Pros
Great store team and friendly staff Free clothing - increasingly difficult to get free clothing bonuses, but as a manager or 2IC you get a small quarterly allowance Lovely customers
Cons
- Below market rate pay: on average about $5k less than what other stores pay. $49k for Store Manager, $45k for 2IC. Considering work load and other cons listed below, it is disgusting that they pay so little, and definitely not worth it, even if you think you love the brand. You'll be told that although the pay is on the "lower end" you will receive cash bonuses and incentives (in the form of either $ in your pay or $ towards clothing) which can add up to the thousands each year. However, the company is making it increasingly difficult to earn these incentives. Find a job at a company that will simply pay you more, rather than hope you can earn cash bonuses or free clothing. - Zero support from management: Clear favouritism towards other stores with my store going weeks on end without a check up or visit from management despite being understaffed. I was told to my face that other stores were more important than mine despite us being a flagship location and online warehouse. There were several times I was left to run a 200sqm store by myself for the entire day. - Head Office disorganisation and mismanagement: every member of head office staff seemed to have about 2-3 job titles, meaning everyone was overworked and doing a poor job of several jobs. Directives and sale changes were sent with no notice, and the expectation they’d be actioned within hours while maintaining customer service expectations. The blame for any errors and poor sales performance always lay on frontline retail staff. - Shared staff wardrobe: every 1-2 months, around 5 outfits are added to the shared staff wardrobe. The sizing of these outfits is up to the store manager, and priority must be given to the sizing of the casual staff in the store. If you are not the same size as the majority of the other staff in the store (usually size 8-10) you will not be able to fit into the staff wardrobe. Gorman does not pay for the staff wardrobe to be dry cleaned and the responsibility falls on store managers to take the clothes home and wash them themselves. - Low staff allowance: 2ICs receive $333/quarter and store managers get $666/quarter to be spend on full priced items. At full price, this buys a full-time 2IC just one outfit to wear for 3 months, not including shoes. The staff wardrobe situation and rules combined with the lack of compensation and benefits is definitely designed to push staff into using their own money to purchase (overpriced) Gorman clothes to wear to work. - Staff uniform rules: Staff were only meant to wear outfits as per each season’s lookbook. You were expected to buy complete outfits and could not mix and match beyond what was prescribed in the lookbook. For a company that portrays itself as valuing individual style and freedom, staff wardrobe rules were very strict. At first, staff were expected to either wear Gorman-brand shoes or white sneakers. Soon after, the rule changed to Gorman shoes only and no white sneakers allowed. Near the end of my employment, the rule was further tightened to Gorman shoes that had been sold within the last 6 months. Gorman shoes are notoriously bad quality (they are regularly recalled for quality issues), they don’t often make lace ups or supportive shoes, and they are expensive. To expect staff members to keep both their clothing and shoes current season when casual staff are not entitled to any allowance and 2ICs have such a low allowance is very unfair, on top of the fact that Gorman makes shoes that are not supportive or comfortable enough for staff to be wearing while standing for long hours each day. Management attempted to pressure staff into buying Gorman shoes if they did not come to work in them. The discount for all staff members (manager or not) was 30% off shoes. To be forced to buy uncomfortable $200+ shoes at 30% off so you can wear them at work, while running around on your feet for 8 hours a day is simply unacceptable. - Annual Leave: All annual leave requests, even just for one day, had to be made six weeks in advance. It took 6 months for my request of 2 weeks’ leave to be approved. People have been told to choose between their 1 month holiday and their job when they've requested leave of more than 2 weeks. - Poor quality: every season multiple items would inevitably be recalled due to quality control issues. This included: rusty earrings, fabric colour runs, fabric ripping at seams, and peeling leather shoes. Buttons would constantly fall off and hems would come undone just from customers trying items in store. It's just straight up embarrassing the number of times a garment has fallen apart in some way just because a customer has so much as laid eyes on it. - Declining fabric composition quality: Certain items are labelled with “silk” in their name, despite them only being half silk, and customers are misled into believing they are purchasing a higher-quality item than they really are. - While the company likes to brand itself as being ethical, organic, and a boutique label, there are now 40 stores around Australia and NZ. If you check reviews and ratings of how Gorman ranks on an ethical scale, you will find that it actually performs very poorly. The brand is also becoming increasingly fast fashion as they continue to pump more and more styles out constantly and cheapen the label. The amount of clothing that’s left over after each season and gets sent off to be sold at the outlet is sickeningly wasteful as well. - Competitions designed to incentivise retail staff to drive sales, in which winners were never announced. - Very poor staff retention rate is reflective of lack of support for managers and indicative of how little the company values staff. - Extremely outdated Point of Sale with no investment in improving systems to improve customer experience and ease of use for staff members. - I was expected to go above and beyond the scope of my role and train dozens of staff members destined for other locations (not even my own staff) even though that was beyond my job description. - My store dealt with insane levels of stock and no support from management. Completely breached all OH&S laws with boxes stacked 4 high with 50cm walkway in between. We were instructed to cut holes out of the boxes for us to grab clothing out of - oh if only customers knew how their $200 jumpers were being stored. - So, you've probably read this far because you're considering applying for a job at Gorman. Well, the TL;DR is this: DON'T DO IT! I'm sure you love the clothes and think you love the brand, but you will be shocked at just how poorly this company is run and how badly you will be treated. You will be overworked, underpaid, taken advantage of, and your successes and talents will be neither appreciated nor acknowledged. If you are absolutely desperate for any retail job, then yes, maybe you should apply. Gorman does make a great stepping stone into other jobs/companies due to the good brand recognition it has. But if you are currently at a half-decent company and can handle job hunting for a little longer... wait it out. You will find a better job elsewhere. Good luck.
