Simon Property Group Reviews

None that I can think of

Long holiday/weekend hours for all center management staff plus you're "on call" 24/7, hard to juggle this with a young family. Too many layers of management and you have to get approvals on almost every little thing even though center mgt. is said to be empowered. Very heavy administrative load - the amount of paperwork and approvals necessary to do anything is ridiculous and inefficient. A few personalities above me were more concerned about their bottom line (read: bonus) than the well being of the center. I was not involved in the decision-making of hiring other managers at my own center but rather was just told her the choice was being put into place. When I needed help while short-staffed, those in the regional positions to do this hiring purposely stalled on interviewing and getting someone in place. At the same time, another regional was slow to respond to requests for help and when he did, the response I got was "the expectation is that you will just handle things until...." Too much paperwork for bidding, paying invoices, leases, pretty much anything you want to do. Constant pounding to cut costs even to the detriment of customer amenities (while pushing us to increase customer amenities - with no dedicated budget). Daily requests and emails to fill out corporate spreadsheets, surveys, reports, etc. We received so many that we got additional email reminders with due dates just so we could keep them straight. All of this took away from actually managing the center. So many policies and procedures that's it's difficult to hire qualified individuals and train them on everything because it's so overcomplicated. Marketing programs are sent to the centers to be executed, so there is very little creativity for mktg. directors onsite other than to sell, sell, sell and make more for the bottom line. They have too many cooks in the kitchen to be effective (ie: too many bosses giving them directions). Basically, the management job was overall just very frustrating. After being in management and serving as a filter for all the directives coming down to us from all directions at the regional and corporate levels, it just because exhausting. "The Funnel Effect" is what one staffer called it - everything above just needs one little thing but by the time those "one little things" funnel down to the center, it's a million little things we have to react to (surveys, spreadsheets, databases, etc.) and usually nothing comes of them.