Pros
Opportunity to work in a fast-paced, constantly evolving atmosphere. No two days are ever alike. LOFT has a very operational workload. You will become a master of balancing bi-weekly (minimum) promo changes, store sets, shipment, processing DOMs (online orders) and basic operation aspects. Dress code is pretty open to interpretation & generally affordable. They give an additional seasonal coupon book to make sure the team is wearing current pieces. You can wear denim & flats to work! As long as you're dressing "high to low" - casual pant, refined top or dress pant, casual top you're good to go. I tend to stick with neutrals I can wear all year round and add a small dose of the current color. The product turns over very quickly (thanks to heavy promotions) so what is "current" one week will not be the next. The company has a large number of reports available for you to analyze your business. There are financial reports as well as product reports that let you see how well you're selling specific departments (pants, petites, jewelry, etc) compared to the average LOFT location. In addition, you learn important aspects about gross margin & really flexing your store's presentation based on what you own & sell. Most upper management are very supportive of this merchant mindset as long as you have a business case for what you're doing. It gives you a new perspective & is interesting to see how all of the puzzle pieces fit together. There is an online assessment that all candidates must pass prior to the point of being hired. This can sometimes delay the hiring process, but it does help to ensure you're hiring the right fit for the right job. There is also flexibility with what you can pay your team. When I started, I was given a range of what a Sales Associate, Sales Lead & Co-Manager could make. It was my job then to balance the team's salary based on experience so that the store's average ended in the middle ground & would be most profitable. It's nice to have the flexibility to pay a little more where you know you will get your return on investment without having to check with your DM first. Half time pay for salaried Co-Managers for hours over 40. Some people say this is a con because it is not time & a half, but I've worked with several retailers who do not offer ANY pay for hours over 40 regardless of position. That's why it's salaried after all! As a Store Manager, I don't benefit from this, but it is nice to know that my Co is compensated for additional hours required. Most retailers offer Floating Holidays for just Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years. LOFT adds Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day to that list for an additional 3 days of PTO. They also offer 1.5- 2x for hourly workers that have shifts on those days.
Cons
Payroll is different than your typical retailer. You are given XX hours for Client Facing, XX hours for Management, XX hours for Stock, XX hours for Visuals, XX hours for markdowns. This means you never have to cut hours based on not making Sales Goals. Sounds nice, right? This also means that if you're consistently busier than anticipated with a higher volume of visits or sales than expected, there is NO room to add additional coverage. You get 1 Manager & 1 Sales Associate whether you're making $500 or $5000. Payroll is usually mismanaged all year, so when it comes to Holiday time - when you would absolutely benefit from additional coverage that would pay itself back tenfold - DMs will ask their teams to CUT HOURS to actually be UNDER payroll during the BUSIEST time of the year. The company is trying to scrape together and last minute profit before the year end. There is a huge focus on credit cards. You can absolutely bottom out on sales, but if you're making your credit cards, you won't hear a word about your % to Sales Goal. You are required to convince people to open these accounts on the floor and at the cashwrap. Most stores set the goal of asking each client 2-3x if they're using their LOFT Card or if they'd like to open one, or if they'd like to convert to the MasterCard option. It's repetitive and clients get annoyed. Plus, you're really not doing them any favors by saving them 15% off their first purchase when after leaving that balance on their card, they're being charged 25-30% interest each month. This is common in several other credit card carrying retailers too though. Credit Cards are harped on daily with "encouraging" and shaming emails from DMs. All this, and guess what percentage of your Annual Performance Assessment this is... 5% That's it. Sales Volume Goals are set very optimistically by corporate. The actual metrics like DPT and Conversion are set at realistic goals. The problem is they're goaling stores higher in visits than that store has seen in the past 5 years. So even if you're making your quantifiable goals, you will never make your sales goal based on the walk-in traffic. Doesn't quite seem fair. In addition to that, Online Returns count against your store's sales. It's incredibly frustrating that you can be having a great day, and then clients will come in an return a $500 Online Order because she never got a chance to try it on first and it doesn't fit right. If online gets the credit for the sale, why wouldn't they get credit for the return? In addition, they're also working on rolling out iPads to the store, so that stores can help customers place online orders while they're in the store. It gives the company an additional source of revenue, but it will surely increase the amount of online returns in the store. So it benefits the people sitting behind the desk, but the frontline employees are going to be the ones suffering. Oh and % to Sales Goal... 30% of your Annual Performance Assessment. Wouldn't be so bad except you're not being assessed on your actual results, you're being assessed on your results, less tons of online returns. Work/life balance is always a struggle in retail. Store Manager's hours over 40 aren't counted towards payroll. So if there's additional work to do, guess who's doing it? Once you get a strong team and the business cadence down though, this is reduced. My average work week is about 40-42 hours. This is after spending 6-8 months building a team from the ground up while working 44-46 hours. Corporate visits will consist of a walk-through of the store, a few questions about business, and then hang out in back and socialize. You can expect DMs to do a 2-4 hour visit with half of that time in the back room checking emails or taking conference calls. If you want to affect sales results, step out on the floor and actually give feedback about selling behaviors. Anything you can say in a conference call, you can write in an email.