team member

supervisor

park manager

manager

retail assistant manager

KIDS EMPIRE

Never in my life have I worked in a place so micromanaged. 

Now allow me to be ABUNDANTLY clear, the people that I work with in store are wonderful. The issues I have with Kids Empire are NOT with the people I work with in store. They're all very nice, generous, and supportive people, people that I can truly call my friends. The pay-to-work ratio is also solid, as there isn't a massive amount to do in any capacity, so it pays really well, excluding the fact that pay is bi-weekly, which is more of a personal qualm than anything.

What really irks me about Kids Empire is the micromanaging and the lack of communication done by the Corporate Office to those in their respective locations. Nothing is consistent, from even the most minute of details. What could occur one day without so much as a warning is grounds for a corrective the next day. Managers don't even feel as though they're the managers of their store, with the amount of cameras that are located in the stores. Now, granted, it's a place for kids, so it's extremely valid that the location has cameras, but there are even cameras in the back areas, ones that corporate has access to the entire time. The policies set in place are ridiculous, and have caused issues in the workplace due to them just randomly deciding "now's the time to enforce rules" as opposed to twenty minutes ago, or centralizing it on a single person's actions as opposed to the collective group. There will often times be sudden schedule changes with no clear indication as to why, and even when the Manager decides something that they're going to do with the store that THEY'VE been hired to operate that fits within the parameters of their abilities and responsibilities as managers, it instead turns into them getting unbelievable pushback by the corporate office, despite it being in the "management guides" that they provide for the managers! It's ridiculous! Managers can realize that they're out of a certain product, ORDER said product, and that product won't get to them until months later. But without the manager's knowledge, corporate can order something to the store, and it will be received within the next 3-5 days, if not the very next day. Make it make sense.

Overall, there's nothing wrong with a "hands-on" corporate office. Several companies have a hands-on corporate office. But to this degree, it's almost as if the corporate office is suffocating the management staff, which affects not only them, but the teams that they are tasked to lead, and overall makes the work experience borderline unenjoyable and exhausting.

I worked at kids empire for over a year and half between two different locations in AZ. At first it sounds great with all the talk of upward mobility and pay for entry level positions but the hard facts are if you work at any location that’s not in CA, you will receive NO help at all (which is no surprise why the good reviews on this employment all come from employees of CA locations.) The reason for this is that ALL corporate employees are in CA and do not bother to see their other locations more than 6 months at a time. As well, they put young adults in Management positions with ZERO TRAINING, and then expect them to have all the answers. Of course, as soon as an issue arrises that the young staff doesn’t know how to handle, you will NOT be able to get ahold of anyone. They also ruin all their contracts with big companies by not paying for the product they used, including Coke and maintenance companies that fix the structure and leave it up to the managers to deal with even though they have given managers zero authority over payouts. Olga the VP of Operations is slowly destroying this poor managed company with her attitude by burning bridges with contacts to all our vendors. At my specific location, I am unable to get ahold of anyone from EcoLab to maintain my chemical because Olga constantly belittles them and treats them like they are the problem. Overall, the ideas they have sound great but everyone in Corporate is undereducated (nobody has a BA, even the CEO....) and have no idea how to train/treat their employees. 

I worked here for about five months. I was hired on the spot, and honestly, that should’ve been the first red flag. A lot of the people who started with me quit, and even long-term employees left after the new upper management came in and completely changed the vibe.

The store manager struggled to stand his ground, and when he did try, he talked crazy to the wrong people and came off rude for no reason. He was way too prideful about his position and talked about employees when he shouldn’t have. The whole environment felt really immature and unprofessional.

We were always short-staffed, and I was overworked to the point where I fainted at work. The hiring process was slow, and it never felt like there was real support.

Communication was messy. Not everyone got the same info, and the manager would dry-snitch in the group chat, which dragged the regional manager into situations that could’ve been simple. Plus, your manager shouldn’t be telling employees how much they hate other managers, it just made everything worse.

The culture became toxic fast. People talked about each other, the manager played a big part in it, and it felt like they didn’t even want the staff bonding. The vibe was tense and controlling, almost like working in a prison.

From a customer side, the prices were high for what you got. No hot food, just snacks. Waivers disappeared all the time, and the floors were slippery. Even with Crocs, slipping was still a problem.

Overall, I’m being real: it’s not a good place to work, and I don’t think it’s the best place to bring your kids. There’s potential, but a lot needs to change.

The job itself is extremely simple and could be a great opportunity for students or anyone seeking part-time work. Unfortunately, the work environment is made unnecessarily stressful because of poor leadership. Management often focuses more on asserting authority than providing proper training, I was embarrassed when the regional manager who is at least three decades older than the staff how she would talk to them and make them cry, it's not their fault you're a regional manager at Kroger version of Chuck E Cheese,  and how she was  more concerned with reminding employees of her position than supporting their development. NO training, the professionalism is lacking across the management team. Managers gossip, come late, take multiple breaks, take extended breaks and lunches, tell you one day to just throw the trash on top of the dumpster and then the next day verbal ly warn you as if they didn't tell you less than 24 hours before.  Policies are not followed or enforced consistently, outside food being allowed, free merchandise and food is given away so guests would not make complaints, and managers openly speak negatively about upper leadership. I took on this role part time but the environment was not worth the pay or the stress. I genuinely feel for the younger employees who could benefit from the job if stronger, more supportive leadership were in place.

The job was fun to have if your a high school student but as a parent mainly a single parent this isn’t the job for you they want you to be available at all times incase someone calls off and they do that a lot and your sometimes working the whole store alone with no help and no breaks and you have to maintain the entrance and snack bar and make sure kids are not running up the slide or doing something they are not supposed  to and buzz people out you have to get on help through the work phone because your phone has to be in the phone box at all times or that’s a write up and that’s hectic because it’s so many stores that have problems and the HR sucks and don’t really know what they are talking about at times and sometimes you don’t even get a response they pick and choose who to discipline when not following rules what one do they will scold another for doing the same on a different day and let’s not get on the huggy suit that thing is hot and uncomfortable if your hours aren’t set they will put you on the schedule for any time any day no matter what your title is and that’s don’t even matter you could be a party host and doing key holder/manager duties ,if you change your hours you liable to not have that many days on the schedule 

Boy where do i start first the job saw really terrible no reliable help from your sister's store, which is only eight minutes away. No reliable support team to depend on when things go wrong in the park.You have to go through fifty different chats in order to get the correct answer. Hr's hiring process is really bad.It takes them up 2 to 4 months to respond to you in order to get the job itself there was a point towards the end of me working there where there were no staff, no managers, but me in the building, I had to run everything I had to do everything, and it was very overwhelming it got to the point where I had an emotional breakdown on shift, and my mom had to come in to help me close which btw doesn't work there pay was bad for the amazing you put in they can't keep a manager to save there life they either quit because of the poor pay or they're fired outright for no good reason without explanations when set managers do a really amazing job KIDS EMPIRE WILL FAIL AND UNDER APPRECIATE YOU!!

The only reason the job was fun was because of coworkers, in store management was fine but corporate is a nightmare, if you need to contact them it takes about a week for them to respond, no paid time off ever, no raises, no bonuses, expensive insurance that most places do not except. if you are sick for two days or more you need a doctors note or it is a write up, but with the insurance you will most likely be paying out of pocket to go to the doctor. you get holiday pay which is 1.5x but that is only about 5 days out of the year and does not include christmas eve or holidays like that. corporate follows california law even if you are not in california so at work california law applies to you. overall corporate does not care about you, you are just a number and can easily be replaced, would not recommend.

Most of these reviews are before the change of management at the Olathe location. I currently still work at kids empire but have recently put in my 2 weeks notice due to moving. It is an amazing place to work at and I would still work there. I worked part time. Typically at work we will clean by following a chart of tasks to do, check in families, handle the bar area where we sell snacks and drinks, and make sure everyone is following the rules. It is not super stressful, at most the only worry is when a lot of people need to be checked in for a party. The only straining thing is being on your feet for your shift but I wore shoe inserts to provide cushion and that helps a lot. My coworkers and boss were very nice and friendly, they helped me whenever I needed something and provided training.

as a high schooler who does a good amount of extracurriculars, i’m somewhat glad i dont have too many hours as i would have to call out too much. but there are weeks when i get scheduled 1 time for an entire 2 week period and the only way for me to get more hours is to pick up someones shift if they call out. as a party host, when i first started i would only work when there were parties, but since we’re still new, there aren’t many. along with that, my management has been giving party host shifts to regular team members which takes away from the only hours ive been able to get. i work about 3 times a week if im lucky and my shifts are never longer than about 4 hours. if youre a high schooler looking for a part time job this is pretty good for you. i do not suggest this job if youre an adult looking for an actually good source of income. 

Party host shifts were about 4 hours longs making it impossible to earn a reasonable salary. As a party host I was expecting to set up an entire event in 15 minutes as well as clean up at the end which was impossible and would get in trouble if it wasn’t completed in the 15 minutes. Guests were rude and would threaten staff members with weapons on a regular basis. Staff was told that we had a cleaning company that would come thoroughly clean the facility overnight, which was never true. Place was always dusty and dirty since it was impossible to clean the entire place with such little time they gave us at the end of the night. Many things would break and corporate would never reach out to help get things in order. Corporate members played favorites and would personally treat me as if I was dumb. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Team member 158 salaries reported	$15.01 per hour
Supervisor 244 salaries reported	$17.59 per hour
Park manager 120 salaries reported	$19.09 per hour
Manager 78 salaries reported	$55,735 per year
Retail assistant manager 13 salaries reported	$15.22 per hour

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