Beginning Friday we started the process of removing around 100 people, there was no communication until Wed morning when everyone in the HST office was invited to watch a complete train-wreck.
Our new CTO spent the first 30 minutes bumbling about himself, his childhood, his family, his daughters, how he met his wife, his daughters major in college, his first job at Hy-Vee, and on and on, the only thing that anyone could take away from this jibber jabber is that his only qualification for being a CTO is his close personal connection to the CEO, the delivery style would be best described as senile folksy grandpa or elementary school principal.
In the last 10 minutes we learned there was some restructuring after making some vague references to inflation and the unexpected war in eastern Europe, oh and also hybrid work remote option was being cancelled in two weeks (reasons unknown). The absolute best part is that in passing he mentioned that he just returned from vacation with his family, so it was immediately obvious to everyone that he signed off on a bunch of lay-offs (handled extremely poorly) went on vacation and left everyone wondering what was going, waiting for him to return and deliver this message.
The entire bio-graphic spectacle would best be described as a case study of 'Cronyism and the intersection the Peter principle with inane rumblings'
The entire experience watching this was a surreal disaster, Hy-Vee does not provide the greatest benefits or salary, the people that have stuck around have made a choice to work for a local company that provides food to their community. In a single master stroke the loyalty was completely undone, and it would be absolutely marvelous if it didn't end up hurting some of the best humans Iowa has created.
One guy's opinion, Hy-Vee tipped their hand way too early, true the economy is shrinking but absolutely everyone in that building is very capable of walking out the door today, in 3-4 week the consequences of what happened today will feel very real to everyone in the C-suite.
I don't know if the message will make it to the people that matter but the only thing that could save Hy-Vee is for some type of apology and public flagellation.