I worked for that company from 2001—2016, so I saw a multitude of changes–as well as great practices they had kept in place and worked well, such as department managers.
Every department had its own manager and own crew of stockers for all three shifts. There was none of this one person trying to run 3-4 different areas on cut hours and with no stockers, such as what it was becoming even before I left. No, the way it had been so successfully operated allowed the manager 100% ability to account for all their inventory, price changes, claims, scheduling of his/her staff, meetings with store management, etc. Each dept. was a self contained unit....or, SWAS (where did THAT go?!).
This new system , the way I see it, is going to spray gasoline on a raging fire. The on hands and shelf counts are already wack-a-doodle, therefor inventory is always a hot mess; because there are almost no stockers, the back rooms are getting plugged up with un accounted-for freight. This, in turn, throws off all reverse pick lists on the sales floor. The list goes on indefinitely.
Home Office is running a dangerous game of firing shot gun blasts into a dark room with moving targets, hoping they'll hit something. It's a numbers game that only wins, even temporarilly, by blind luck. Yes....this company is doomed if they keep cutting away at their own wisely constructed business formulas, like having individual department managers.
I feel for all of yaz still caught up in that circus.