DAVIDsTEA reviews

They give terrible pay and promise it will go up in 3months, then 6, then a year and on and on. They pay their managers garbage and dangle a carrot that soon they will make more (a more that never comes, not even in 4 years). You are expected to manage your team, sales, store marketing, admin, train other managers and asst managers, help open other stores; with no compensation for it at all. Managers can get paid as low as $30,000/ year! They lost SO MANY managers in the past few years they may offer more now (still way below market value) but the abuse continues. The DMs for Ontario are a joke. They repeat exactly what they are told by head office and do not stick up for their managers. They say they want feedback, but only if it doesnt contradict upper mngt. There is a hard top-down approach. The company didnt start like that. David sold his shares to big-money American investors in 2011 (CEOs from Loreal, LuLuLemon, Staples, Starbucks, and more) and everything went downhill. DavidsTea is now American owned since 2011 but they dont want anyone to know that. You will love the peer managers, and your team; but if you have any self-respect and are not willing to be over-worked and wayyy underpaid- you will get pushed out and told you have 'a sense of entitlement' for asking for a fair pay. Upper management and head office is like high school. Very cliquey, catty. Hiring our (National Sales Manager) was the begin of the downhill. She has no people skills and is an egotistical tyrant. She got the job because she is the bff of the former COO. What a disaster. Dont let them screw you with money saying it will increase later. That is their scam. Ask them for 45-50,000/year and get it in writing or walk. They HAVE the money but can get away with it because so many young people are in debt and need jobs. No ethics at all. SHADY business people. Zero integrity. What does it matter they buy a few fair trade teas if they exploit young Canadians here. All of what they show to be is strategic, planned, and insincere. Sharks.

Now that the very few pros of working at DT are out of the way, let’s talk about the MANY cons and why I can only recommend staying AWAY from this company. You will like it at first and very quickly realize that you’ve made a horrible mistake. DAVIDsTEA is a failing company. They do not understand their customer base in the slightest. They try very different things every time to try and keep it ‘fresh’ (soup tea? Really?!) but they fail 70% of the time. They expanded far too quickly and the company is dying as a result. Stores almost never make their goals or their comp (how much they made last year). The company has a lot of potential that they’re throwing away due to focus on the wrong things. A big mistake is their focus on ‘sampling’. If you got hired, especially as a Tea Guide, be ready to hear that word a LOT. It basically means standing outside the front of your store, whether on the street or inside your mall, for HOURS (2-6+) at a time with little breaks asking every single person if they want a sample. If they accept, you have to give them a huge spiel on the teas their trying and basically force them into the store. The sales tactic of davidstea is very forced, using something called a ‘flowchart’ to try and assess what a customer needs, but it comes off very harassing and forced. If you don’t do these steps, upper management will get after you. Speaking of management, DT has a terrible team. District Managers are extremely intimidating and stressful, where as Store Managers ‘coach’ everything you do, even if you did well. They will always find something you couldn’t of done better. You will NEVER get a ‘good job!’ from anyone in upper management. DT also expects their company to be your life. Say goodbye to any work/life balance you had because you will be expected to know all current promotions before you come into store via a new letter sent out every week. They say you don’t have to read it on your time off but become very annoyed if you choose not to. Expect a lot of shift changes and cuts. As a result of lower budgeting due to the company failing, hours are constantly being cut. In my personal experience, I’ve seen multiple tea guides only get one 3 hour shift a week for multiple weeks in a row. Even if they had a 4-6 hour shift, it wasn’t uncommon for them to get sent home early to ‘save labor’. As a result, don’t even think of trying to get full time. The last big issue with DT is how much upper management will pick favourites. Whoever these favourites are will get more hours and better shifts (10-4 instead of 6-9, for example). If you aren’t the favourite, expect to be constantly compared to other people and asked to ‘Be like them’. This happens in multiple stores within the company. The will constantly wave the few cents extra you make (for tea guides it’s usually 10-30 cents over minimum wage, for key holders it’s usually 50-80 cents) as if you make dollars more an hour and that’s why you’re “paid more to work hard”. You could easily make the same amount of money at another job while giving less effort. I could keep going on. This list is virtually endless. I can’t stress how much I advise not working for this company. With the way it’s going I don’t see the company being open within the next five years. DO NOT WORK FOR DAVIDSTEA.