Poor leadership and micromanagement from the top down - Ecommerce Belk Employee Review

1.0
7 Apr 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The only pro of working for Belk Corporate was the 20% off employee discount at Belk stores.

Cons

I was in a management position on Belk's Ecommerce team; however, I was rarely empowered to make decisions or lead my team in any meaningful way. I had the president of the company along with an executive vice president, senior vice presidents and directors giving specific creative direction that they expected me to simply echo to my team to execute on the website, even when this direction was not consistent with industry best practices. There is an institutional lack of knowledge and understanding of the roles, responsibilities and processes needed to successfully operate a user experience team. They would often hire people who have the skills and knowledge to improve things; however, leadership then feels threatened by their knowledge, so they supress people's abilities to positively impact the team. Inevitably, the good people become frustrated and move on to go work somewhere else. People who don't move on to other companies are generally unhappy in their jobs and/or working under extreme stress and pressure. Goals and expectations are poorly communicated, and there is no vision for the Ecommerce team, at least there hasn't been one communicated to the team. I wouldn't recommend to anyone that they go work for Belk on the corporate side. I shared these concerns with HR, and they merely acknowledged their awareness of these issues while confessing they don't believe they'll improve any time soon b/c the executives aren't going anywhere. The icing on the cake is that Belk pays their employees about $0.50 - $0.70 on the dollar.

Explore other reviews about Belk

5.0
5 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

It was a great place to work

Cons

Can be stressful at time but over all good.

1.0
5 Jul 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I loved my job. I’m met so many wonderful people. And the associates couldn’t have been better.

Cons

I hurt myself and had to have surgery, and I was on Worker’s Comp. with limited availability. Because hours were short in operations, they made up this crazy position and wanted me to be ”lead” of the markdown team. I knew that meant for the most part to do go backs. I told them I wasn’t allowed to be on my feet that long and so she said they couldn’t accommodate me and I had to leave. And then the manager had the nerve to call their workers comp and told them I wasn’t coming into work. The management at that time was horrible. But there was a time when I first started working there that to store manager, and the assistant manager were wonderful. We were all so sad they left, but it didn’t take this new manager that I was talking about any time at all to lose almost the entire store associates.

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