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Angela Ahrendts Says Apple Store Employee Retention Rate Rose to Historic High of Nearly 89% During Her Tenure

I left Apple about the time Angela came in, was a Mac Genius from 2007-2014. I outgrew the job and needed standard hours since my wife and I wanted to have kids. I was making $44,000/year after being a Genius for 7 years, working til midnight, through weekends, over holidays -- it gets old. Some Apple Store employees have kids that are asleep before they get home, I didn't want to be that dad.

I took my Genius knowledge and became an Apple support engineer for a corporation here- 35% raise immediately with weekends off, 5 years later I'm an IT manager making low 6 figures. Employees hired back then, pre iPhone, had way more options and were of a higher caliber, most of us had degrees and specialized knowledge to use in corporate workforces. The modern Apple retail talent pool is no longer that group of employees and it's evident to me whenever I engage a Mac Genius.
 
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Interesting enough statement. Imagine if she had hired a bunch of craps working at Apple, one would think they wouldn't leave right? On the flip side, if she had hired the cream of the crop, these employees may want to go somewhere else and get better jobs. Logically the high retention rate doesn't sound so good now. Ms Ahrendts - Would you like to make another statement to prop yourself up again for your after life?
 
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Relentless Power said:
Yeah, True. It’s not uncommon for retail employees to be shuffled around where other stores might need assistance in that specific location or various positions filled.
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I had a long conversation with one Apple Store manager who has been with Apple for over 25+ years in various jobs and capacity, he even had the opportunity to work in Europe and taken his family with him, all relocation expenses paid. It was part of being an Apple employee, if you don’t want to move that is also acceptable. However he mentioned that Apple Store retention is very high compared to other stores as Apple hires people who are passionate about working with Apple and helping customers. Those looking for pay and benefits don’t stay very long, and the employees are always encouraged to advance within the company, or seek higher education to stay within or seek opportunities in other professional fields. Plus he mentioned that they receive more applicants than what are accepted.

Not sure if this is local to the store he manages or in many other places. Maybe the poor interaction with Apple employees were just seasonal help, dunno. My experiences are usually positive and the supervisors, managers or customer care employees always seek to make it right.
 
cardfan said:
Angela’s claim to fame was selling high end fashion. I think you’d agree that Apple stores are a different animal. Apple had just developed a gold watch. Connect the dots. I don’t care about her gender.

What do you wanna be when you grow up. An Apple store employee! Really? Want some fries with that too? Lol. Who really cares what Apple claims. You can’t even believe the customer sat claims that Cook makes at every event. It’s 100 percent customer sat! Isn’t that wonderful? He says with a straight face.
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Right because people choose to believe whatever aligns with what their personal belief is. Again I ask what tech knowledge did Ron Johnson have? Why is it fair to have a go at Angela for being from the fashion world when Ron Johnson’s claim to fame was making Target more fashionable?
 
groove-agent said:
I can tell you that they told employees to play dumb when questioned about the keyboard issues of the MBP. I had an employee lie directly to my face about it, and you could tell by his expression that he was lying.
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Guarantee you the head of retail doesn’t make that decision. That’s coming from elsewhere in the company and retail is just doing what it’s told to do. Angela was a big fan of in store selling by employees. My guess is the big iPhone sales push in store last fall was a turn off for her. Yet if Tim a Cook or Phil Schiller says Apple stores gotta push iPhone sales harder then that’s what Apple stores do.
 
yesjam said:
To be expected considering that during Ahrendts' tenure Apple decidedly moved toward hiring retail workers with fewer skills and less opportunity outside the company.
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Non-anecdotal or “I believe it so it must be true” sources?
 
Ubuntu said:
Never said it was the same thing - you made the assumption there. Given people have been negative about Apple retail while Ahrendts was in charge this is seen as notable because it's a good thing that happened on her watch, which goes against the common narrative. This is great for stirring up controversy as no doubt people in this thread will come out of the woodwork to yell "But she's terrible, Apple retail sucks!" etc.
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Whether employees were better off under her watch is not relevant to the broad view that the stores languished from a consumer perspective.

Bottom line is that (and this next part is important, so pay close attention), for the people who shop there, the Apple Store experience sucks compared to before she took over, and that is likely why she's gone after just 5 years.
 
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69Mustang said:
I am completely opposite. I think she is an attractive person. But the glasses. The glasses do her face an injustice. She squints when she smiles, which is endearing. Unfortunately, when you combine the general shape of her face, the squinty smile, and the blockiness of the glasses... you get Carl Fredricksen from Up.
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lol the glasses ARE stylish. That doesn’t go hand in hand with being flattering. I’m stuck with glasses like that myself. My husband and kids and the salesperson all talked me into these pair of “on trend stylish frames.”

...that make me look like Garth from “Wayne’s World.” :oops::rolleyes:

I wear glasses until they fall apart and these have fallen apart twice. But unfortunately I am stuck with them until the warranty runs out.

Getting back on topic, every time an article comes up on this woman or ANY Apple executive at this point, we see them attributed for all kinds of crazy stuff that we later learn through trickled out bits of info were the decisions of somebody else.

Which tells me that the more rumors I read here at MR, the more clear it becomes that I have no idea of exactly who does precisely what at Apple and likely never will.
 
Rogifan said:
It’s unfortunate she gets a bad rap. And often times for things not totally in her control. What most people complain about is the stores being too crowded. There isn’t really a way to solve for that outside of building a lot more stores. How much say did Angela have in the number of new stores built? Did she get to make that decision or was it something Cook and the board had to sign off on?
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Not unfortunate it at all, especially for the millions of dollars that she was paid. She did a poor job and was held accountable.

The stores being crowded is not the problem. Apple stores have always been crowded.
 
I quit during Angie's tenure, partly due to the changes implemented as part of her vision. To each their own I suppose, but I think that the higher up the retail ladder you climbed, the more stoned off their own farts they were.
 
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We are starting to see some of the fruits in her tenure, like Apple Store in Singapore and Taiwan, and assuming there is 89% retention ( Ridiculously high in Retail Sector ), that is a very good results. Although we don't know if Apple hired more part time and only counting the Full time employees.

The biggest problem is the speed of these implementation, 5 years. That is a very long time in a fast pace Apple world. Apple showed the slowest Retail Store opening in her tenure, and the fastest ( or steady rate ) of iPhone Active users growth in the same period.

I mean if she is doing any of these outside of Apple, my guess is that she would get 80+ as her score. But sometimes Apple demands exceptional. Being Good is not good enough, it has to be great ( I believe Steve said something along that line )
 
Define retention rate!
If You hire people for only 1 year and they stay one year is this a 100 percent rate?

I bet she hired not real full time unlimited employees ... and still 5 years is too short of a period to measure a retention rate, when more than 60 percent are freshly hired, eg.
 
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Under her care the retail experience in my 2 UK stores took a nose dive and after bad experiences A) trying to get someone to talk to (never had a problem before) , b) finding someone to actually take my money c) not having what I wanted in store I haven't been back. It used to be simple and quick before but now its like 50 staff but none can take your money unless you queue at the right section
 
Sure, but... I'd be curious to hear what the Net Promoter (NPP) score trend was during her tenure. I recall bleak results. Just because Apple offers benefits and slightly more competitive wages for their retail employees, even with the retention rate, doesn't mean that employees are necessarily happy. I'd like to see her pride herself on the average NPP score.
 
Ok tired of hearing about her let's move on. Apple suffered because of her, but we all know she's just doing damage control now.
 
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az431 said:
Not unfortunate it at all, especially for the millions of dollars that she was paid. She did a poor job and was held accountable.

The stores being crowded is not the problem. Apple stores have always been crowded.
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She did a poor job. Says you. That’s an opinion not a fact.
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danielbraun said:
Sure, but... I'd be curious to hear what the Net Promoter (NPP) score trend was during her tenure. I recall bleak results. Just because Apple offers benefits and slightly more competitive wages for their retail employees, even with the retention rate, doesn't mean that employees are necessarily happy. I'd like to see her pride herself on the average NPP score.
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Did you work at Apple?
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Romeo_Nightfall said:
Define retention rate!
If You hire people for only 1 year and they stay one year is this a 100 percent rate?

I bet she hired not real full time unlimited employees ... and still 5 years is too short of a period to measure a retention rate, when more than 60 percent are freshly hired, eg.
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You bet. So you’re just guessing because you don’t like her so are assuming she’s either lying, misleading things had to have been bad because you don’t like her.
 
amactech69 said:
I quit during Angie's tenure, partly due to the changes implemented as part of her vision. To each their own I suppose, but I think that the higher up the retail ladder you climbed, the more stoned off their own farts they were.
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I quit shopping there during her tenure. I can remember stopping into the store when I didn't need anything, just to browse.. see what's new. At some point during her tenure they just became these insufferable places that I wanted to avoid. I think it mostly stemmed from the difficulty involved with doing anything (service, ask a simple question, pay for something, etc) when I DID need to be there.

Now I just steer clear when I'm at a mall or center with an Apple store. If I need to buy then I'll just do so online.
 
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