- Lot of changes in Merchandising, way too many to keep a count on. Things were pretty good a year ago, suddenly the management decided to change the scope and objective of the department. Many of us feel it was downright unreasonable, because the goal was just to reach a certain number of products on site. I highly doubt any analytical approach was made. Just because the Wayfair EU's head came up with a number, all the managers agreed and went along with it. The consequence is that a lot of associates hate their jobs, do a very repetitive and a boring job for which you do not need any specialized skill set.
- The mid-level managers can make your work-life very hard. All of these managers are from MBA + consultancy background and do not know much about managing people, their expectation, developing them, etc. They are just good story tellers, this is what it is. They lack minimum empathy, and just keep pushing the management agenda towards their team of associates. The associates suffer the most taking all the work.
- Get ready for minimal transparency. Any major changes/ decisions will not be discussed with the teams, employees. Instead, it will already be in place and then the employees are informed. Basically, the associates and specialist are not considered for anything, their opinions does not count.
- Merchandising conducts a lot of social events, so if you are not a big fan of those or if you are a person who thinks "I don't owe anything to my company after the work hours", then just forget about visibility, promotions, etc. Only the extroverts, people who talk ill about others, people who ask the most obvious questions all the time gets promoted and seen as a “visible” or “vocal” contributor to the department. If you just come to work, do a great job and go back home, you are instantly assumed as “not-so-motivated” employee.
- The HR process is another fallback. It doesn’t make sense why Merchandising is hiring overqualified graduates (bachelors + masters) to do such basic manual jobs. If you are not utilizing their skills or help them in growing their skills, they will leave the company soon. The department or the company is failing miserably in adding value to the associate’s skill set. The HRs always oversell everything about the role, the company, the benefits, the compensation package.
- Every single day is toxic working here. You constantly keep hearing about rumors about people getting fired, denied promotion, people changing teams, managers making bad decisions. Managers micro-manage so much that they literally sit next to the associates and dictate emails, agendas. How will such an environment thrive when there is absolutely no trust placed on employees?
- I cannot not stress how unacceptable the managers are at Merchandising department. Their MBAs do not mean a single thing when they cannot do the most trivial thing such as LISTENING to their own team. Managers look out for opportunities to just show their direct reports their place by constantly belittling them with their own “new & innovative ideas” or "work styles" they picked up during their tenure in Consulting.
- I have seen many great employees not getting promoted since 3 years. The reason that comes from the managers is their performance is not exceeding but just meeting their expectation. The nepotism runs rampant in this department. Only when you keep nodding to every manager in every meeting, being a loudmouth during social events, you have some chance of getting promoted. The real good employees who challenge the status-quo, and the managers are immediately seen as a threat to the top management and their agendas. Such employees are branded as “employee who is merely driven by promotion” or “employee who is un-coachable” and are soon fired.
- Another strange thing is that there is no gap in the scope of what senior associates, associates and the interns do every day. They all do the exact same job in varying quantity, that’s it. If you decide to quit, you are most likely replaced by an intern who does not give a damn about the department/ company because he/ she is here for some extra money and some free beers (good for them! Interns are absolutely lovely).
- The topic of compensation is a big joke. The managers are not ready to listen to any employee’s compensation requests. They always say it is not in their hands and compensation decisions are made by HRs. An employee getting paid less than the industry standards with an annual hike of EUR 30 (net) monthly has very little incentive to do more. There is no attempt made to retain current employees, instead the organisation is heavily focused on getting new ones. If you decide to quit, no one bats an eye, you are just replaced by a new graduate in few months. I have also known many employees who received a salary hike more than what was prescribed by HR just because their manager likes this person the most.
- The last bit of the charade is the Career Development of associates and senior associates. There is no effort made by your managers to improve you, challenge you and grow you. It is always the “you own your development” talk. In many cases, the associates do not know in which direction he/ she should improve, and managers could simply tell them, but the managers don’t do that. Only after each review cycle, the manager say “oh, you were almost there for the promotion, maybe next time. Bye.” I have known teams in Merchandising without a manager/ team lead for a good one year. What kind of career development can such a team demonstrate without anyone to look after them? Well, even crazier thing is, the senior manager who was supposed to act as an interim manager for this team got promoted pretty quickly. If you are wondering why, you should just ask his shiny MBA degree which (I am sure) is sticking to his/her living room wall.
