Company: Apple
Date: 2016-09-21
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former

Fairytale
Pros: Lovely team to work with. Staff are very knowledgable and work together.
Cons: Management and HR are useless. The managers are not passionate about technology or Apple. They get hired from different management roles of other retail stores and have no clue about Apple culture and how to manage their team. This is a general opinion of all the staff at the store. Also, managers get asked for feedback as to who is a great team member which makes no sense. Experts used to be asked which is logical - they can see who is capable of resolving problems, who is learning more skills and understanding the new tech updates and giving correct customer service. 
The HR team are not HR trained. They have NO people skills! It is seriously ironic. They do not listen, are not approachable and very fascist with the rotas/breaks/holidays/hours flexibility. I have never had to get anything changed but many of my colleagues suffered huge stress from unhelpful HR which make their work/life balance miserable. Yet, it is ok to make people work 8 days straight.
At the core training everyone was explained time and time again that its not about the sales, its about giving customers correct information and honest service, not trying to make more money from something they don't need. Halfway throughout my time there - let's see who made most sales; there will be rewards. Horrid.
You cannot progress. They promise ability to move and go up to different areas of Apple. No can do. Some creatives have been stuck as sales specialists for 5 years without being allowed to move to teaching (and they teach outside Apple)