By Invite Only Jewellery Reviews

Update as of 9/2/22: 1. Our scheduling has improved from last minute to 2 weeks and subsequently scheduled for the entire month for February. We hope to continue this by allowing our Supervisors and Store Leads head all rostering so they can manage their own store/team and overseen by our Area Manager/Retail Ops Manager. 2. Implement and executed managerial/peer evaluations on any managers, supervisors or team mates in leadership positions to inform us for performance and character evaluations. Ensuring that peer evaluations are fair/balanced and not used as a forum to bully any individual. In progress: - Revising our staff discounts and perks to be more flexible and give the team more freedom to purchase online or in-stores. Also improving the efficiency of this program with the help of digital tech/A.I so that our retail ops team will have more time back into their hands. We're working with HR and the final revised program will be released in 1-2 weeks. I will continue to list our updates and improvements over the next few months. :) - Trixie Khong, Founder & CEO _________ Previous glassdoor reply to this review: Hi there, This is Trixie here and the CEO of the company. Thank you for letting us know how you feel and sorry to hear of your negative experience here with us. Your feedback is a valuable insight and a great place for us to start as we look to improve as we grow in 2022. We'd like to take the opportunity to acknowledge our failings and address some points that you've brought forward as we may not have the opportunity to do so before. If you’re a member of public or our team mate reading this, just understand that there are always 2 sides of the story. We’re open to explain to anyone who is keen to understand our thought process. If you’re interviewing with us, please question our hiring managers on this and we’ll be happy to give you a proper explanation for accountability. _________ Feedback 1: Management is not open to our feedbacks at all even though they are always asking us for feedback, but nothing has changed. Please do listen to our feedbacks when retail staff gives them. We experience things that you have not experienced firsthand, hence, it is important to listen to our feedback and act on it too instead of blaming the person who wants the best for the employees by speaking up for us. >> There has been feedback given to us that management have implemented with the biggest initiative being the revision of the commission structure. It is a sweeping statement to say that nothing has changed as it discredits your feedback greatly and may be doing it a disservice. I acknowledge your sentiment and see your anger and discontent on this subject. I am not going to list down the times where we have implemented changes according to the team’s feedback here as I feel that it is petty for me to do so. I do however have to acknowledge that we do not implement all the feedbacks that are given to us as we have to decide on whether it serves the greater good of the company/team/customers as a whole and never because it is good for only 1 or a few. Feedback 2: High expectation of service but low salary for retail staff. >> Regardless of the salary of the employee, we have high expectations and standards that need to be followed in order to give our customers the best service they deserve. On that front from a management standpoint, we cannot compromise or allow staff to be unprofessional or give shoddy service to our customers depending on the salary they are paid. Whether you’re an intern, part-timer, contract worker, supervisor, manager to boss, the service has to be good. It is also a character benchmark for evaluation as we focus on keeping people on the team that take pride in their work and choose to not be rude to another human being no matter how rude they are back to us. On salary ranges, we have done our research and compared with industry and our peers. However, we do have to admit that we have not been able to give much increment to the retail team over the last year as from May to October, the retail end of the brand has been deeply stuck by COVID restrictions. The partial lockdown on dining has greatly affected our revenues at the store and as a result the team's commissions have also been affected due to the 90% reduction in foot traffic. Despite our losses, we have not furloughed anyone's pay-check, retrenched or fired anyone due to cost cutting measures like many other retailers but instead re-scoped the retail team to help out in the office. As the brand goes through turmoil and challenges, we expect our team to band together to support the company but I can understand that this is also a time of uncertainty and confusion that leads to low morale. Listening to the feedback and fears on the light foot traffic, we made a strategic decision to lower our store targets as a deliberate attempt to put some money into our retail team's pockets despite making a huge loss and having no assistance with our rental. Feedback 3: When 2 employees are complaining about Employee C, the 2 employees might be wrong, but if 5 or more employees are voicing out their feedback and dissatisfaction on Employee C, maybe you would have to evaluate Employee C instead of pinning your trust on her just because she has many years of experience in Retail >> Accessing the employee in question should not only be reliant on how many people have made the complaint against another co-worker. The management definitely have to look into Employee C (or any employee in question) as it has to be a fair assessment/investigation of her performance/work, facts, logic or thought-process. As a 360 assessment, we will also have to look into the credibility of those who are giving the complaint by looking at their employee file, their past performance, capabilities, whether they have received negative customer feedbacks and use these elements as character witnesses. I would like to assure you that this process has taken place and we have done a 360 review of Employee C based on the feedback and not just based on her prior experience in retail alone. In conclusion: Due to our inexperience in retail and not knowing how to set the proper SOPs or structures in place, we have offered many types of perks or privileges without considering the consequences, cost to the company or other members of the team. We're working to reform our SOPs and structure to reflect better business decisions so we can have smoother scheduling, efficiency and flow at the stores. We’re sorry if it has caused a lot of confusion and uncertainty to everyone on the retail team. The new area manager’s job is to uphold standards, reform policies that are not working and to hit our sales targets which I understand then makes her very unpopular. Change is always uncomfortable but it is growing pains that we need to endure as a company and we're prepared to do so. As a CEO, I have to think about the 30-45 livelihoods that weigh heavily on my conscience. I cannot afford to make decisions that will pamper the needs of a few and sacrifice the broader interest or mental wellbeing of the group. Perhaps you have lost some privileges that you used to enjoy but I hope you will see that other members gain in return and overall it balances out. All policies that we roll out are also compared against other companies to access if we're being fair or unreasonable. We're definitely not perfect but we surely have much to improve and learn from. Thank you again for taking the time to give us your feedback. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours.