Decline in positive culture and employee satisfaction post Caleres acquisition
Pros
The only pro to working is the team I worked with. Amazing people that I am going to miss.
Cons
Working for SW since the Caleres acquisition has been the worst experience of my career. - Deceptive tactics and unfulfilled promises to retain employees - Long hours & increase in workload from reduction in teams (layoffs) - Unproductive/ slow systems that attribute to increase in workload; with flaws revealed post transition - High cost of benefits - Low pay & no current path for employee growth/ development - Unprofessional HR member - CEO that is cold and detached from the reality of the brand’s state Prior to the full transition and after claiming their desire to retain SW’s employees, the company completed lay offs. Reduction of teams resulted in increase in workload due to the absorption of responsibilities from key members; with 0 compromise in pay increases or resolution in hiring back support from what they now realize we needed to retain. The company made a lot of promises to retain employees (desire to keep the company as is for the talent, inclusion in AOP bonuses, improvement of systems); all that we have found to not be true and has left us feeling deceived. Employees are quitting weekly; most without notice. The transition of systems, reporting, change in team structure was extremely disorganized… resulting in business losses that could have been avoided. We had plenty of time to work through preparing for this move and critical trainings/ access to new systems didn’t begin until a month prior (even after teams were asking for months to begin). Months after the transition, teams are still working to receive the support needed to run the business, constantly troubleshooting issues, and in a state of frustration/ experiencing burn out. Business critical information that was once easily accessible is not available or resulted in constant roadblocks in receiving (teams holding back on information sharing, IT is slow to respond/ resolve issues, company partners just simply do not have the answers). We have realized that their wholesale driven model & systems do not translate well to the business needs of a retail/ omni channel focused brand. Refer to Caleres for accurate CEO and state of employee satisfaction. The company rating is low for a reason; do not be deceived.
