I’ve heard between now and June Macys will implement a program where all front of house associates do everything…..ring register, recovery, put out new stock. Associates who formally just put out stock and did markdowns….now have to sell and ring registers. Anyone heard?
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In the Detroit area they must've been at the highest volumne stores
One of the keys reasons the program will be extremely challenging to implement is no store leadership, experience or accountability.My location is run (or not run) by a 20 something store manager ,who knows nothing about the actual selling floor and only worries about his days off or how fast he can run out the door at night. We have 20 something sales managers interested in checking their phones, getting coffee, going outside to vape ,coming in late and leaving early. Also they avoid any physical labor at all cost. Currently the older experienced support and sales people keep things kind of together. It’s shocking to see the caliber of these newly hired executives.The execution of the directed company floor moves has been a sh-t show. Incomplete everywhere…random fixtures ,hardware, empty walls and tables on the floor for days.My experiential store is truly an experience.
I'm surprised you're find out so late. They started talking about this after inventory. Get ready though. It's coming and not going away. A lot of people are very confused about what this is going to look like, including some Store Managers out there and therefore probably struggle to explain it. As someone who experienced rolling this out as the "pilot" I can say that it did not work. There has to be total store buy in and a hands on approach for this to go smoothly. From the Store Manager all the way down to the Sales Colleague. It can't be just the OVM/SMM doing everything like the way it's been going since they initially rolled it out. You're going to have a lot of unhappy colleagues both in support and on the floor. My advice is to accept it and start training everyone now! From visual to markdowns to merchandising. DO NOT WAIT until June when it goes live. Also, be sure to get answers from your leadership teams even if it makes them uncomfortable. With this whole OYS revamp, everyone is losing their minds trying to do floor moves and set to the new Inspirational/Experiential standard all while trying to clean a horrible hot mess of a store, doing markdowns, AND placing a truck while trying to get it all done within the company given time frame. And then Divisional partners come in to critique and it's never good enough. It's nuts! The biggest key is training and maintenance. Easier said than done, but needless to say, you'll be doing a lot of hand holding.
Be curious to see how this works. Currently In our store 20% of the people do 80% of the work. The 20% who work are expected to do more. Our manager has his favorites who are given off whether want and only work in areas or do the things they want.
Once implemented I would think there will be even turnover than they have now.
What has been the turn over rate with this new program in the stores ?
It works like a charm, since we started it last year we have turned most of our tenured support and selling associates, its a real good program for keeping our average hourly rates nice and low and getting rid of all that pesky accumulated PTO. We can now afford more low level people and with the change to selling cost for scorecards, you can't beat the old churn and burn approach to hourly staff in today's retail environment.
News of this program came out at our store last week after district meetings where it was told to the store managers and OVM's. No information except word of mouth, who's great idea was it to tell people about it coming in June. We have already had two sales people and three support people start looking for new jobs as one group doesn't want to do labor and the other doesn't want to work with customers. Everyone got their bonus for the holiday last week and we have people giving notice and we can't even get jobs posted until after their last day. We are going to do this going into the fall season, do we have anybody who used to work in stores even working in the leadership team anymore?
Pilot districts tried this during the holiday season and the regional team was out in Detroit and said it was the worst they had ever seen the stores. So many unprocessed cartons on the dock, seasonal merch that never saw the floor until well after the holidays. This is what happens when the store team is being led by a pocket square fashion icon who only wants to hear about how much you like his programs....honest feedback regarding issues and challenges not allowed.
Been part of the innovative program since last year. It did not work. The store suffered-front and back of house . Now that we have to follow a true process, we may lose good support people. Macys’s more with less programs from people that don’t work in stores. We are at the beginning of the no win situation for everyone.
Yeah…. Typical. Just get yourself a job in fast food and wait it out until Macy’s is begging you to return. Macy’s might start appreciating the decent workforce they have (had).
Yawn. Old news. Has been discussed here since 50+ stores started piloting the test program a year ago. Yes it's called Innovative. It's on its way to everyone by June.