Terrible Upper Management and Company Culture - Assistant Store Manager Vail Resorts Employee Review

1.0
May 17, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The manager discount, free ski pass

Cons

Vail Resorts doesn’t care at all about their retail part of the company - they do no sort of product knowledge training like other outdoor retail companies do. I am a female, and when I asked to attend MasterFit (a professional boot fitting course - so I could actually know the products I’m selling), I was told ‘We normally send the guys to MasterFit.’ And when I said I wanted to attend Demo Days at Loveland (again, to test out the products I’m selling), I was told, ‘The guys usually go and the girls stay back and work at the store.’ At this time, my partner was in an equal position at another outdoor store and was making over $10/hour more than what I was making at Vail. Their ‘company values’ are nothing more than just buzzwords that sound good to shareholders. All of the recycling in the store just got thrown into the dump every night. And I didn’t get paid for the time I spent making the night drop at the bank after closing on the nights that I closed the store. You have to work all holidays but you don’t get paid holiday pay for Vail because ‘they’re a seasonal company’ - even though my job was technically coded as ‘year-round, full time’.

Explore other reviews about Vail Resorts

5.0
Jun 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The managers were really cool and the work was fun. Pretty relaxed environment.

Cons

It was cold sometimes and long hours standing but that was all in the job description and we got jackets.

2.0
May 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Most people are smart, passionate, and enjoyable to work with and be around. - Fairly frequent opportunities for development and advancement through the internal job board. - Nice perks if you're into skiing or riding.

Cons

- There's an unspoken expectation to regularly work significantly more hours because the majority of employees are very passionate about the ski and ride industry, which isn't great for work life balance. There's not much down time either; you're either hustling in season or hustling to prepare for the next season. - Climate change poses a significant threat to the future of the company. The season pass model mitigates some of the impacts, but not as much as senior leadership asserts. And, since bonuses are tied to company results, you can end up working super hard all year and still end up getting half of your bonus target due to uncontrollable weather conditions. - The culture has taken a serious hit since enterprise transformation work began. Lots of people are constantly stressed out and the atmosphere in the office is depressing. - Most of the time, it feels like senior leadership makes decisions in a vacuum without consulting any of the people that would be responsible for the downstream work associated with the decision. For example, I've seen senior leaders decide on a savings target multiple times without consulting the experts, who then have to scramble to figure out how to make it work. It creates chaos and negatively impacts morale. - This organization has a wordsmithing problem. I've never worked at a company that spends such an inordinate amount of time on the framing of a message compared to the actual substance of the message.

4
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