DAVIDsTEA Reviews

Pros

Great company to work for! Lots of opportunity - a very fun environment

Cons

not many that i can think of

Pros

- free drinks -great management - clean environment

Cons

- minimum pay - inflexible hours -too much training hours

Pros

Company Culture. Good worklife balance

Cons

Leadership changes constantly. Constant changes of priority.

Pros

Free tea on shift, 50% discount. Very laid back uniform requirements.

Cons

Very stingy with wages. They force you to literally follow a script when you talk to customers and it’s painfully robotic and not personable. If you aren’t management it’s very hard to get full time hours. I’d only recommend this job to someone still in high as their first job or if you want something very part time. They make you stand outside and give people samples regardless of the weather, not fun in the rain/snow. There were some very young supervisors (not a problem) but they were very inexperienced and were not able to properly help problematic customers and it was painful to pass off a customer to them and watch them struggle.

Advice to Management

Give your staff more hours and wage increases!

Pros

Nice people, good tea, understanding supervisors

Cons

Repetitive work, speed quotas, high layoffs

Pros

Friendly co-workers, Well organized management, your job expectations are very clear. The 50% tea discount is a good perk as well! The job is very fun if you enjoy interacting with people and are confident in your communication skills. It's fairly easy to become a keyholder, but you barely get paid more and there are way more responsibilities. The environment is very inclusive though, so it's doubtful you'll feel out of place as a minority in the workplace. It's not a bad job for high school students.

Cons

The policy feels very strict, and there's an atmosphere of "always being afraid of getting in trouble" amongst the tea guides from the manager or supervisors. The expectations, if clear, are also very very demanding. For example, if you have 10 seconds to greet a customer and you take 12 seconds, your manager might literally be timing you. There's a lot of "micromanaging" that goes on, and for minimum wage, you end up incredibly overworked and exhausted (especially during the holiday season). You also have to put on a 'false cheery' attitude, and are forced to inform every single customer of the promotions which lends to the customer feeling uneasy.

Advice to Management

The on the job training is great, as well as the clear expectations from managers. The 'micromanaging' aspect seems to result in a lot of employee turnover though. Improving the 'customer service' line would mean fewer customers coming into stores and yelling at tea guides about the awful service.

Pros

- 50% discount - able to drink tea on shift - usually pretty good regulars - usually good team members below management level

Cons

- company decided to not give out merit increases this year due to many losses in recent years, despite increasing the workload and making many aspects of working at store level more difficult (and also, despite the CEO lending $2million to a family member's business that was also going under) - constantly cutting labour - lack of communication from office to store level, and even between levels of management in store - employees that are low-performing are rarely followed up with and are held to a different, lower standard when it's known that they do not perform as well. Higher-performing staff are expected to pick up their slack without any form of compensation or appreciation - when merit increases existed, they were a joke. They were mostly based on your position, instead of experience/performance. If you had worked in a position for 3 years and earned your wage through appraisals, someone who got hired to the same position later got a raise to make the same amount that you did - management in-store does not adequately train members of staff, especially those that are promoted to higher positions. Lots of things are to be learned by yourself and if you make a mistake on one of these things it is your fault despite not being properly trained in the area - product quality went extremely downhill despite keeping prices the same, if not raising them. Brand loyalty both from customers and employees began to disappear because customers were not happy with products, promotions, and corporate customer service and the blame was placed on store employees - management only gives you feedback when it is negative and often in a way that makes it very personal. Nearly no feedback when you are performing well - only Store Managers are allowed to give feedback to their higher ups, even though they're rarely involved on the sales floor. If you attempt to give feedback that can be interpreted as negative to either your manager or a district manager you are automatically not a team player and it results in poor appraisal results

Advice to Management

Improve your entire training process. Part-time tea guides should not be doing tasks reserved for Assistant Managers. Improve product quality.

Pros

50% off, free tea during shifts, awesome coworkers

Cons

Anyone above Store Manager cares very little about actual employees. Store managers are chosen by favoritism by district and regional managers. I went through 4 SMs during my two years at the same store and two were lovely, the other two were nightmares. They don't care about their employees, they only care about numbers. Don't fall for the shiny happy people facade, it's all PR