I understand the frustration associated with retail employees not being informed on new products. However, as an employee of Ulta I can shed some light on why the associates are not being thoroughly educated.
Each store is given a certain amount of hours per week to be used for staffing. This is split up into several areas: managers, lead cashiers, cashiers, tasking, and lastly training. 99% to 100% of those hours given are needed for daily operations, and usually mid week if the store is not meeting it's budget in sales, that store has to start cutting hours. Our store struggles every week to have enough payroll hours for cashiers to cover the register and taskers to unload and stock our shipment for the week. This means that there are no hours for training employees. It's not the fault of the manager of the store or the associates. If there is any blame to be placed, it would be on the corporation, but they are trying to run a profitable store.
So it's a no win situation for employees. People will either be p*ssed off if they have to wait in line to pay (Not enough cashiers), the product they want is not on the shelf (Not enough task people to unload the weekly shipment) or the lack of knowledge of staff (No payroll hours allotted for training.)
I do go out of my way to try to be informed on any of our new products, but I only work 10-12 hours per week, so most of my research is done outside of work. I try to get my hands on any literature that we have, but it is seriously lacking, depending on the vendor. Starting in August retailers are getting ready to go into the holiday season and the number of new products being released in each store is staggering and it's hard to stay on top of it all.
I'd suggest contacting corporate directly if you aren't pleased with the lack of knowledge in your store! Maybe if enough people voiced their displeasure, they would see that they need to start allowing enough payroll hours for training.
Each store is given a certain amount of hours per week to be used for staffing. This is split up into several areas: managers, lead cashiers, cashiers, tasking, and lastly training. 99% to 100% of those hours given are needed for daily operations, and usually mid week if the store is not meeting it's budget in sales, that store has to start cutting hours. Our store struggles every week to have enough payroll hours for cashiers to cover the register and taskers to unload and stock our shipment for the week. This means that there are no hours for training employees. It's not the fault of the manager of the store or the associates. If there is any blame to be placed, it would be on the corporation, but they are trying to run a profitable store.
So it's a no win situation for employees. People will either be p*ssed off if they have to wait in line to pay (Not enough cashiers), the product they want is not on the shelf (Not enough task people to unload the weekly shipment) or the lack of knowledge of staff (No payroll hours allotted for training.)
I do go out of my way to try to be informed on any of our new products, but I only work 10-12 hours per week, so most of my research is done outside of work. I try to get my hands on any literature that we have, but it is seriously lacking, depending on the vendor. Starting in August retailers are getting ready to go into the holiday season and the number of new products being released in each store is staggering and it's hard to stay on top of it all.
I'd suggest contacting corporate directly if you aren't pleased with the lack of knowledge in your store! Maybe if enough people voiced their displeasure, they would see that they need to start allowing enough payroll hours for training.
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I will definitely have to check these out thankfully I already have a led lamp since I guess everyone is backordered or don't have any.