associates became faster at ringing customers while the cashiers seemed to take their sweet time. While this isn't always the case, I feel like it can easily be abused when a cashier wants to go on break, but there's still people in line. Sales associates always have to help out cashiers, but at the end of the night when we need help cleaning the floor, the help isn't always reciprocated. Generally, cashiers get paid more as well. This creates animosity.