Zara Reviews

3.3

52% would recommend to a friend

(9,512 total reviews)
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Mr. Óscar García Maceiras

63% approve of CEO

49% positive business outlook

Zara has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 9,512 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Zara employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail and wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

10K reviews
1.0
12 July 2015

Miserable Life

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Have made a lot of close friends - 25% discount (full timers only) - 3 breaks a day

Cons

- Managment is unorganised and rude to staff, they have their favourites and these are the people that get to move up in the company, so if your not in with the management team forget about moving up with your role. -Rosters are always late and rarely given to you in advance usually the day before the month will start. -Shifts constant changing with hardly any notice so if you have plans you have to totally disregard them. -Have to be at work ten minutes before each shift to have a pointless briefing in which they repeat the same things over and over (and you are not paid for that 10 minutes) and will have serioua consequences if you are even 30 seconds late, like being at school. -Goals set by management are always impossible in the time frame given which automatically makes you have a negative outlook at the task at hand -Co-workers will through you under the bus to get in managements good books, constant telling on other co-workers and getting them in trouble , childish and annoying -Casuals rarely get hours and have their shifts cancelled at last minute, they get NO discount whatsoever and it's frowned upon to borrow a full timers discount card -Bag checks every night before we leave which can take another 10 minutes as have to wait for manger to come and check before they unlock the door -Never change up what you do in the day which becomes very tedious, if you've shown you work well in the fitting rooms then most likely you will be in the fitting room every single day, same with folding clothes if you've shown you are good most likely you will be closing every day. -Never get appreciated or noticed if you do a good job, only get noticed when you've done something wrong -very picky with annual leave, rarely gets approved , and have to quit if you want to take more than 2 weeks off -Full timers only given 2 uniforms which is ridiculous, and the fact we have to wash them every night means they are tatty and faded , just looks old and horrible, not presentable -Constant reminder on wearing to much makeup or inappropriate hair/nails. Also they tell some people to cover up peircings/tattoos but will allow others to have theirs on display -Folding standards are ridiculous, everything has to be folded perfect and if it's not it will have to be redone , even tho customers just ruin the pile anyway -all breaks are monitored so if your 1 minute late you will have to make it up or have a really good explanation as to why -Cashiers will call manager to front desk to approve a return and the manager will be no where to see , often there just out the back doing nothing regardless of the cashier calling their name several times which makes the customer annoyed as their having to wait longer than they already have -never have enough cashiers so there is always lines (and angry customers) -managers / leaders never help out with the tidying of the floor , usually just stand there and delicate or yell orders and walk around looking busy -prepare to have no social life whatsoever , hours are super long for full timers and very draining (I was once a fun person, now all I do is sleep)

1.0
28 Nov 2020

Overworked and Under-appreciated

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The coworkers were lovely people

Cons

Everyone in upper management and head office are completely up themselves. HR will get angry at you for being 30 seconds late even though we start 10 minutes before our scheduled shift time. They treat you like crap, won't roster on more people despite the huge number of customers. No regard for people's feelings and constantly having to re-hire people because they can't be nice to their hardest working employees. The person from HR goes on regular power trips to assert dominance because she's terrible. She constantly hovers around waiting for the moment you make a mistake to call you out and embarrass you. Having an "environmentally friendly" image is all for show. So much plastic is used in all the packaging for clothes but is discarded in the stockroom before arriving on the shop floor. Returns process and procedures are overly complicated and requires you to call a manager for approval but managers take forever to come (because they're understaffed also and have a million things on their plate.) Overall a horrible environment to work in and has caused my anxiety to reach new levels. My mental and physical health were both suffering and nobody higher ups ever give words on encouragement. Just sales sales sales Bottom line, work here if you enjoy being treated like a number and enjoy being belittled every day of the week.

1.0
11 May 2018

Not worth it

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good fast-paced retail experience to put on your resume.

Cons

Clearly there is an issue with the culture of the stores as every bad review on this website has the same issues but at different stores. HR limits hours to an extreme and the under-staffing of departments is dreadful. Managers can't perform their jobs properly as they are filling sales assistant duties and sales assistants are taking on managers duties without the proper training or pay. This is incredibly stressful on the staff and creates confusing power balances within departments. Another huge issue I had is actually against Fair Work policy. According to fair work: "Employees must be paid for all hours they dedicate to work and this includes time spent opening or closing a store. For example, if an employee is required to be at work at 7.45am to prepare for an 8am store opening, they need to be paid from 7.45am." You are required at your shift to take part in briefings that start 10 minutes before your rostered time, yet, you don't get paid for them and if you're late, you're marked as late to your shift. They also do not give the option to take overtime payment, you must only take toil, which is against Australian regulations too. I don't know if this is in every store, but was definitely the case in my own store. A few more cons- every employee is pigeon-holed into various roles and is asked to do nothing else. As soon as management see that you're good at something, you'll be doing that every shift for 8 hours straight. Creates very low morale and work satisfaction with employees. Because of HR needing to approve rosters, rosters will be sent out on the Saturday night for the week starting Monday. This makes it extremely difficult for employees to have a good work/life balance. If you're in stockroom, there aren't very good OHS standards to help you with going up ladders to reach clothes or lifting heavy boxes. My back is constantly sore now and my knees click when I walk. This never happened before this job. The cleaning in the stockroom is also limited and I now have allergy issues from dust which I've never had before. While I'm incredibly grateful for the experience, I can't recommend working there.

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