Bath & Body Works reviews

3.7

70% would recommend to a friend

(11,185 total reviews)
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Daniel Heaf

57% approve of CEO

51% positive business outlook

Bath & Body Works has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 11,185 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Bath & Body Works employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Atacado e varejo industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

11K reviews
1.0
Nov 17, 2013
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Getting to talk to customers, getting free products for doing floor sets.

Cons

I got hired in the beginning of September 2013 as a Sales Associate. My manager told me I was going to get one to three shifts a week until October. That was fine with me, because she made it out like it was only going to be temporary. October comes, and I worked only four shifts the entire month. However, they gave me about five call-ins. Call in shifts are where you call in an hour before your "shift" and see if they need you. That's how unorganized they are. They don't even know how many people they're going to need in a day. So I called in every time, and nope. Never got one! Also, they come out with a new schedule for the next week every Tuesday. They have an online scheduling system, but they tell you that you can't trust the system, so you still need to come in and check. Why even have one online then? If it doesn't work, just don't even have it as an option. Oh, but they expect for you to check your email on your employee account, which doesn't ever seem to work on my Mac, because they're too low-tech. They don't even tell you about meetings. You have to go check your employee email, which would be fine, if anyone ever told me that. Then, there are the floor sets, which are the only reason why I've made any money in the last two months. You work from about 6:00 pm to 12:00 am on Sundays, which is ridiculous to ask of me, since I have school in the morning. But they don't care. I would be willing to work until 10:00 or 11:00 but getting home at 12:30 am isn't really acceptable when I have to wake up at 6:00 am. It's absolutely ridiculous! The other problem I have is with the sales. As a customer, when I come into Bath & Body Works, I come in to smell things and browse, and I usually have my mind made up about what I want or if I'm going to purchase something. This seems to be the case with most customers I talk to as well. But they want you to act like a used car salesman. You have to be extremely pushy and keep badgering customers until they either walk out or buy something. It's lotion. These are not diamonds or cars. People don't need that much help deciding. They need to be welcomed, told the promotions, and maybe pointed in the right direction. But they don't need the sales people breathing down their necks the whole time. I love talking to customers, but I hate having to be so annoying. And I get in trouble if I'm not annoying enough. The women who work there are also very catty and too competitive. I don't see the point in being so competitive when we're all getting paid minimum wage anyway. No matter how much you sell, you don't get rewarded. You don't even get more hours. At my store right now, they're trying to hire 40 people...Why? So you can give them all call-in shifts that they'll never work. No. Hire like 15 or 20 people and give them more hours. It's the worst place I've ever worked, and I just got a new job, so I cannot wait to tell my manager I quit. They have no regard for me, so I'm excited that they'll be one person short when it comes time for Christmas :)

1.0
Dec 25, 2012
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Most co-workers (not management) were friendly enough, although few of them stay longer than a couple of months for obvious reasons.

Cons

-In spite of the 30 percent off employee discount, employees end up paying more for the products than a customer using coupons. (Employees have to be rang through by a manager, and are not allowed to use coupons. The employee discount was not to be applied to any deals or promotions that the store was having, and these deals usually save far more than 30%) -Especially during the busy holiday season, employees are split up into "zones" covering about 10% of the area of the store, and are forbidden to leave their "zone" during the time which they are assigned to it, no exceptions. -The company is entirely sales-focused, and the job is extremely demanding. In fact, you may have noticed that Bath & Body Works employees are all equipped with a headset. This device is not typically used to make things easier, but rather, they are used to enable the managers to constantly harass and give petty direction, give never-ending updates on sales goals. -Never received 15 minute breaks for 5 hour shifts (the most typical shift lengths for part-timers, so that they aren't legally required to give a half hour break) -The management is so stressed about the strict, huge sales goals, and the constant product shipment and visual store changes ("floor sets") that they push the employees to no end. ("Do this, why are you doing that, go back to this. What are you doing? This still needs to be done. Is it done yet? Get going, then do this. Why are you here? You need to be here..").. etc. -I have never heard of any other company doing this, but the employees get scheduled for "on call" shifts - a scheduled shift which the employee must call the store 2 hours in advance of the beginning of the scheduled shift to see if they are needed. There is absolutely no way of telling in advance, so you would have to book your entire day around the 50% or so chance that the store would need you. I remember having an "on call shift" the evening before a final university exam starting at 8 am the next morning. I called the store in advance trying to reason with them and ask if I could stay home to study. The manager simply told me that they would absolutely need me ( to re arrange the lotions on a table) and that it was my responsibility to come in and work, because of this on call shift. The managers simply do not care about the well being of their employees, and even given the existence of these ridiculous "on call" shifts, it is quite easy to tell that this company is not flexible or understanding whatsoever when it comes to the schedule. -Don't even bother writing down your availability. I had asked for 15-20 hours a week as a part time worker and a student. During the holiday season i was scheduled for 35+ hours per week without any full-time benefits whatsoever. -I have seen written and documented statistics about how the company expects 30-50% of seasonal workers to leave within the first month, and the average time spent working for the company is about 2 or 3 months - and there is a lot of reason behind these statistics, so please do yourself a favour and do not let yourself be abused by this company, and become one of these "statistics"

2.0
Dec 4, 2009
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

1) Good cocktail party conversation (although everyone will complain about how YOU discontinued their favorite fragrance) 2) Casual dress 3) the chance to travel and visit stores across the country 4) a culture of continuous improvement

Cons

1) a culture of chaos - never picking one path and sticking to it for more than 3 months 2) lots of politics & favoritism 3) lack of decision making (who's in charge?)

Viewing 22 - 24 of 11,185 Reviews

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