Toxic with a side of severe bullying - Recensione dipendente - Optical Assistant presso Specsavers

-Pay is terrible for the work expected. Total chaos in busy periods because certain staff are not required or expected to put in any real effort, you will be fully expected to pick up the slack and do the work of 3 people in these times. -You will be hired as a dispenser, but they will have you completing pre-tests and troubleshoots that many patients are not comfortable with you performing. -Ridiculous amounts of repetitive and plain stupid training modules. They have the gall to provide modules on "financial help" when they don't pay you enough to pay rent, and others that include literal therapy techniques to deal with the constant verbal abuse from bosses and customers instead of making any real effort to improve conditions. -You will be expected to do tons of admin, but are simultaneously not allowed to spend any time actually completing those tasks. -You will have to pick up the slack for the partner and their favourites/friends, as they will not do any task they don't want to, even down to putting away paperwork/receipts, but if you miss putting one away, the entire store will know about it and how unacceptable it is when YOU do it! -Expect to be spoken to like you're an idiot by optometrists and the partners. I was regularly humiliated in front of other staff and customers, to the point that more than once, a customer apologised to me for having to deal with it or advised me to get out. -Harassment and bullying is not taken seriously. I reported incidents to partners over and over again and was repeatedly told "stop being so sensitive" and that I did not hear what I had reported! This was later denied even though I have evidence to prove this to be true. -A staff member who is part of the clique of partners, optoms and 3 other staff in my store, recently said to one of the owners loudly enough for me to hear that "if she REALLY wanted to get -medical issue- solved, she could have, because I did!" and I watched as the partner agreed and said nothing else to her. The bullying will happen in front of the partner's faces and they will refuse to act. -More than one report of SA/harassment from the same staff member went ignored, while victims had to leave. The person accused of the harassment was then promoted to a managerial position within about 6-7 months, after it was promised that would never be the case again. If you were uncomfortable with this, you were seen as the troublemaker, not the person literally assaulting people. This staff member blocked my exit in 2 very small rooms and yelled in my face, when I responded by snapping, I was the one who was subjected to a 2 hour disciplinary meeting, where everything I said was(as usual)dismissed and they'd already decided before the meeting that I was in the wrong, despite never getting my side of the story. They have since continued to speak about the incident with staff, after threatening me to not share my side and assuring me that they would not discuss it with staff. -Now expected to do a full pretest and hearing screener in under 5 mins. Hearing screener(which they encourage you to give customers no say in)takes at least 3-5 minutes alone, but you will not be given extra time, just hounded by audiologist and optometrists for not being fast enough, as they sit in their air conditioned offices (pre test rooms exceed 30 degrees on a cool day) watching youtube videos on their phones. -Expect to take in any customer, regardless of how busy you are or the fact they have no appointment and those who do end up waiting excessive times and abusing you for it.It doesn't matter what time you are meant to close/finish your shift, you are expected to stay so the clique members don't have to lower themselves to your level and work, then you need to beg to get paid for the extra time. -Expect optoms to abuse you for bringing them their next test, especially if it's something they don't like doing (contact assessments or kids testing) but the excuse is "they're stressed!" -You may well be called in for meetings to threaten your employment, where they will come up with vague accusations like you sat at the wrong desk, "you don't seem present"(they were not able to explain what they meant by this, as any vague situation given they had to walk back when I proved it to be incorrect)or my personal favourite, that when you walk in 5 mins early for your shift, you're looking at your phone. On your own time. Apparently, this is not allowed at Specsavers! According to the 3 owners, turning off my music or sending a text IN MY OWN TIME, UNPAID was rude! Nobody else in store was told this, however of course, almost everyone did it. -I was also threatened more than once with termination over my tone of voice and facial expressions when greeting staff in the mornings, which was my normal face and tone of voice for everyone all the time, but they admitted they couldn't complain about my customer service. -They will find the most trivial, ridiculous things to beat you down for, especially if you cause them trouble by reporting their friend's bad behaviour. -You will not be able to find a contact option for anyone in HR and will be directed to speak to the owners, the only available contact info is for partners themselves. -No room for growth. They will try and force you to complete a cert 4, and get you to sign a contract stating you have to stay with them for a certain amount of time afterwards. The pay increase is less than a dollar for a year of study and more work. -If you are pushed into an IST role, they make it impossible to track your progress for your bonuses, you just have to wait and see if you get paid it or not, and they can just refuse to sign people off to ensure you do not get paid your bonus even though you did the work. They may promise to match the bonus at a store level, this was not followed through with, either. -Store partners will regularly discuss the contents of formal and disciplinary meetings with staff with non managerial staff, sometimes IMMEDIATELY after the meeting took place, while the employee is taking a break and bawling their eyes out. This then leads to gossiping and bullying, partners will then blame the staff member being bullied because THEY must have been talking about their humiliating meeting where they were told to seek therapy for having a bad day! -You will be expected to pick up optometrist's mistakes. They will not update a script before the patient leaves to choose frames, or they'll enter a prescription incorrectly, and you will get the blame for the glasses returning with an ineffective script. -They will hire a clinic coordinator who will spend 80% of their day chatting to bosses or optoms, or on their phone in the break room, leaving you to pick up their slack, where you will then get in trouble for not being available to complete handovers or dispenses because you are doing someone else's job for them. This person's sole task is to stand at the front and direct traffic, a total waste of a staff member when it's busy. We need someone who will do adjustments, quick repairs, order contacts, or pretest when it's flat out, or even just keep the front desk area clean and tidy, but this was never expected of the person in this role. You would have a dispenser call in sick, and the replacement was this coordinator who did absolutely nothing to help with the workload! You could almost have a voice recording to replace this role and it would be just as effective. -Any time you are making sure a task is done, like sorting and packing orders, you will get accused of not working while they watch you doing that task, because the partners themselves don't want to deal with the customers! You are expected to drop everything and serve the customer so your boss doesn't have to, or so a clique member doesn't have to stop their 45 minute conversation about their overseas trip, but you also have to get the jobs matched and cased or you will end up with a backlog of 4-5 days worth to do all at once, because, while you're serving customers, 3 other staff members of the clique will stand at the front desk, chatting, instead of finishing the jobs sorting or helping the customer so you are able to finish the jobs! They will recommend you to come in early and do a 10-12 hour day so things are finished instead of making simple accommodations like asking their friends to earn their wage. -If the store is quiet, the clique will gather in a room or around a desk and spend 1-2 hours laughing and chatting and on their phones, but if you're not part of the clique, you will be expected to spend that time cleaning or doing some other menial task the clique refuse to do at all. If you dare to question why EVERYONE isn't expected to help with this rather than 1-2 people, you will be attacked. -People closing will regularly refuse to take the last handovers or help the customers, leaving you to stay behind past your knock off time, while the people being paid to close the store suddenly disappear when you're trying to leave, but if you try to hand the dispense over to them, it will be called unprofessional (apparently perfectly okay for the closer who is often one of the partners, to speed walk away to avoid the work, though!) -Many employees are terrified to bring up any issues for fear of being the next target for the clique's bullying, and partners use this as an excuse to pretend they aren't aware of what is happening, even when they admit to your face that they are involved in it themselves! - Partners will encourage some of their clique members to befriend non clique members of staff, and have the clique members push to get the others to complain, you will then be hauled in for a meeting where you will be condemned for sharing your feelings to people who specifically ASK you to do so. Then, you will be told how almost every staff member is very angry and upset with you/hates you, and how you will have to "make it up to them" by basically working at 150% until you burn out and the cycle repeats itself. I could go on and on, but my advice is, run. Look at the reviews, a lot of them say very similar things regardless of which franchise it is. The company environment is toxic, full of bullying and harassment and they have no plans to fix it. Hiring a few non white people is not "diversity". Honestly, get a job stocking shelves at Woolies. It pays about the same, but it's much less work and stress. This job will make you sick and it is absolutely not worth the pittance they pay.