store manager

assistant manager

sales associate

service à la clientèle

customer specialist

Little Burgundy

I worked for this company for almost 2 and a half years and I loved it— for the first 2 years. My team was awesome, we all got along very well and it made coming to work enjoyable because there was no drama. My manager for the first 2 years provided us with a fun work environment while at the same time keeping us in line. She always pulled anybody aside and corrected their behaviour if she caught them doing something she didnt like. It made her very respectable. However, the district manager, for as long as I worked there, had a vendetta against her and I for no reason at all. The first time he met me he told my manager he wasnt sure about me and how well I’d do, but my manager reassured him that I was good. I then went on to have the highest employee sales AND shoecare in the whole store for the years of 2017 AND 2018. After that, every time he saw me he’d praise me, but I knew he was still a little unsure of me because he would get upset with me about the littlest things. He cares a lot more about little things that dont matter, than big things that do. He was threatening to demote me and fire my manager because sometimes we showed up ONE MINUTE LATE to open the store... and mind you, we had to be there by 9:30 when the mall opened at 10. So he was upset we were getting there at 9:31— 29 minutes before the mall even opened. Even though we were one of the most well-performing stores in the whole company that 1 minute of being late made him want to demote me and fire her. He was always getting upset with her, even though the Vaughan Mills location is one of the highest volume stores and, on most days, make budget. He even congratulated us for being the ONLY store in his district (and he took care of about 20+ stores) who had their shoecare at 3% for the year... But that still wasn’t good enough for him. He gave her such a hard time she ended up quitting and thats when things really went into absolute turmoil. They moved a new manager who had JUST BEEN TRAINED *and very poorly at that* to VAUGHAN MILLS— A HIGH VOLUME LOCATION THAT NEEDS AN EXPERIENCED MANAGER. Hes not responsible whatsoever and would talk behind employees backs to other associates (the ones he just hired of course) and it caused so much drama and tension in the workplace that I absolutely hated coming to work at that point. Right after my hiring manager quit we found mice in the back of the store and they were there for months before I finally called HR because nobody was doing anybody about it. I asked my new manager to tell our DM and he actually responded with “No he doesnt wanna pay for it,” and I was upset with that response, so I called HR. What do you mean you dont wanna pay for it??? What kind of response is that??? And lets just say, one time I asked my new manager a question about why a lot of shoes werent displayed on the floor and he LITERALLY responded with “I dont know, im still new” after having worked there AS THE STORE MANAGER FOR OVER 3 MONTHS at that point. It doesnt matter what store you come from, the stock is all relatively the same. And if youre the store manager, why arent you taking the extra time to look through boxes and make sure everything is out if youre “new” like you claim? I, the keyholder/sales lead, who worked on commission, was constantly going to the back for hours to look for displays (and I’d always find over 10 missing) because he “didnt know, he was new!” Give me a break man. We got into so many rifts regarding work, but unlike him, I didnt go to the district manager and start making up bull to get him demoted/fired. The district manager showed up out of nowhere one day and literally told me that he wanted to demote me because of my “punctuality” (referring to me being 1 minute late on occassion) and because somebody told my manager that I called him stupid behind his back... Like I said, my new manager always talked behind our backs so instead of asking me if I said this he went right to the DM. The DM had no proof of this and didnt want to believe me (I have a feeling he was like this because I called HR on him about the mice) so I quit. Why work somewhere where theyre going to bully you and make you look bad and put words in your mouth to get rid of you when they dont like you anymore? When I worked there, only 12 other people worked with me. Now over 22 people work there because nobody wants to take shifts there anymore—its awful. On top of that, after I quit, my friends who were still working there showed me a message of the manager saying in the store group chat, and I swear to God, l “if you cant clean, call your cleaning lady to do it,” and he was being serious because he then went on to say another store was doing that. I wonder how LB higher ups feel about that?? That company’s biggest problem is the district/regional/idgaf what your position is manager. Hes an absolute nutjob and doesnt care about the wellbeing of his employees whatsoever.

The upper management does not like telling the truth. First off their indeed postings are all false. "Store Manager" "Assistant Manager" they are not hiring those and you only find out it's for a underpaid "Sales Lead" position during the interview. They want applicants with lots of experience but not give them the position and that is the biggest problem. They want people with experience but do not want to give them the position they want them to start from the bottom.

Only people they end up getting to go for the position are young minded kids that are extremely immature and do not know any better which allows the company to take advantage of them. Which leads to their downfall. Young adults go to school and have really bad availability and upper management is always shocked to find that they young minded kids have school and can not commit to the company but that's what they want running their stores and those are hard to find so stop looking for those people and look for those that have the experience already

The amount of work is not reflected in your pay. They demand perfect results all the time which is fair but when you are offering minimum wage with no rewards for making perfect scores, most talented staff members will seek employment elsewhere. They have lost countless number of great staff because of this. 

The workload and pay is very unbalanced. I run around the store selling, merchandising, preparing orders to ship out and doing admin management paperwork. A sales lead who stands in the middle of the store and does nothing to help and refuses to learn gets paid a lot more than me. How is that fair?

Schedules are really late to come out. 9 out of 10 times I do not get a schedule for the next week until Saturday. So you will not know if you need to work the following the day. How are people supposed to plan their lives like that

Promote the correct people! Promote the team player! Promote the one the offers help and constantly learns! Why are you promoting staff members who are not team players. Who only think of themselves and force staff members to help them with a sale and take all the credit and constantly refuses to learn or listen when you have feedback for them.

Open your eyes! Stop hiring so young and give those the apply with a lot of experience the positions of management to help shape your stores. 

You need a mature figure at the head of each store!

I worked at Little Burgundy for many years. I found that my hiring manager was very laid back yet assertive, rewarded us for good behaviour and encouraged collaborative work, and really encouraged us to work together to reach our goals. The work environment was excellent until the new management team. The new management (of approximately 1 year) is EXTREMELY unprofessional, and promotes a competitive culture rather than a collaborative one, which creates a very hostile environment. He reinforces this by providing benefits to workers who out-compete others even if its done in a very negative way (being untruthful to customers, selling shoe care by using a "its on sale" pitch even though it isn't). Not only does the manager pick favorites and blatantly displays that favoritism, but he also avoids confrontation and is very passive aggressive. He does not give warnings when we are not up to par with his requirements, rather, he will discuss it with his assistant manager and just about every other employee in the store, diss them, and never speak to them about it until they repeat it and are ultimately consequenced by being written up or worse.He will avoid letting his workers know what they need to improve on independently and will just generalize and make big statements and changes at work without directly telling you that you need to improve, and if you don't take that and make changes then you are consequenced. That system makes no sense because most of the time the people he is targeting don't even know they did anything wrong.  Management also speaks to each other in their own languages in front of other non-language speaking employees and this contributes to the HORRIBLE work environment. It's one thing to have a manager that is assertive and gets the job done and keeps our sales high while maintaining a positive environment for the workers, but to only provide a good environment for his "favorite" employees is disrespectful and extremely unprofessional. I wouldn't recommend working here unless you are Filipino. Then maybe he will treat you with respect.

I loved all the friendships I made with my coworkers, and my manager and assistant manager were always supportive and welcoming. Compared to all of the other retail stores I've worked at, Little Burgundy was probably the best BECAUSE OF THE TEAM and I give 5 stars to the team. 

It never felt toxic until the higher ups for the company started to create such an unwelcoming atmosphere by giving us unrealistic goals to make during a pandemic. Traffic in the store was so much more slower because of the pandemic and this became difficult trying to make these goals. Despite going through a pandemic, the higher ups did not care to understand and started to force employees out by giving write ups if you didn't make these goals and eventually fire you. They would also demote you or not schedule you if they didn't like you. Most of the time, the higher ups did not praise our team for doing a good job and constantly pointed out what we didn't make or achieve. AND if you tried to ask for help on how to sell a handbag or shoecare, or whatever it was that you needed help with, you would get no support or advice at all. At the end of the day, the higher ups made it clear that they were going to get rid of many of us soon which became very stressful. Because of these unrealistic sales goals that were hard to make during this pandemic, we were considered "bad" employees. It's very clear that the higher ups don't care about the employees and only care about making sales.

I have worked for this company over a year and the turnover rate is absolutely ridiculous. The goals they set are unrealistic. Often times part timers will be tasked to do manager stuff but get no pay increase. If it’s snowing/ raining how are you going to make 7,000$ that day? If you don’t make the goal you have to stay open until you do. They always set unrealistic goals and even when you try your hardest it’s never good enough. Usually goals per person can be set at 1800 a shift, and they are expected to sell at least $50-60 dollars of shoe care with that. You have to be a real hustler to convince customers they need 8$ garbage wipes to clean their shoes. ( I must be a con man because my YTD shoe care is in the thousands) The management is terrible and oftentimes hired from outside the company. One of Little Burgundy’s “core values” is to promote from within. You never see that happen unless A) they are the managers favourite and make abnormally high sales or B) they are desperate and will promote because they have noone else to promote. This company is a joke from the high ups to the store managers. If you are a high school student working weekends it’s fine, but if you are looking for a living... they pay is minimum wage OR below if you are on commission. The commission is 3% and THEY NEVER GIVE RAISES! Disgusting company who exploits their employees for profit. Side note If any LB high ups read this: TREAT SALES ASSOCIATES BETTER THEY DO ALL THE WORK BCUS MANAGERS ARE LAZY AND JUST TEXT ON THE FLOOR ALL DAY OR HIDE IN THE BACK

I learned working with this company that I am a great manager, not because someone said so but because I had the best integrity and best understanding of the team and how to be compassionate for others. It was the hardest job I have endured and it built a lot of character within myself. Would I ever do it again with this company. For a competitive wage, yes. But what it did to me wasn’t easy to see in the mirror everyday. The amount of stress I took on trying to please everyone and get everything right really affected my health. I have never felt so much shame in my life but I needed to prove to myself as well that I could achieve a point system that sets you up to fail.

This company needs a compensation for hitting shoecare, acc, and multies. I work now for a company that gives that to the employees and I am now more engaged and excited to sell shoecare while at Little Burgundy I felt forced. 3% is a HIGH expectation for what you get in return and now the employees are going to be Gen Z and trust me, this generation is going to make this company reassess the pay structure because Gen Z aren’t playing around. If you want to see real value in this company there needs to be real change or it will stay the same. Wanting something that’s it never going to get. Which is success.

This company is fun to work for if you are part time staff. As part time your job is just to sell, help with shipments and keep the store clean. Key holders and managers are over worked and under paid with upper management telling you can make more money in commission. Keep in mind you have other daily operations as a manager so selling sometimes gets passed on to the part time staff.  Also be prepared to be “coached” if your team is not doing well as individuals in sales so say goodbye to your commission. Goals are unattainable and selling behaviours are ridiculous.
 
The upper management will always tell you that there is room to grow but will never give you a raise unless you move up in management which does not happen unless a store manager or co manager leaves. Be prepared to make almost the same wage as a part time staff if you do not make commission as a Co-manager.

Other problems with this company is that they expect you to have open availability. They call you in on your days off because stock or marketing materials does not arrive on time. Be prepared for the schedule to change at any moment because of all the delays. Work life balance is very difficult as a key holder. 

The best things about this job is that it is chill when you find the people you like working with, the 40% off discount on most products and the benefits as full time staff. 




The product is really great but often out of sync with what is trending - the buyer usually misses the right seasons for styles and stores end up with way too much stock of an out of style item. 

The DM is extremely unprofessional and manipulates employees they do not like into quitting (forcing them off scheduling, looking for excuses to talk badly about them). The DM will call managers on their days off and yell about in store issues or berate employees they do not like.

Pressure to make sales goals is very high and despite COVID-19 being very real, corporate management does not lower sales goals or commission goals to match the new traffic (MUCH lower due to a global pandemic). The company also did not install any plexi-glass to protect employees at the point of sale and was unwilling to take precautionary measures in order to seem less strict than competitors. 

The benefits are the best thing about the job if you are full time - they cover most prescriptions (100%) and have a decent dental plan (will cover 50~80% depending on what is being done).

Management is underpaid and overworked - many managers make minimum wage on a commission based bonus (you only make commission if you meet your sales goal).  

The discount is very generous at 40% off most items. 

I had a great time working at Little Burgundy. Everybody was super nice and friendly right off the bat and it made me feel welcomed. The most enjoyable thing about working at Little Burgundy was that from the moment I walked in and clocked in to the moment I clocked out and left for the day, I always felt welcomed like it was a family. The hardest part of the job to me was only when customers asked for multiples shoes at once and going to the back and carrying all the shoes back out for the customer for them to try on and to only hear that they didn't like them so I had to go to the back and put them all away. What I learned from working at Little Burgundy was that it's not easy to work in retail. I also learned how to become more social and confident in a sense because they encouraged me to speak to customers even if it I was just complimenting them on they hair or shoes or even asking them if there were any sales going on in the mall so that they would feel more comfortable if they needed a shoe and we would built a slight bond.

A typical day at work consists of welcoming customers and having yourself welcomed by the incredible staff!  Having had the opportunity to work at Little Burgundy, I have had the pleasure of meeting many different people,  both on staff and also a variety of clientele.  Since I have started my experience at Little Burgundy, the store has gone through a couple of changes within management; however, with every goodbye comes a new hello so the change has not been so bad, especially since the staff is so welcoming and respectful! We always have fun while effectively maximizing our store's goals; I couldn't have asked for a better team!  The hardest part of the job would be on the slow days, when sales are very low and it becomes a challenge to fulfill the daily quota.  In comparison, the most enjoyable part of the job is the opportunity to continuously meet new people while watching satisfied customers leave the store and knowing that you were part of that experience!

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Store manager 1 salary reported	$47,500 per year
Assistant manager 8 salaries reported	$18.55 per hour
Sales associate 1 salary reported	$63,654 per year
Service à la clientèle 3 salaries reported	$20.50 per hour
Customer specialist 3 salaries reported	$20.50 per hour

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