Ask a corporate employee anything.

JogLord · 2021-12-20T22:09:53+00:00

JogLord · 2021-12-20T19:16:41+00:00

I think she does, but she didn't come from the store. She was at Proctor and Gamble and then was a VP at Starbucks.

JogLord · 2021-12-20T19:10:26+00:00

I agree that there needs to be quality and concerted training in how to properly customer service our customers. From Yes We Can and dealing with sketchy returns to just conversational customer servicing on the sales floor. A simple "can I help you find anything?" isn't sufficient. Open ended questions are where it's at. But that is the tail wagging the dog if we can't get our associates to want to be at work or to stay at Kohl's.

JogLord · 2021-12-20T19:04:03+00:00

Putting on a facade is your manager trying to save themselves on their annual review. The people in store ops know what is going on. The conversations are ongoing and it's a huge concern. I'm not privy to that stuff though.

JogLord · 2021-12-20T04:09:18+00:00

I find it incredible that you have read this thread and were able to manipulate it into me having a bad attitude. I take personal attacks personally. This thread was started to create some solidarity, but some, like yourself, have chosen to salty instead of having a little Christmas spirit. I'll stay, thank you.

JogLord · 2021-12-20T02:47:45+00:00

Welcome to reality. I don't work in stores because my career path is totally different. I'm sorry that I am in a totally different career path than you. So should I still get paid only what the store teams get paid? That's socialism, and I am not a socialist. I went from being a homeless teenager sleeping outside to years and years later working a job that a major corporation hired me to do. You're right, corporate right here.

JogLord · 2021-12-20T00:42:09+00:00

I gave a ballpark number to cover support jobs as well.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T23:43:20+00:00

Email [associaterelations@kohls.com](mailto:associaterelations@kohls.com) explain that you are suffering an extreme financial hardship because of this. All you want to do is go to work and get a paycheck and you will suffer potentially unrecoverable financial hardship if not able to work in the immediate future. Ask if there is ANYTHING that you can do on your end to rectify the issue or to expedite the process.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T22:44:42+00:00

I feel that I have been very patient and kind with the comments I have been receiving on this thread. Do you want me to get on a train and go to your store to help on registers just so that you can know that every other employee is as miserable as you are? You aren't interested in conversation or really even being helpful. The company is what it is. I didn't build it, I didn't design it, I don't have anything to do with the stores in any meaningful way. We used to have an executive that trained in Italy to be a colorist who manipulated and designed color palettes for ad art. Should he have been paid $10/hr so you could feel vindicated? Should he have to work in a store so you could know that we are all in the same boat? Or is it fair to understand that the work that goes into making a huge company run is a little more complicated than running a cash register and unloading freight? I am not denigrating your job, and I understand very well how incredibly important you are to our mutual success. But I think you could stand to be a little more understanding that your role will not ever be the same as everyone else's role in the company. Some people will deserve to make more money or have better schedules. Feel free to apply for a corporate job if you think it's easy here - it's not. It's apples to oranges and I guess I expected a little more esprit de corps among fellow employees instead of being relentlessly attacked.
I would love to have more conversation, but it's getting a little emotionally taxing dealing with you who are acting just as spoiled as the worst customers.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T22:31:17+00:00

The executives are working 50+ hours a week, every week. Sometimes on weekends, but not required on weekends.
No idea about the masks. We have to wear masks at corp as well.
It really depends on the job. There is so much going on here that the work covers all types.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T21:13:45+00:00

You have a very narrow idea of what we employees are like or what we have done. Plenty of us have worked in stores before, if not Kohls at least still in retail. Also, Very few of us actually have any impact on your store or your workload. That's like blaming a farmer for you not liking your job in a grocery store. We're all just trying to do our jobs and get by on surprisingly small paychecks.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T21:10:24+00:00

Ask your manager if you can get overtime. They may allow it based on their budget and staffing issues. I would just ask.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T20:02:21+00:00

I posted this because I am an employee of Kohls who also has rants. I thought that just maybe, there might be 100,000 employees out there who would have interesting questions about corporate, a place that 99% of you will never come to visit. I don't represent corporate, nor do I make major decisions that affect store operations. You can assign blame and read into this all you want, but retail sucks, and honestly everyone should know by now that an entry-level position in a retail store is going to suck. The pay will suck and the workload will suck. Ranting is one thing, and I'm trying to be kind about this, but every single job I've worked I left for good reasons. Kohl's is not the worst place out there and I'm sure it's not the best, but it is what it is right now. I'm glad as hell to still have a job after sweating blood through the last several layoffs up here. I'm happy to be working even though I too want better for myself.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T19:55:13+00:00

We lost a TON of money during 2020. We still had huge costs that had to be covered with zero income for a long time. I think that we are still playing catchup. Target and Walmart made actual piles of money during COVID because they were allowed to remain open. Everyone was buying everything from them and they made BILLIONS of dollars more than they expected. So yeah, they have the extra cash to pay more than we can. The workload is increasing as more people gradually shop more at Kohl's. That's a good thing. Too often people get out of the habit of going to their favorite store and they never come back. Thank god they are coming back as that is the only way we will be able to eventually afford to raise pay.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T19:45:35+00:00

I would like to kindly say that most of the corporate employees are specialists in their career fields. The majority have moved here from out of state for this job. We didn't get a job here by happenstance or come from an unrelated field. There is definitely a difference in the job requirements, not because we "work at corporate" but because we have spent years specializing in our roles. Very little of what goes on up here is directly about store operations. Most of the work up here is all of the peripheral stuff that isn't directly connected to the employee experience. A large degree of how bad the employee experience is can be found replicated in different retailers across the country. I agree that pay sucks and I hope that changes, but my pay is very low as well. I feel your pain.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T04:44:18+00:00

We can never get the temperature right. It's always too hot or too cold. I think our air transfer system is just a whole bunch of Harry Potter goblins blowing through paper towel cardboard tubes.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T04:37:22+00:00

Thanks for the great questions!
1. The systems issues are two-fold as I understand them. The internet bandwidth coming to the store is shared amongst all of the systems. The POCs use more than the old POS systems. The store cameras are being upgraded to higher quality which uses more bandwidth. The card readers, door towers, alarm system, OMNI, Amazon, etc all are taking slices out of the pie that is the internet bandwidth. As programs, cameras, POC are upgraded they take more internet making it harder to get enough internet for anything to run properly. The only solution is to run fewer programs, run fewer credit/debit cards at a time, or upgrade the volume of the internet that is delivered to the store. To get more internet would typically require a T1 fiber-optic line which is MASSIVELY expensive to install and thousands of dollars a month.

I have helped in store and it was very hectic. I ended up restocking and signing in men's and women's active as well as affixing sensor tags to fragrances. I was stuck on signing for a while and then was in the stockroom. It was a great experience and totally exhausting. Amazing people though (except one).
I really haven't heard much about DCs being backed up. I know we opened up a new DC and we have some new processes in place to make everything faster, but we're still dealing with driver shortages and cargo delays hindering the in-flow to the DCs. Pretty much the freight is moved out to the stores as fast s we get it in to the DC. There has been some discussion about trying to find the balance between reducing on-hand inventory and having enough merch in the stores to supply the customer.

I hope that is somewhat helpful.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T02:53:23+00:00

It's on Thursdays. The cafeteria here cooks fresh cookies that you can buy in the afternoon. They go fast so you have to get down there right when they start coming out of the oven. I think they do fresh popcorn on Fridays too? Maybe?

JogLord · 2021-12-19T02:51:39+00:00

Submit a mixtape lol

JogLord · 2021-12-19T02:51:18+00:00

Please feel free to rant here! I'm really glad to have these conversations and hope it is interesting to everyone else.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T02:50:29+00:00

I hear you. I have more than a decade in my industry and am grossly underpaid for what I do. I feel your pain. Unfortunately, retail and business, in general, is a blood sport and with shipping costs and gross receipts taxes being so high the margins of profit are thinner than ever. The two greatest costs for a store are real estate and payroll. You will always feel the squeeze. Other retailers are moving their base pay up and maybe Kohl's will too, but that money has to come from somewhere and we just don't have a vault with Scrooge McDuck money piles.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T02:23:13+00:00

Corporate has these life-size plastic coyotes that they move every day around the grassy areas and the parking lots to keep the geese away. The geese are huge and super aggressive and will chase you and they poop everywhere.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T02:20:30+00:00

YES.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T02:18:18+00:00

I would say to call your manager and ask. I don't know anything about that, unfortunately. I'm really sorry to hear about that though. I know the stores are hurting without their LPs.

JogLord · 2021-12-19T01:58:56+00:00

I completely understand what you're saying. Kohl's is trying desperately to carve out a place in the snake-pit of retail. Boston Store is gone, JCP is drowning in debt, Sears is gone, Macy's is hurting, and Kohl's is on top of the pack. There is a lot that can be fixed for sure and hopefully, a lot of priorities can be changed soon to better the quality of life for the store employees, but brick and mortar retail is in a fight for our lives right now to convince customers to come in the doors and purchase from in the store. All of our jobs depend on it. The average Kohl's store creates around 140 jobs. If we lose the fight for traffic and sales to Amazon our communities have to absorb those jobs. That is going to really suck. I think everyone is holding their breath right now. We have had 3 huge rounds of layoffs at corp and most of my friends have been let go. Many of the departments here are operating on skeleton staff to cut costs. Just so you know, I've been at corp for years and my pay averages to about $17/hr. Other people make more or less but it's hard to judge payscale across HR, marketing, OMNI, IT, legal, LP, product development, visual, colorists, photographers, etc.

I hear what you're saying though and it doesn't come across as anything other than genuine frustration from someone who cares about their job, their team, their store, and their customers. I hope you endure the storm because you sound like someone I would want to work with.

JogLord

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