sales associate

commissioner

retail sales associate

jeweler

jewelry consultant

Signet Jewelers

Signet Jewelers is in a continuous state of hiring and firing their workers.  In a single year I saw around 75 co-workers come and go.  They're also big on group punishments, at one point I was offered a management position and told my first order of business would be to fire everybody at the store I was taking over regardless of their actual work quality because the store itself wasn't reaching goals.  The culture fosters a lot of competition between employees.  Between the competition and fact that most employees only last a short time before being fired, there's no real team and no cooperation.

You'll be told that you are a "sales associate" but responsibilities multiply swiftly.  You may be asked to drive to the bank (after hours without pay and using your own gas), you'll spend every morning counting every item in the store, and the company uses it's stores as cheap call centers so anytime there's not much business going on you'll be put to work cold-calling people and trying to sell them credit options.

Pay is low by industry standards.  The bonuses are non-existent, they were at 0.25% the last time I'd been employed there where the industry standard runs more 3-5%.  The company also steadily reduced everybody's bonuses and pay while I was there, at the time I joined we had "Strive for Five" with five different goals you had to meet to make a bonus.  By the time I quit they had raised the goals to seven (some of which were out of your hands entirely, such as the percentage of your customers who got approved for credit by a third-party credit company).  

They also changed it so you could lose your bonuses if other team members didn't hit their goals, even if you hit yours.  At once point my boss stood in the center of the shop and simply yelled at the ceiling "They always have a way to take the bonus back!"  She'd broken the store record, selling several hundreds of thousands of dollars, but in the end they had so many reductions, fees, and limitations that her bonus was reduced to almost nothing compared to what she'd been promised.  The employee discount on products is a paltry 20%, well below industry standard, and doesn't stack with their normal discounts where every item is normally at least 20% off retail at all times... so the employee discount functionally doesn't exist and you pay what customers do.

Education was a joke.  Some of the things their videos instruct you to do, such as taking a credit application on a person without telling them you're doing it, are completely illegal and you need to double-check their instructions to avoid legal problems.

Culture does not support employees.  The break room was a tiny cubical and the employees even had to pay for their own table, coffee pot, and chair to sit on to eat lunch (the room was too small for 2 to eat at once).  They also had special events, but they expected the employees to be the ones paying for the decorations, advertising, etc. rather than the company supporting employees.

The biggest advantage the company offers is easy promotions.  Because they fire employees so rapidly, there is always a continuous call for more people, more managers, etc.  If you're willing to embrace the necessities of surviving corporate, and you get some lucky breaks in hitting all your goals, you can easily become a store manager in less than a year.  It's not a secure position as even managers are constantly fired for not meeting the ever-multiplying goals but still the chance at easy management is something you won't find at most companies.

Definitely not reciprocated.  Each person is merely treated as a pawn and a current resolution.


Assistant Manager/Acting Manager of Kay Jewelers Store - 2 1/2 years

Jewelry Specialist, Jared - 1 year

After four years, realize this is not the way life should be to be happy and had had enough of being used and abused.

VERY LOW PAY.

Company does not keep promises.  Very slow to act/react fo serious issues, or no action taken at all.  No support from hierarchy of leadership.

Daily lectures, insults, disabled self-identification (only want you to be mini-"thems"), fear and intimidation.  DO NOT EVER RELAX OR FEEL SECURE.  Only certain "clicks" of people treated as 'part of a family."

Because of bottom-line figures affecting manager and assistant manager, necessary jewelers tools were either broken or not available, despite requests (i.e. changing of timepiece batteries).  Don't have all tools necessary to simplify tasks, tools not kept up.
Several diamond testers consistently do not work properly, yet we are just to "try another one."

Ideas of "lower employees of the pool" - despite my previous experiences in management and a wealth of valuable knowledge and customer service, as I have been told - were made into a put-down or an argument as to why suggestion/idea would not work.  "It may make it easier for you, but this is the way we do it and will continue to do it.  Your suggestion holds no merit, don't want it done that way."  Causes low self-esteem, timidity and uselessness of individual expression.  Simple individual ways of doing things - all coming to the same end - were neh-neh'd away, therefore causing discouragement, discord in the workplace. Constant bickering and distrust.  Co-workers pitted against each other because of "standards" lecture, even though disciplinary comments made to a few of us that "every sale should have turn-over."  Well, see that VERY INFREQUENTLY from the Assistant Manager and the employees "in the click."   Constant differing rules from different management persons.  Constant drama and bickering amongst employees.  Mostly, uncertainty, fear of insults, feeling of never being ever to please -- "unless you made a big sale."  As has been said many times, Signet is a "sales-driven company."  Don't ever let up, keep on pressure, pressure, pressure.  MUST BE 100% IN ALL FIVE STANDARDS to be favored in the 'click.'"  If sales were not at store level, no matter what other standards were, you just don't make the grade.  Doesn't matter that the management keeps adding more and more jewelry diamond specialists or that there are not a lot of buying customers, just inspections and repairs using a magnitude of lifetime warranties (which,by the way, is one standard, yet repairs is another ???)  I was trained to Sell, not just be a repair and inspection liason.  As has been said by many guests, constant turnover, much incompetence kept, good ones leave.
These feelings are not just my perspective.  


Hated job at Jared's from day one - I just am not the kind of person that cares more about the company and less of the guest's trust and experience.  (And I must add the terrible disrespect by the upper echilons at Kay Jewelers, when I would have definitely welcomed open communication.)

I have been with the company, in the same store, for 15 years now.  I have held six different positions in that time and have gone from full time to part time to seasonal back to part time and then full time again (I stayed at home with my babies while I wasn't full time).  There is incredible flexibility within the stores for hours you can work and positions you can hold.  I currently have a hybrid position where I am in the store half the time and work from home the other half.  There are not many retail companies that would give that kind of flexibility to it's employees but Signet does.  

My store has very little turnover, our newest sales associate has been there for five years.  We have several who have been there for 15+ years like me.  The culture has changed a lot in the last five years.  The home office appreciates us more, the pay is better, the management team is fantastic from the CEO down.  Since COVID, there has been an even bigger push to connect the higher ups with the store level employees, it's been pretty great to be a part of.  The pay for sales associates is pretty juicy, I know quite a few that make six figures.  I deal more on the administrative side so my pay is lower.  I wish it was higher but I am ok with what I make.  I like how they've structured the pay.  We all get a decent hourly to pay bills with and then make commission on top of that.  I don't sell much but I could go onto the sales floor and probably double my income if I wanted to.  The commission is calculated based on two variables: half comes from how much you personally sell each year, the other half is based on how well the store is doing that month.  I think that helps to ease the competitive nature that you find in a lot of commission-based sales environments.  Salespeople want to work together at my store because the more the store sells, the more money everyone makes.  Some people are just naturally competitive so I won't say that that doesn't exist at my store but it's pretty minimal.

We don't have individual sales goals anymore.  There's no "5 for 5" or anything like that.  They went away after COVID.  I'm guessing that the individual sales goals will come back eventually but it seems like the company is doing just fine without them so no one seems to be in much of a rush.

I do get continuous training, even after 15 years.  I am still learning new things all the time.  The best part of my job is making a connection with a great customer, there is nothing like that high.  The hardest part is when a customer is a jerk, which unfortunately is a part of working retail.  I had one guy make me cry once, it was pretty brutal.  Thankfully, my manager came over and made him leave. 

I don't know if I'm just lucky but my store manager and district manager are fantastic.  Really supportive and go out of their way to give people opportunities to grow (even if it means transferring to another store/district).   Really, it's the management that keeps me there.  It's not the pay or the company, it's my direct bosses.  I love my job.  It's fulfilling work and I really couldn't imagine working anywhere else.  I wouldn't be surprised if I stayed there for another 25 years until I retire.  

To summarize. I obtained a lot working here for 6 years. I've worked at 2 different locations. 
I met many true friends. These were the people who worked beside me. I gained a unique skill with no prior experience. It became my trade and my skills opened the door to another niche industry that transfers pretty easily. 
With all the good I've outlined, the bad must now be described. I've seen in my time here, the personality types that succeed. Some people do succeed in this company. Many do not. The difference ultimately lies in what your endgame is. And whether you are willing to sell yourself to this company and kiss as much a** as needed to get there. If your desire is to move up into middle management this company will pave the way in gold (literally) because you are very easy to manipulate and exploit. Jewellery is no more than a means to an end. 
If your desire is to be the best jeweler you can be, to learn it all and to be the shop A-jeweler (or AA Jeweler), you are better off elsewhere. This company has no need for you although it seems like they should. 
The reason is simple. These people (skilled jewellers) discover their worth pretty fast, and realize signet isn't paying them enough for their skill plus all the corporate b******t they pile on top of it. They see the scam pretty fast. The company doesn't want to pay a highly skilled jeweler. Not unless they absolutely have to. And they want that expense to be as small as possible. Most of the work that comes through the shop is fodder. Sizings, clean Polish tightening etc. Those can be done by an entry level jeweler brought up within the company and paid peanuts. They want armies of mediocre beginner jewellers who do nothing but sizings for years on end because they can dangle that carrot of training, promotion etc in front of them while they keep their very small handful of highly skilled jewellers to do all the advanced work. No more then 1 per shop. If that.

The culture of disrespect cannot be avoided. If you have limitations of any kind which prevent you from meeting arbitrary (and unreachable due to lack of volume) quotas, you will be subjected to disrespectful one on ones (meetings) to insult your intelligence and tell you how you aren't worth the peanuts you're paid.
 Keep it up and the fat bug eyed district manager will visit and suck 3 hours of your time telling your shop how much they suck. 
All this and I haven't even mentioned the horrible quality of the merchandise sold by the company. Hollow b*****t everywhere you look. Expected to work miracles yet still make those numbers.
Bonuses for anyone below a manager are laughable. But manager bonuses range 20-50k+. So there's that. If your life's dream is to be a paper pushing w#ore for money, go for it 🤷 
But if you want to be paid well for a valuable skill, treated respectfully, and given the space to really deliver quality work you can take pride in... This place isn't for you.


PAY IS LOW! All the older jewelers in my  shop are looking to be employed elsewhere. The work day starts at 10AM, the earliest shift to go home is at 6:30. In my experience, I have had to work 12-9 on Saturdays 2 months straight due to the seniority system my manager likes to follow. The work load is insane; the responsibilities an apprentice must carry alone is quite burdensome. I alone must organize every little thing for the jewelers. If something is out of place it all is my fault and I get nasty looks and remarks towards me all day long. I alone had to clean and take out the trash at one point. The management is horrible. The DMs do not teach managers how to lead people fairly and have integrity. My previous manager made rude remarks about people of my race to another jeweler IN FRONT OF ME. He would scream at me every day in front of everyone, while they all chuckled. My current manager tells the store team that I am incompetent.... so they ALL speak to me in a condescending tone becuse my lovely manager told them I’m stupid. I was written up for something I did not do! Another team member accidentally ruined a stone and because I ruined a similar stone a month prior, my manager actually thinks the logical thing to do was to write ME UP? My DM has a dramatic version of me painted in her head due to my current manager. Luckily I’m the bigger person, I did not tell my District Manager about the diamonds my manager CHIPPED. 2 large center diamonds were chipped recently by my manager when being tightened and were NOT PROPERLY DOCUMENTED AND FOLLOWED PROPER PROTOCOL TO BE REPLACED ACCORDING THE SIGNETS POLICY. The diamond was given to an older jeweler and was spun around and hidden under a prong. These 2 customers have no idea their precious diamonds were damaged. People are very IMMATURE. Everyone plays the blame game for every little thing. I can count on 1 hand who owns up to their mistakes or doesn’t ream someone else out for being human. The only way to move up is FAVORITISM. No matter how hard your work ethic is, it all depends on if your manager is nice enough to tell your DM that they want you promoted. The DMs are biased and do not fully take into consideration what you are going through. If you’re looking to start a career in the jewelry business as a jeweler I suggest not starting in signet. The pressure is too high, and the work environment is very toxic. The repair shop is only 7 people together in a small room all day. When people get catty in the repair shop it gets ugly quick. I’ve met a few nice people, but most of my co workers are snakes. They gossip nonstop and try to sabotage each other.
There is no team work as a whole. People for the most part do not help or look out for each other (only if you’re lucky enough to have a true friendship). Teamwork is not taught properly or shown by example by the leadership. At the end of the day Gina Drosos is a billionaire and Signet’s priority is making money off customers while neglecting employees.

This company is beyond greedy and assigns little to no value to their people.  They pretend to care and talk a good game but in the end it is money, not people, that really matters.  When I became seriously ill with a potentially life threatening sickness I was extended the opportunity to resign and told "Don't make us find a reason." Also, the longer employees work there the higher their sales goals grow.  It never stops. Older, or long term employees don't stand much of a chance.  People trample each other to get to a customer in fear of loosing their job.  This prevents older people from ever reaching retirement.  Managers also directly compete with employees in the Kay Brand stores to keep their jobs, thus management is not supportive of their individual employee's sale.  There is also a large store sales goal.  If you don't hit the floor selling fast, your life span as an employee is over soon.  I know, I was a manager and tried to help my employees grow and learn by supporting them and suffered under Kay's system instead of being encouraged to build a team.  When I was hired I was told, "Fire them all if you want too".  Only Managers make good money so the culture is like a pack of snakes and piranhas.  I felt so sad for older employees.  Also, the pressure to sign people up on Credit Cards is ENORMOUS!  A good sales person will be straight up fired if they don't push and get people signed up.  The company talks a lot about "LOVE" but under the sheep skins is a pack of wolves who care very little for the customer and even less for each other.  Greed is King at Kay's and fear is the prime motivation.  Oh, there is zero value for seasonal employees. They make almost nothing and rarely ever become long-term employees. If you are offered the world and given big promises to be a seasonal employee, most likely you are being lied to because of the pressure that is on managers to hire them and meet Christmas goals.  Every holiday for managers and employees is hellish. Your family life is nearly destroyed and you get to spend almost zero time over the holidays with the people you love.  When I left, their theme was "Long live Love". It should have been "Long Live Greed and Money Lust!  I cannot overemphasize how tragic and destructive my time at Kay Jewelers was to myself and my family.  It is most likely that management at Kay's will not go to Heaven when they die, but at least they have the hope of a shorter time in the realms of the damned for time served at Kay's!

Depending on where you work in their headquarters or off campus, you can experience something completely different from what I have. Working in the DC has brought many different topics and experiences to light that I wouldn't of thought myself getting into.

Moving from retail to warehouse was a small but adaptable change. Management acted the same but a little bit more lenient unless something serious happened. The workplace itself was decent, very kind security guards helping whenever you asked.

Being on different projects to help better our workplace and make better use of the space we were given was amazing. It was my favorite part about working for the company. I enjoyed that I had the opportunity to be approached by management for assistance. 

The hardest part of the job was when needing to work with others. I'm very much a team player, but the same cannot be said about those who I worked with. Everyone is very much in it for themselves and make it a point to let you know that.

My experience working there I have learned a lot about myself that I never knew. Whether true or not is a completely different story. I've never in my life worked at any establishment where I've been ridiculed, slandered, harassed and bullied so much by my colleagues for just doing my work. Although I tried to remain positive throughout my time working there and ignore the onslaught of hideous comments, there were times where it got to me. I've sat in the restroom crying because of how awful my colleagues were to me. It was an every day occurrence. There was never a day were I got away from the drama. If it wasn't about me, it was about someone else in my specific department, or someone else down the hall. When it comes to working for this company, if you're not at the top of the chain, they sure do let you know. That goes for the entire company and my specific department.

I would definitely recommend working for the company if you like something fast paced. They offer plenty of benefits and opportunities as well. The work I've done was a bit mind numbing at times, but the work as a whole is something I enjoyed partaking in, especially when it came time for projects to be pushed.

I was fortunate enough to have an amazing manager. I love the people i get to work with, when i do work. They’re family. 

However, I cannot understand this company. I have worked here for almost 6 years. Part time. Started off with about 20 hours a week and 2 weeks of PTO. Hours fluctuate from 8-30 hours a week. Then the company cuts hours from stores, making it almost impossible to give full timers 40 hours. Which means no hours for part time. The pay is terrible. I started off making a little more than minimum wage, but as minimum wage goes up, they have to pay more. So now i make minimum wage. Not more than minimum wage like i started out. The commission structure here is pathetic. We work holidays and weekends and long days, for 0.5% of what we sell that month. The most we can earn is 3% of our monthly sales... BUT that’s only if the store hits their goals.. not just your own personal goals. As the years go on, i have earned more PTO. In 2017 i had 88 hours of PTO and vacation as a part time employee. Great! Now fast forward to the beginning of 2018.. i’m pregnant! I plan on using my PTO for maturity leave, because i’m part time and don’t get benefits. I go to put it in and it says i have 0 hours! So i call and ask, they say, oh we changed that, now you have to be at the company 5 years before you get a week of vacation. I said, my 5 years is in a couple months.. this would’ve been nice to know or prepare for! So not only did they take all of my PTO as vacation away, they changed the requirements as i’ve already put my time in here, and have been given PTO since the day i started. Atleast grandfather in your employees. Change the rules for new hires. It’s absolutely ridiculous the way they treat people and make it so managers have no life. If you have a family, do not work here. It’s not worth it. For as big of a company this is, the pay is terrible for anyone is who is not in management. 
When i came back from having the baby, i would have to sit in the back room, that doesn’t lock, and hide underneath the camera that is back there to pump because i was breastfeeding. There are no accommodations for new moms whatsoever.

I worked at Signet for 8 years, I spent 6 of these years in HR. It was horrible, maybe the worst 6 years of my life. I should have left after the first year. But I kept telling myself it will get better, it never did. It was a lesson learned for sure. I tried hard to just put my blinders on, do my job, and go home. It was a hostile work environment and it got worse the longer I was there. I heard rumors about myself that were not true and I know management knew about rumors. But, they did not stop it from happening. There was not an even distribution of the work load. No one paid attention to this. The only time the managers would "try" to distribute the work load evenly is when they would start getting complaints from the field.  Management would take a little off your over flowing desk and every thing would be okay for awhile. Until the complaints would start to come in again. It was a never ending cycle of this the entire time I worked there. It does not matter how hard of a worker you are, this is the way it is handled. As I write this I want to point out I was not in any trouble with the company when I left. The place literally made me sick. I was in and out of my doctors office for months.  Until a honest person steps in and has some integrity to do the right thing, this will remain the way it is. To the person that posted a review Sept, 2018 benefits/leave of absence, you inspired me to post this on here. You are correct with everything you wrote. Please make sure you get an exit interview and make sure you share all that happened to you. I was not given an exit interview because I was told they did not have my correct phone number. But I know for sure there was at least 6 people that had my phone number in their personal cell phones and many were management.. They will lie and make up reasons they couldn't get in touch with you. I did end up getting to share my experience in another way though, eventually.  Those same managers are still there as of Sept. 2018. I could seriously go on and on. But if this prevents just one person from making the mistake I made, I did not waste my time here.

Do not apply to work for this company. I was brought up to become a Jeweler as an apprentice, and I surpassed any and all tests that got in my way. I became a Jeweler and still had apprentice work to do. None of the newer apprentices were following the same standards as I was, and I was constantly expected to take care of whatever needed taking care of, even though we had other jewelers who got hired to do nothing but.

This company will chew you up and spit you out. The people in charge are obsessed with the power they have over their employees, they're so obsessed with controlling every aspect of what you do and how you do it, which is fine if there's respect. This has to be one of the most disrespectful and inconsiderate companies I've ever been a part of. Hard to trust, hard to respect, hard to maintain any sort of simple working relationship where you come to work and do your job. They will complicate everything about your time while working here, and even after you leave.

The work life balance here is very poor. I was working 9-6 when I started, and that changed to 11-8 after a year. Not what I signed up for, and I didn't think the company would alter the working schedule so much. The company also did not take into account my availability during the hiring process, from which I had forgotten about until after my interview. Upon trying to get a consistent working schedule, I would never get the schedule I asked for, after being assured it would be taken care of.

The managers here do not care deep down about the work they do. This is simply a way for them to earn a living, without it being anything they actually enjoy. Nobody above me would reassure me that anything really meant anything special, that the work didn't really matter as long as it was good enough. This didn't only let quality control slip up, but we had a lot of preventable issues happen which could have been fixed sooner had a preventative measure been put in place.

DO NOT WORK HERE

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