What are some of you gaining by posting this stuff?? Do you actually think Hy-Vee wanted this? What happened 2 years ago happened. I watched my friends, colleagues and store suffer because of it. My pay was cut too. But we need to move on. It will always be in the back of my mind, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it consume me. I’ve been with Hy-Vee for almost 3 decades. Since I was 15; over half my life. And one thing I’ve learned is that Hy-Vee isn’t theirs. It’s not Randy’s, it’s not Jeremy’s, it’s not the “Boards.” It’s ours. It’s yours. And the comments on here don’t reflect a glint of what Hy-Vee is. All it’s doing is hurting the people that love this company. That includes me, you and the other 93k+. And while the company has changed; the name on the stores stay the same. The people inside of those stores fight an up hill battle everyday. If you want to help; come help us in the stores. Help us stock our shelves, check out a customer, push in some carts or any of the other countless things we do everyday while trying to keep our heads above water. They’ve thrown boulders at us while drowning my whole career. But somehow we figure it out. Not saying it’s right, but it becomes personal in a sense. There’s a disconnect now more than ever between the office and the stores. But we have to figure out how to fix it and posting this stuff is only widening that gap. Don’t mean to sound like I’m preaching, but think about it. Some of us spend more time in the store than we do at home. We wouldn’t do that if the things that are being said on here were actually true.
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Hy-vee is exactly a toxic company to work for. Randy was in my region and climbed the ranks. Was in our store all the time. I helped train Drew Holmes as he went thru the Hy-vee "college". I was with Hyvee pharmacy for 23 years but the past 18 months was pure he-l. There was an 11% paycut across the board in March 2020. We were considered essential workers. The pharmacy is lucky there were no major dr-g errors while the last person to give an ok on a prescription is playing cashier for the drive thru or trying to explain to an elderly resident why they have no medication because the store put the delivery priority on catering and floral. Or having a customer rip your head off cause they waited 3 days to get their scripts filled. It was tremendously a hazardous environment. Who cares if they have been out of meds for 4 days. The parmacist was by themselves many times doing the tasks of 4 people and maybe they would throw us with a young non-HIIPA trained cashier from up front. Drew Holmes drives by and sees the pharmacy drive thru closed and calls the store and heads were tore off. Did he know that there were only 2 bodies in the pharmacy running 3 registers? We begged for support help for technicians to be hired. They broke me and had to walk away for my sanity. I worked many 12 hour shifts cause I believed in the company. What a fool I was.
To the original OP
Your and id--t if your still with Hy-Vee after all this. I was in Management as in a small store that i was the Store Manager instead of the Store Director and I finally said enough is enough. Went to a Competitor as an Assistant store manager and made a little bit less like 5K less but ended up not losing any of my 3 weeks' vacation time and was eligible for benefits 2 days after I was hired by the competition while still employed with Hy-Vee. Was tired of basically working 7 days a week 10-12 hour days. I have a wife and kids and i never got to really see them at all. Now I work 10hr days 5 days a week and when its time to go home its time to go home and see my wife and kids 2 whole days out of the week. Even the Store Manager when its there time to go home its there time to go home and they don't stay unless the store is basically on fire.
Hy-Vee just expects way too much for what they are willing to pay in this day and age. Hy-Vee used to pay EXTREMELY well and what hooked me into giving my life to them. The labor market being like it is companies need want seasoned managers and employees and are willing to give them almost anything they want.
People post hear to get there anger off there chest since if they try to mention how they would feel to supervisors or Corporate leaders they would get told "if you don't like it and that's truly how you feel then consider yourself without a job effective immediately. I personally know of several employees and well as department heads that did voice there concerns and opinions and told if you feel that way then maybe you shouldn't work hear. One of the Department heads was fired immediately by the Store Director after the supervisor mentioned what the department Head said and voiced his opinion.
The company just wants yes people and if you have a problem with the way they do things well maybe its time for you to go. Not every employee or even management is going to agree with corporate but they should not be in fear if they voice there opinion that they think that corporate is going in the wrong direction.
Well maybe people wouldn’t be upset if they were given 2 weeks pay without warning and walked outed. You can’t get a new job in two weeks.
A company that cares about people my a**. If you care or have a brain to plan things you would let people know that it’s coming and work on a transition plan. Give 30 days notice and let everyone prepare for a new job and hand off work.
Just extremely shot sighted in order to get us off the books by end of the quarter.
Hey original poster, you HIT THE NAIL on the head when you said at the stores the motto is: “we are drowning, but somehow we figure it out”……this, this is the problem, this has always been the problem. The office is supposed to be the store’s main line of support. As Randy said the company is nothing without the stores. You feel the way you do because you like your job, you believe in your store, and you want what’s best. I for one think that these sorts of forums get pretty heated and people share way more here, their anger, frustration, etc. because they have no other way to express it. Everything for so long has been one sided. I believe there have been many changes over the years that have made our work lives easier and have improved efficiencies within the store. The problem is that those things are few and far between, and when they come, it’s years after they should have been addressed. I’ve found many changes are ones that had been suggested at store level well before they ever become reality. And when it comes to new ideas and changes, it seems like those that make our lives harder and literally have not been thought out to the point that we at store level are left to “figure it out” far outnumber the changes that actually make sense and help us be more efficient and profitable. Randy always touts how in this new world we need to pivot, however I see us sticking with the cr-p that doesn’t work far too long, then only pivoting at the last minute as a knee jerk reaction (ie layoffs)….when all they really needed to do is put more time and effort in the planning before implementing these ideas. We need to be pivoting faster to make positive small changes to issues way quicker also. Honestly what they really need to do is take a page out of the Uber playbook - where every corporate employee has to be a driver once a month. There should be a store near the office that is completely run by corporate folks. Everyone has to put in a minimum of one day a week…run every aspect from self checkouts, customer service front end manager, rpm, food service, breakfast server, health market manger frozen employee, aol shopper etc. Have them switch up jobs every so often…oh make sure all their temp logs are done, displays are done on the first day theyre due, blend reports are in, trucks put away, etc by 9am and oh yeah only on the 10.5 labor…. I’m sure the store would look great, but I bet you we’d see more positive change and far less asinine requirements that only keep us from getting our jobs done quicker than we’ve ever seen. Anyway, these forums to me are just full of people who are either tired of drowning and want some relief or they’ve already jumped ship. Those like you and I who are still employed, we care, we want things to be good, we want to succeed, but here’s the deal, we want our voices heard and we want support.
You are just trying to save your own a-s and the money you have vested. This is admirable but shortsighted. Nothing you say will have any impact. The extra $300 in sales by busting your a-s you get won't matter. Hy-Vee leadership is terrible. They're forcing everyone back to the office no hybrid. They force out seasoned employees in favor of cheaper younger labor (cheaper isn't always pay, healthcare is cheaper for 20-40 year olds). You've been there 20+ years. You don't understand because you don't have perspective. You're like the lobster in the tank saying to the other new lobsters, don't worry let's just clean the tank up and maybe lobsters will stop leaving.
Sorry but sometimes you have to call them out on it. Maybe makes them think twice when they make a questionable decision.
Keep those comments rolling.
What flavor of Kool-Aid are you sipping on brother?
Just because you love HyVee, doesn’t mean it isn’t terribly toxic with terrible leadership. It’s absolutely crazy how much of your life they expect and you might be a little crazy for trying to convince others to give their lives for these people. They make 3 times your salary at least, at least and it’s you giving your whole life to the company? I watched them give top executives promotions every quarter while telling the rest of us that worked 12+ hour days through the entire pandemic that they weren’t giving any raises. They say those people up on stage and made the rest of us clap for them and how well deserved their promotions were.. telling us it was us that were the failures for not implementing their completely stupid ideas.. H+.. what a stupid idea.
Man that almost sounds like Randy when he told corporate employees to start looking at store jobs a week before laying off people…..
Come stock shelves or work the register to help our customers because soon you won’t have a job anymore if you don’t!
The fact that you think people should just forget about it and move on is the exact reason why horrible leadership stays in place. When you don’t take action nothing changes. That is why horrible store directors are not longer with the company because the company did something about it.
The only thing hurting this company is the in action people continue to take. DVPs work 60+ hours a week every since week is horrible and a system that will never work out. The up coming generations will not put up with the same Boomer bu-----t and that will tank the company for good.
As you are a lifer and have spent almost thirty years with Hy-Vee, I understand where you are coming from. Employees like you that have invested years of their lives with Hy-Vee are coming here to discuss the changes to a once great company. I started in the early 2000's as a courtesy clerk and worked various management positions at store level. At that time, the company had a family feel to it. I respected my store director and corporate employees who would come tour the store. I remember chatting with Ric Jurgens and shaking his hand as a lowly assistant manager. Jon Wendel used to come in to the stores, look you in the eye, thank you for your work and actually mean it. Years later, after Randy took over as CEO, he came in to the store a few times and never spoke to employees or customers. I left in March of 2020, in protest, after watching friends I had worked with over the years losing their jobs, having their pay cut, or being transferred to an aisles online fulfillment center (which promptly shut down weeks later). I watched my store director be pushed out. The DVP or AVP or whatever they wanted to call themselves at the time came into the store on almost a daily basis. Their goal was to force the director out and it worked. When I heard the news, I asked my director what happened. He said, "Hy-Vee isn't a family company anymore."
We comment because maybe we can prevent someone who is thinking about working there can see the toxic environment it is and therefore save them some anguish.
You don't realize what a truly toxic environment it is until you get out and discover what it feels like to breathe clean air. Randy always says that the fastest way to ruin a bad company is good marketing ... well, the fastest way to ruin a good company is bad leadership. Heads in the sand solve nothing.