Thread regarding Hy-Vee layoffs

I work for the kc fulfillment center and we just got told today at 8 that we will be closing the building by may 5 and we will be layed off.

someone told Me that the Board is working on gathering the votes to remove Randy. I said are U kidding Me the board is full of his yes men. they will run the company Dry. I want to know where the private jets have been flying to. U cannot view the flight logs online as HV has made them private.
I used to live 3 blocks from Ric jurgens in WDM...I wish i could Go visit him and BEG FOR HELP.

the comment about the b—s— stock price is SPOT ON. there is no way HV is worth what is supposedly reported on our 401k website. that value will be gone. no way we have been audited outside of our internal accountants. we have been lied to about our 401k match. can you smell CLASS ACTION. the ships are burning just as randy wants. the directors are oblivious.

yes fulfillment centers are closing. moving to centralized bakery and frying and or local training centers. the folks havent either been told yet. specialty departments will be no more everything will be pulled out of a comissary box the quality is c-ap and the nail is in the coffin.

What about Des Moines and Omaha

KC fulfillment center is closing May 4.

Where did you hear about fulfillment center? When will they be closing? Are you blowing smoke? Any truth behind these rumors?

Goodbye market grille (big changes coming soon) - goodbye fulfillment centers (other big change coming). If you are an employee of either you should start looking now.

They implement all these new programs without thinking & communicating! Lets come up with & ship out all new signs and have every store converted to the new signs within 1 week. "Damn overtime! Get it done!" And then lets toss hundreds of pounds of old unused sign paper. Dont get me started on the compare program! Why is this still going? How much is being spent there doing this stupidity every 2 weeks?? No one looks at them & it makes hyvee look like bullies! Over the years, when i tell people where i work, the most common question id hear is " why are your prices so high?" Recently it just keeps getting worse! My parents dont even shop at hyvee when they come down to visit me because they see. They go to a smaller grocery store because they know prices are lower & their food court is better quality because its made in store. (Not like our 2 day old, shipped from Iowa, bland, more expensive c-ap) Arent all these warehouse consolidations (ex lomar over to hyvee) suppose to keep prices down not skyrocket them.
Have you guys seen the support dept building? They got all these artsy chairs, fitness center, free snacks, game consoles, & a bar inside their multimillion dollar building. Yet to help pay for it, we outsource some of the support personnel??
I'd like to know with all these cutbacks, has there been any change to our executive flight staff & equipment? Hy-Vee has 3 private jets registered to it. It appears that they update their fleet every few years. How much are spent on those along with insurance, staff, operation & maintenance cost? Im sure those 3 jets will be kept on hand even if its only randy left at corporate level! Gotta visit Marky Mark & get his Wahlburger on!

I am another casualty of Randy's poor decisions. I don't understand why stockholders are not demanding his resignation. He is destroying everything that you (stockholders) have created. Hyde & Vredenburg most be rolling in their graves. How many West Des Moines heads have rolled? With Store Directors now overseeing your stores, how many AVPs have been eliminated? These decisions are making your stores just another grocery store with high prices. Our Dietitian answered questions and helped people find the products they were looking for all day long and now she is gone. Our Health Market Manager kept up on trending products and worked with Lomar on special requests. Take these employees away and why do you even need this special department? Tear it down and throw it in the other aisles. Make it just another grocery store and stock it with minimum wage help with horrendous turnover rates. Customers better beware of expiration dates because minimum wagers don't give a damn if this stuff is rotated (FIFO) correctly. I did my first shopping in our local Fareway. Neat, clean, courteous and full of the customer service just like Hy-Vee brags about all the time. Goodbye to the Hy-Vee I used to know.

Randy spends so much time talking about the direction he want to take HyVee at these awards I guess he forgot the slide that talk about getting rid of employees. He like to hear himself talk. All this guy does is run his mouth about how great his ideas are and how everyone around him has failed. He the idea guy that has lost his mind. Randy’s next HyVee mission is to be the first grocery store on the moon.

When you go to an "awards banquet " and the CEO spends more time bragging about his new relationship with the Wahlburgs than is spent actually recognizing 25, 30, 35, and 40 year employees.
That pretty much sizes up this asshat's view of reality. He really thinks the new burger offerings are more important than the people that have worked to build this company.

last tine randy came to our store he was on his phone said hi to no one and just said everything that was wrong over the phone to his personal assistant Jill. he does not care about the 80,000+ that run this company. meanwhile he gets around with MARC WAHLBERG and f—s over the stores with overpriced garbage product. and then Lokes to say thats not autonomy when we try to refuse.

When any company is in trouble, they tend to show consistent signs regardless of the niche. If you feel like things are not quite right at work, you might notice these things:

Hiring Freeze
Increased Firing
Fewer Raises Handed Out
Bills/Paychecks Aren’t Paid On Time
Nothing New Is Happening
Bad Word Of Mouth
Poor Employer Brand Reputation
Wrong People Are Promoted
Lack Of Training
Employee Morale Plummets
Too Many Bad Hires
Excessive Rumors & Gossip
Clients Disappearing
Company Hierarchy Is Reorganized
Unhappy Employees
Good Employees Are Quitting
Perks and Benefits Change
Communication Stops
Everyone Is Stressed
Company Undergoes A Rebrand
Toxic Employees Causing Problems
No Long Term Goals Or Plans
Employees Are Bored
Bad Press
Employee Turnover Skyrockets

I legit laughed out loud about the slow computer comment. I think Hyvee should of invested those millions they gave Patrick Mahomes and the NFL into new computers for every store! Having an IT person actually visit your store and check your computers and systems would not hurt!

Hyvee and the ship of fools who currently run it have 5 years tops. The company will be sold to a larger grocery chain. They will keep the Hyvee name for re-branding will cost millions and the customer is familiar with the name in their communities. The first order of business of the buying company will be to shut down the Hyvee Corp office. and replace every single director in every single store.....What goes around comes around.

Randy. You no good SOB. How can you sleep at night. Ruining a great family store. Now ready for bankruptcy. You are a id–t! You will pay in time, for what you are doing. You have no heart. No feelings. No respect.

Randy is a stupid jerk. Only cares about himself, the money he is making. He cares nothing about hyvee loyal employees. Only himself. FIRE HIM. Because he had run hyvee out of business. He needs to be taken to court. By all employ from all hyvees. Screw you b–tard. Ruined hyvee.

Is anybody else excited about the up coming snack sale???

Don’t be surprised if you see Amazon take over. They are in the buying mood. R.E. Needs to go and so does all his VPs. Way to many dumb mistakes. The workers could do a better job running that business. But they never ask for advice or suggestions. Hell they know the answer to everything. It used to be a good company but it’s to far gone now. Just waiting for the nail in the coffin.

I can't believe the news media hasn't covered this more.

Randy Edeker has and will continue to ruin this company. None of the yes men he’s put on the Board of Directors has the balls to stand up to him. After telling more than half of the Store Directors they were being reassigned and taking huge pay cut HE didn’t have the balls to stick around and face the men and women who’s lives he just ruined. I would love to know how big a pay cut he and the executives took. If any of the Store Directors had made any one of the many disastrous decisions Randy has made in the past, they would have had their keys taken away from them immediately and shown the door. Why the hell is this man still in charge? If anyone needs to be shown the door it’s him and his yes men. Numbers don’t lie ask anyone when the trouble really began? The start of the Market Grills. And whose brain child was that???? The man must go! Are you seeing a theme here? The only ship that should be burned is the one Randy and the board of Directors is on but only if it’s well out to sea with no hope of being able to return to shore.

is everyone forgetting the HV 4 priorities? 1)service 2)sales 3)profit 4)expenses. It is completely backwards now. you dont grow the biz by CUTTING everything.

if a single location lays off more than 25 HV will be in violation of the iowa WARN act.

a veteran department head was eliminated Monday after reporting a stellar inventory. he had to have been 150k+/year but worth it.. The ships are burning as Randy wants. Randy will be fine as will all VPs and seasoned execs. I worry for the 30+ year experienced managers such as this one. Young guys get out while you can. OH and don't forget to cash your debentures in IMMEDIATELY.

I'm replying to these questionfeom a poster belowCan anyone elaborate to some specifics they have seen thus far? Which specific Dept. Managers are being eliminated, are ALL managers going from 50/45 to 40 hr work weeks? Has anyone actually seen frozen dairy, health market, manager of positions, etc is Eliminated? What Is a better time line, some said end of March, others and of February?
The store I'm familiar with eliminated frozen manager, combined a couple of non foods depts which eliminated a manager although I cant remember which one, like HBC or Healthmarket, took all 45 hr employees in store to 40 hr which caused 2 to quit.
Slashed wage of a Market Grille manager.
Eliminated club room manager.
There are rumors, pretty firm ones, that next week that high paid managers wages will be cut. These are really excellent veteran managers of depts and managers of, veteran as in decades but still in their prime. This is at a very high volume store. VERY high volume. And a very profitable store.

My son was called in to HR today to tell him that the dairy department was no longer going to be staffed. Nightstock will take care of filling the shelves. He goes to the U of I and is in his third year. He said that when he works (usually 7 -12 pm) that he fills the milk shelves three times during his shift. He was asked his work availability and that he could work as a cashier. He politely told the gal from HR that he didn't want to be a cashier. He then said with Johnson County having a 2.4% unemployment rate he'd take his chances. I've never been so proud. HyVee don't burn your ships head back to port and mutiny your CEO Randy Edeker.

All these people forced to start working 40 hours when they previously were working 45 hours need to file for partial unemployment.
As I understand, they will need to provide 6 months of payroll records, showing that this is what they worked on a continuous, ongoing basis.
Unemployment insurance is a state function, outside of company control, HyVee pays for this insurance, as foes every employer.
Don't give up your right yo this benefit, uou need to file on a timely basis!

Really/?? I don't feel lucky.
If half of grocery retail will be here in 10 years , why the hell is your boy Randy, building more stores.
Evidently he made a mistake by not cutting your ignorant, non sympathetic, arrogant, butt to the curb.
Your attitude clearly shows what is wrong with this company.
And don't worry next round Randy might be coming for you.

We are lucky to have this leadership in place during hard times. Retail stores are over saturated right now with everyone doing online shopping. The landscape is changing rapidly and only the strong will survive. In the next 10 years they say half of all grocery store chains will be gone. Randy is willIng to make the hard choices to see HyVee survive another day. Randy keep leading this coming strong for another 10 years!

I was told yesterday that my position had been eliminated and I had just lost all my benefits. Then I was offered a part time stocking position. After 35 years, the majority in a management position in charge of a department, I am offered a part time job. What a joke. Then I was told to sign the paper and go home the rest of the week to use up my flex time. No help, no telling me what I need to do next, no nothing—just leave. 35 years flushed down the toilet in just 15 minutes. I, sadly, was not the only one— many in my store lost their positions, lost their hours, had to take pay cuts or, like me, got shoved out the door. I thought I was going to work at HyVee until I retired like my Dad did, now I find myself having to start all over.

What happens to my stock when a company files chapter 11?
The short answer is that most of the time, the stock of a company in Chapter 11 becomes worthless and shareholders get completely wiped out. ... The new shares are often issued to its creditors in exchange for a reduction or forgiveness of the outstanding

I’m reading the comments around here as a Store Director that had to go through with this and eliminate jobs. I can tell you right now I don’t agree with it, but it was going to happen and I felt like me leaving at the moment would just create more turmoil.

Did some people actually have an HR manager do the laying off? I got the feeling from some posts that they did. How cowardly can that Director be? Then I see some employees were not even offered severance pay? That b—s—. While pathetic, we were able to give 2 weeks.

Some of this seems like it’s being done in total chicken sh– unprofessional ways. This is a terrible time for the employees affected, the least us directors can do is look them in the eye and talk them through it ourselves.

This is why we need the UFCW to represent us.

It is illegal and against the law for them to make you sign anything on the spot!!!!!!!!!
I smell a lawsuit coming big time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of the 85 store directors that got demoted to store manager how do you feel?
Betrayed
How many years have you been a store director?
7
How many thousand of dollars did you get cut? Do you feel the new district director have enough experience to be a district director?
$30,000. District Director is a great guy. He’s a friend and the most suited out of the area for the job if I’m being honest. He didn’t want the job and is honesty just as nervous as anyone else. They are all terrified too.
Do you think they will eventually cut all store directors to store managers?
Yes, it will be each store with a manager and many district directors. Or each store will have 3 directors. Depends which way the wind is blowing when Randy walks into work the day he decides. But in all honesty, I don’t think there will be single store directors much longer.
My last question is will you be looking for a new job outside of HyVee?
Absolutely. If I thought this would fix our issues I would be more on board. As it stands we ignore all the feedback that tells us pricing is an issue. We talk about how bad our pricing perception is and that we need to fix it. Then we are told to work towards a 19 grocery gross when to price with WalMart you are looking at a 12. Don’t get me started on all the waste that goes with the initiative of the day from Randy.

People DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING ON THE SPOT DO NOT LET THEM INTIMIDATE YOU!!!!!!!!!! If you have been their more than 3 months they have to pay unemployment for 6 months and they cannot terminate your health insurance. Do not fall into the scare tactic of take the part time job because they still have to pay your 6 months of unemployment if they "get rid of your position"

Hey fareway is hiring. We won’t be accepting any application from store directors of above. All of you have proven how to run a company into the ground. Sounds like you guys have a real dumpster fire going on at your company. Looks to me you guy will be filing for bankruptcy soon! Us cooperate staff member at fareway is shocked by all of this.

The Market Grilles were to be patterned on the concept of the Granite City chain of restaurants sans the in house brewery. Guess who just filed for bankruptcy?

You never hear of this stuff happening with Fareway. You know why? Because they keep their stores simple and aren’t trying to be a Walmart wannabe which in turn lowers their overhead allowing for competitive prices for customers. Hy-Vee was great but since the restaurants added it’s gone downhill and that was their biggest mistake. Anyway good luck digging out of this hole and it’ll eventually be all over the news and cutbacks could get worse because sales will take a hit.

I think the sign shop meant to say "Burn the Bridges" this is exactly what is happening here in Illinois. The previous comments regarding the current chaos and destroyed culture is on point. The comments regarding the gluttony at the top (RE) is completely accurate and flamboyantly displayed without an concern as to what all of us have to say. Who was he trying to impress? Having spent an exorbitant amount of money coupled with the ongoing, out of control nepotism all while displaying disgust in us out here is making us all speechless. Loss for words.
All this needed to happen by the end of Q1. We've lost frozen and dairy manager, and strangely our dietitian of 10 yrs. Our dietitian says all in store dietitians were cut from the stores. So 150+ in the same licensed profession seems over the top. Those are the people that set us apart. Now we are just we are just an overpriced barren shell. The store burnt down during this chaotic, cluster mess. Our HR manager, after letting all the people go didn't even know that all of us were without benefits immediately, or who to call regarding life, dental, COBRA, no exit papers, no nothing. Such an inappropriate way to Burn The Bridges. Here in Illinois, we are still in shock. Our once respected employee owned company isn't worth diddly now RE. I agree with above, RJ should intervene. He was not the greedy bully that just sold us out.