retail store manager

sales assistant

retail sales associate

retail assistant store manager

packer

Spendless Shoes

The WORST company i have ever worked for. 
WARNING...this is NOT a store management role.....Store managers are actually full time sales assistants. You will not need any of your management skills or experience with this role/company.
All decisions are made for you(which reflects in your pay packet, also not salary, award wage paid) & when you do make a decision its changed the next day by the ssm who thinks she knows better, even the casual who does 3 hours a week makes decisions instore.

The company is going bad at the moment behind the scenes. They are not supplying certain things that are a BASIC need for the workplace. tissues!! yet they have available toilet paper.....hello no stores have staff toilets. Cost cutting at its best.
The roster never changes, the SSM now actually does the roster, so there are no skills required for you to run the store as your own.

SSMs are far too inexperienced and a contributing factor of this is their age, they are far too young and no life skllls on managing issues at store level.

Be prepared to get into trouble over minor things (yes you get into trouble and spoken down to). The company has favourites at store level, your store can be performing bad yet you get manager of the year.

The company is full of false & fake people.
 
Bullying also does the rounds in this company, the store I was in had one of the worst I have ever come across, the staff member has been with the company a long time and it shows. backstabbing and very unprofessional attitudes. Supposed to 'live each day the spendless way'.

Training; score 0. There is no training in this company, yes its not hard to sell a shoe, but to understand how a company runs would be good. 

Displays: you follow a print out each Monday that the buying department does for you.

Shoes: 80% are rubbish. Endless returns, you have to pretend its the first time you have seen this fault in this shoe. Refunds are not taken into consideration at the end of day trade, these can be up to $120 easy a day, which is enough to affect your budget.

Budget: HOURLY readings need to be written down on a useless bit of paper to file at the end of the week.

VAPS: add sales to get customers to spend more money, waterproofer is rubbish, yet we have to sell it. the store im in makes the company bench mark or sometimes miss by a few, get asked why... Yet a weekly report comes through and then I see other stores have down less. 

The only good thing about this role is when the stores closes you don't have to worry about it until the next day, so work / life balance is good.

Very poor experience working for this company. Was lucky to have a great store manager but area manager was two-faced (for lack of a better term). Extremely high expectations of staff, yet inadequate training and communication to get you to this level. Have to buy Spendless shoes to wear on shift, yet the shoes you're allowed to choose from provide zero support for being on your feet all day. This led to an injury after a very short time working there, and a doctor advising I leave before it got worse. (Still doing weekly physio sessions and taking daily medication for this). Stores are understaffed which puts immense pressure on the staff who have other commitments to be constantly called in when colleagues are sick. Usually working on your own which can get extremely busy.

It was not uncommon to have staff (including myself) work a 6.25 hour shift on their own the entire time without a break, not even to go to the bathroom. According to the Fair Work Ombudsman, retail employees working more than 5 and less than 7 hours are required to have one meal break and one rest break. Employees "can't be asked to work more than 5 hours without a meal break". Also expected to start 15 minutes prior to your actual rostered start time in order to complete all of the store opening procedures - you are not paid for this, yet if you show up at your rostered start time and open the store minutes after it should be opened, you're in big trouble.

Management's priority does not sit with their employees, but rather their $$$. Was told that 1x 3hr shift of wearing actual supportive shoes of a decent quality (i.e. shoes not made by Spendless, because they have none of these) would result in me detracting customers and sending their money to a competitor's store. I'm sorry, but if someone was to come in and see my $200 branded sneakers and ask where I got them, they certainly aren't going to be the type of person to settle for a pair of shoes from Spendless.

I would avoid considering employment with this company (particularly the location I worked in as I cannot speak for other stores), however if you choose to - proceed with caution.

The team I worked with were amazing and I’ve made long life friends but upper management is appalling. They are all nice and suck up to you when they want something but as soon as they are done with you that’s it. No matter what you’ve done for them which includes going over a month with barely one day off no appreciation was shown or loyalty. The area manager is way to young for her role and is just on a massive power trip. I have never been spoken to bad in my entire life in any work place it was disgusting. Comes in saying she will terminate everyone’s employment in the store and close it down but then turns around saying we need you and not to leave. First of all where do you even get the power todo that and secondly nothing was that bad to warrant that response. She also used people and tried to pit you off against each other just to try and get information saying everyone’s only defending themselves. That’s not even the worse when I handed in my notice giving the appropriate amount of notice which i found on the relevant Award, I then get a call on the weekend saying I need to give up one weeks worth of wage because I have to pay for them to either get someone else to open the store or if they have to close due to no one being able to have to foot the fees for it. Not even consulting with the right department to actually get her facts right which is another example of her being on a power trip. The company is full of 2 faces people as you find out because you get no support anywhere even when another manager is meant to come in and help. Instead spends her time taking photos and making fun of the store and people in it on the phone and through email to her 2IC. They always said it takes a certain kind of person to work at this company and they are so right. The behaviours that I have seen is disgusting. There’s always such a high turn around at this store and they blame it on the people in the town when no it is the company. The whole centre sees it and know how bad they treat their staff.

Upper management favouritism and toxicity is real - I took it with a grain of salt until it happened to me. In the end I had to rely on stores needing covers to get work while I sent out job applications and let me tell you, I was a busy busy lady - they couldn’t even acknowledge how valuable an employee I was when literally everyone else did. I’ve been in management ever since and I will never understand what they were thinking. 

They even hung up when they called a store and I answered! Can’t prove that it was them but … we would get another call later and if someone else answered, it was them. If I answered again, the person hung up again, and an email would come through. 

If things hadn’t gone down the way they had, I might still have been there. I really enjoyed working here. Pretty straightforward day to day, it was very organised and you knew what you needed to do. Communication within teams was easy. When I was there it was mainly casuals who worked the majority of the weekend, so they had a lot of trust in us, it was great to have a sense of autonomy like that. It made you take ownership and care about your store, product, and appreciate your colleagues. It also meant we actually did build relationships with our customers regardless of our position, so they liked us and were, mostly, nice. (It’s still retail)

The environment in store was generally positive and supportive, small teams meant we really had each other’s backs, even between stores (casuals and sometimes 2ICs often covered at different stores). Some really amazing people in those stores, they’re just about the only thing I miss.

Just be wary of those who have ambitions to move up in the company - they’re probably not inherently bad people, but they’re also probably going to have to step on you and others to get to where they’re going. 

During my time working at this company, I found the work environment to be challenging due to what I perceived as a lack of support and a toxic management culture. In my experience, there was a high level of gossip and unprofessional communication from management, which negatively impacted my confidence and overall work experience.
My primary concerns included:
• Workload and Expectations: I felt the expectations for casual staff were disproportionately high, often requiring me to handle opening, closing, and cash management tasks early in my tenure, as well as processing large stock shipments independently.
• Unpaid Expectations: I experienced pressure to arrive early or stay late for operational tasks, which I felt was unpaid labor.
• Lack of Support: When dealing with difficult or abusive customer interactions, I did not feel supported by management. In my view, the company prioritized customer retention over the well-being of the staff, and I felt that interactions with leadership were often condescending rather than constructive.
I believe the company would benefit significantly from fostering a more supportive culture and re-evaluating the expectations placed on casual employees. My time here was difficult, and I would suggest prospective employees consider these factors regarding the internal culture.

- Severely understaffed and the company is too cheap to put two people on at one time even when it's necessary. You miss out on breaks because of this and cant even go to the toilet. Sometimes expected to work many hours as a casual because they can't find new staff and people keep leaving. Then when you want to quit they guilt trip you into staying because there's no other staff.
- The gossiping culture is rampant even amongst managers. You feel horrible to make a small mistake because everyone talks behind your back. The passive aggressiveness sometimes even feels like bullying but you have nobody to report it to because they all talk.
- Not enough training before they leave you alone in the store. They expect you to know everything which makes you feel anxiety and shame about mistakes.
- Expected to complete store tasks like unpacking many big boxes full of shoes alone while serving customers too. How can someone possibly get all of that done alone while being constantly distracted by customers? Then you only have 15 mins to complete opening or closing tasks all alone and if you stay longer you get in trouble because they supposedly can't afford it.
- You have to sell vaps and get people to sign up their email. They expect you to get every customer to agree but that is impossible. 
In short, selling shoes itself is easy. It is all the rest that makes this job hard. I miss the happiness I had before this job.

DO NOT WORK HERE!! WORK ANYWHERE ELSE! 
You are working for a franchise that only cares for $$ and no employee welfare. 
- Tattletale environment.. always employees or area managers dobbing others in ie sitting, going on phone, chatting too much ect.   
-  NO MUSIC in store because it's considered "offensive" and no money left !!!
- NO toilet breaks as you are the only one on! They would not care if you went in a bucket anything to drive sales. Company too cheap to hire lunch covers or put X2 people on 
- Area managers are AWFUL only notice the bad and no congratulations for the good !
- You mainly work alone; only 45 minute overlaps between shifts 
- Set hours only, NO  flexibility
- Gossipy work environment; the entire company only employs women. Mostly managers gossiping about employees below them. 
- No xmas parties 
- No bonuses unless you are part time of full time employee 
- End of the world if you want time off on short notice (ie within 3 days) no covers esp in November - Feb 
- Treating casuals like they are part-time/full-time employees; make employees feel guilty for wanting time off 
- Standards too high for casual employees given the environment and wage

The pay is only really good when your a casual, otherwise it’s terrible. And only if your willing to work about 6-9 hours a week(sometimes less)then basically full time if someone quits because it takes so long for them to re hire new people. Also area managers are really unprofessional(most of the time uncontactable)and are of little to no help to regional stores. Most of the time being casual means working full days on your own and having to close the store for breaks or not get one.. Store managers and assistant store managers are required to do basically everything by certain deadlines and and as stores have few staff you rarely get time off or it’s a hassle to change around shifts/sick leave. 
Staff discount is 30% off after 3 months of employment but limited to 5 pairs a month. A lot of the shoes can be faulty therefor you get lots of complaints from customers and returns. The range of shoes is very limited and most seasons just repeat the same styles and colours. You have no control over stock ordering and can’t order for customers from another store if they have to stock so again customers become rude .. they have good sales though but sometimes the sale will be online and not instore so customers will complain and want the same price. 

Iv worked in retail for about 10 years, and this has to be the most horrid company to work for. You get no support from upper management, they have unbelievable standards, upper management  tries to pit staff against each other, by changing stories around. Upper management basically bullied my self and my other team members to leaving. My upper management went on a power trip as I think she’s just to young for her role, and trying to tell staff who they can and can’t be friends with.  Upper management also doesn’t care about your mental health, or to even try and understand. They also speak so down to you like your not even human. They have let the Gladstone store go in such a bad and gross way as the store floods every time it rains really heavy, they made us open up the  store for trade the day after it had flooded one night, and waited three days before getting in carpet cleaners, in that time the store smelt so horrible and toxic from the damp water and mould growing underneath the carpets. 
We would always get told that it takes a type of person to work within this company and after 6 months it’s clear that they want people who lie, backstab and suck up to the upper management. 
Honestly was the happiest i have been since working in this company  was the day I resigned!! So save yourself some time and do not apply for this company.

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