31 Jul 2020
Altar'd State Response
5yThank you for taking the time to share your feedback. Unfortunately, some of the types of challenges that you describe do occur. Changes based on current business trends can lead to schedule adjustments and rushed requests for follow up from our Store Leaders. At times, an important repair request can be delayed due to a vendor or supply issue. And yes, during the current pandemic, we have asked our associates to accept a 10% reduction in their pay. It sounds like you may have experienced more than your fair share of these challenges during your time with us, and that is truly unfortunate – we’d never want this type of experience to occur for any of our associates.
While we do accept your feedback, we feel that it’s important to note that it does not represent the experience of the vast majority of our associates, and in some cases, it does not represent the truth. Much of our hiring has most certainly come from our growth, as we’ve grown from a single boutique to our current 120 locations over the past ten years. We’ve added positions to these locations and enhanced our operations leadership team, which has led to career advancement opportunities for hundreds of our associates.
We certainly don’t “actively sensor information coming from stores to home office and vice versa”. As a company, we embrace feedback and work to improve every aspect of what we do every day. We have multiple programs and resources in place for associates to share their feedback, and we have an extensive track record of responding to such feedback with improved policies, procedures and benefits that positively impact the work experience for our associates. Benefits such as our generous associate discount, 4 week paid sabbatical program, 14 week paid maternity leave, monthly paid volunteer hours for all associates, student debt repayment program and emergency backup care program are all examples of benefits we provide to our associates based directly on their feedback over the past few years.
Lastly, we’d like to address your description of our response to the current pandemic. There is no doubt that to one degree or another, all of us have been negatively impacted by what’s occurred. And while we don’t want to criticize anyone’s experience over the past few months, your description of what occurred at Altar’d State is at best, incomplete.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, we put our people first. This is our aim in every situation, and we didn’t let the unforgiving circumstances of COVID-19 change this fact. Early on, and well before we asked the rest of our associates to accept a 10% pay decrease, our leadership team reduced their pay by 20%. We only resorted to the 10% reduction across the organization once we made the decision, earlier than the vast majority of those in our industry, to close our stores and home office to protect the health of our associates. Our CEO communicated these changes via weekly updates to the entire company and explained the reasoning behind every action being taken.
Our full-time associates were paid for the duration of the shutdown, which for all of our locations, was much longer than “a couple weeks”. While we can appreciate that you may have preferred to have been furloughed, thousands of your fellow retailers would likely disagree. Many furloughed retail professionals saw that temporary situation turn into a permanent layoff, leaving them searching for new opportunities just as our country was experiencing unprecedented unemployment rates. By asking our associates to sacrifice temporarily, we’ve been able to continue employing all of our associates throughout the pandemic and avoid resorting to any layoffs or the closure of any locations.
Starting at the beginning of our reopening process, we made even more adjustments to our benefits to help support our associates. We’ve increased our flexibility in hours of operation and scheduling to fit the needs of our team. We offer all associates two paid weeks off if they are diagnosed with COVID-19. We’ve increased the amount of payroll hours in our stores to allow for an enhanced cleaning process, and we’ve supplied all locations with the supplies necessary to keep their stores clean and safe for themselves and their guests.
Regardless of the decisions we’ve made as a company, the most important part of this story has been the incredible hard work, resolve and ingenuity of our amazing associates. Yes, they have sacrificed for each other and for our collective future as a team. They’ve had to be flexible, creative and more determined than ever before. They have rallied to safely reopen our stores and have done so with an even greater enthusiasm for serving our guests. We’re incredibly appreciative of these efforts, and we’re more encouraged then ever before about what we can accomplish as a team. Our business is getting stronger every day, and we look forward to rewarding our talented, dedicated associates that have helped make this possible.
You mentioned in the closing of your review that that you wrote it “so that when someone is looking at reviews to decide whether to apply here or not (just like I did) they will pass up on Altar'd State”. Our response to your review has been written with a similar goal in mind. We don’t intend to dismiss or marginalize your experience, but we do hope that in the event someone comes across your review, they have the opportunity to learn more completely about Altar’d State and our thousands of incredible associates.
We wish you the best in your new pursuits, thank you for your time and effort while you were a part of our team.