optician

optometric assistant

sales advisor

assistant

optometrist

IRIS

Employees are expected to do a lot and be given a lot of responsibilities. But, they are not compensated properly for the work. You learn a lot of skills and product knowledge depending on the location you work at. Many good people work in this company. Ultimately at the end you will be underpaid. Wages do not increase significantly. Corporate will give you multiple reasons why they will not increase wages even if you meet or surpass store sale budgets. At times there will be gaslighting and told we are a “family”. But that is just another means to manipulate employees to work harder for less pay. IRIS work culture feels like a cult. Good employees manipulated to work harder with less pay. It is a good place to learn a lot on frame and lens knowledge. However, this alone won’t retain good employees. So there are many who burn out and many staff changes in the company.

Sales Associate title is actually an optician job so they can pay you extremely low wage. Management offers no support and is never there. Management has high expectations for certain staff members. The Training is very unorganized, plan on doing most of it on your own. This is a corporation and not run by the Doctors. Doctors are great and very helpful. You have a sales target every month but make no commission on the overpriced glasses you sell. There is a very SMALL bonus quarterly if your store meets. Yet your title is a SALES Associate? You do have access to a lot of training online to do on your own time unpaid. The office environment is negative as all staff are overworked and underpaid for the amount of work expected. You leave everyday feeling very unappreciated for all you do.

I appreciate the aura of professionalism the company exudes, however there are some glaring concerns about the foundation of the stores and the choice of sticking to a customer niche too strongly. Overall there is a sense of rigidity I get from how business should be done.

Poor management in many areas at shop level but also at regional level. This allows poor judgement in staff choices which is why there is a very very high staff turnover, Add  very poor pay for understaffed busy clinics and you have a company that has lost so many staff it seems to be a daily occurrence.  Really un- supportive on managerial levels Its all about sales and up selling as much as you can and trying to achieve very high targets for little bonuses.  Sales before patient care always. No respect for anyone who actually enjoys their job and little or no appreciation.long hours and weekends I wouldn't recommend this company to anyone.

I have worked with IRIS for 15 years. I love what I do. IRIS allows me to spend time with my patients, offer products I’m proud of, and supports me whenever I need it. The family culture is still within IRIS. We have worked hard to maintain that, and I am thankful to work with amazing talented people everyday. I have support from management, paid appropriately for my skills, and have great healthcare benefits. I get contributions from IRIS towards my pension, and have been on 3 amazing trips (all paid for by IRIS)  which is what lead me to my love to travel.  I am thankful for my career at IRIS and I have worked at other opticals/optometrist offices and I came back to IRIS. 

Miserable management experience - might have been okay if the store leader cared about employee growth & didn’t play favourites. Underpaid which would have been okay if the management style wasn't so micromanaging & punitive (eg camera used often to monitor progress). You get benefits but it’s barely anything  and not applicable for 12 months for dental care. I had to buy my uniform out of pocket which sucked - and I got the feeling that the company did not care about me at all except as a body to sell their eyeglasses & try to convince people to come in for yearly eye exams under the guise of “the doctor wants you to come in”.  Coworkers and doctors were lovely. 

I worked in the Kamloops store for only 2 months and the manager, who is also co-owner, let me go because apparently i wasn't a good fit for the company, after they trained me and i always did what they asked me to do. The manager was very hard to talk to, too many expectations, too much pressure from her and the optometrist. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE MISTAKES! Even though they say it's okay to make mistakes, but it's actually not. Overall my experience there sucked. For 14 bucks per hour they expect too much, they should care more about of their staff and make them more comfortable. No wonder why everybody always quit!

Do you like working in understaffed yet busy clinics? If you like being overworked with little appreciation or pay, with poor benefits compensation, this is the job for you!
There is really poor management within many of the clinics as well. Really unsupportive and negative environments to work in. Presumably why there is constant staff turn over. This company puts sales first before patient care. 
This company does have some perks, but the cons heavily outweigh the pros.

Job started off great, but don’t expect it to stay that way. Management is poor at best and head office does not care about you. Don’t get me wrong, the other employees I worked with were fantastic people and I respect them for being able to put up with so much, but I’ve been treated better for more money. Wasn’t worth my dignity at the end of the day. How you treat your staff makes all the difference in the world at the end of the day. 

I enjoy the work I do, the customers I interact with, and working with my colleagues. However, employees are not compensated fairly and given little to no recognition/thanks. The corporate greed is evident. Hourly wages are extremely low, zero commission payouts, and sales bonuses are only given if your store reaches its unattainable budget. Some perspective: in 6 years of employment, I've been paid out less than $500 in bonus, with net sales over 150,000 each quarter. Stores are often understaffed and employees are forever coming and going. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Optician 13 salaries reported	$23.77 per hour
Optometric assistant 4 salaries reported	$18.50 per hour
Sales advisor 3 salaries reported	$17.00 per hour
Assistant 7 salaries reported	$18.43 per hour
Optometrist 5 salaries reported	$188,000 per year

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