Pros
--Allowed to wear whatever you like to work provided it's semi-appropriate for a workplace. --Tattoos/piercings/funky hair colours and cuts are all permitted which is nice. It was nice to have a job where I wasn't forced to take my piercings out or cover my tattoo or change my bright hair colour to something more 'natural'. --Paid for the time you're spent cashing up tills/closing store which is a pleasant change to most retail jobs in Australia. --No individual sales targets. --Met some really great people working there.
Cons
--Constantly understaffed in the name of being 'cost conscious', particularly for delivery shifts and then staff are given unrealistic targets and then berated for not being 'fast paced' enough when they fail to meet them. Constantly belittled for 'never' meeting the targets....because it is impossible with the number of staff allocated. --Managers/senior staff members get away with being nasty bullies. --Managers/senior staff have one set of rules for their friends/drinking buddies and another set of rules for everyone else. --Your experience here doesn't depend on how well you do your job or how much potential you have. It depends on whether or not your manager/team leader likes getting drunk with you. Staff who do nothing will be praised because they're 'in' with senior staff, and staff who work very hard are given a hard time because they're not. --You get written up for the tiniest things which are often not even your fault (such as cancelling more than two items in a sale, even if the reason you've done it is because the customer changed their mind) or the till you cashed up being a few dollars under even though it was used by 6 or more people that day and you may not have even processed sales on it, just did the cash up. --If your department manager doesn't like you, they will look for every tiny thing you do wrong, present it as a list and make you feel pressured to leave. Some of the things they will pick up on will leave you going 'seriously?'. --Management don't seem to recognise that the store's folded table displays can't look perfect on a busy day when there are customers everywhere picking stuff up. Staff are then berated for this. --Expected to be there are 6am despite very limited safe public transport options at that time of day if you're from the other side of town. --Company likes to constantly go on about its values but in reality, they are rarely practised. --Things are extremely disorganised. No one ever knew what was going on, who to talk to about issues. --Rostering staff constantly forgot about people's required days off/uni commitments and then gave staff a hard time when they raise the problem to be fixed. --The general annoyance at knowing you'll only get to progress/be considered for opportunities if you are a manager's favourite. --Awful work life balance. Virtually no time off on weekends if you're a part timer. Some weekend work is to be expected in retail, but H&M will expect you to work all day, Saturday and Sunday for months on end. I had a very hard time getting time off for my own nephews christening where I was the godmother an had worked ten weekends in a row prior.