So, Tim after watching your video where you introduced yourself to Walgreens employees I decided to do a little research about your work experience. I am impressed by what I saw. Most people with this company would probably not guess that you originally got a degree from a community college initially. One thing that I did not see was you don’t really have a background in retail but I am sure that you were mainly hired because of your experience with Express Scripts and Cigna. So I know what you have said as to why you took this job and while I think this sounds good to Wall Street the facts are that the people who have been here for 15+ years have seen and heard it all. While I can respect that you at least did try to reach out to all of the employees with your message today ultimately you still answer to a certain Chairman of the Board who actually was one of your predecessors. Frankly I don’t believe he has ever stepped foot in any of our stores and that is obvious in how he has always treated the people in the field who actually help this company earn money. So in case you don’t know this most store managers, DMs, and the ones above them that are bonus eligible pretty much blame Pessina for the fact we keep getting screwed out of bonuses. You see we did not get bonuses in 2018 and 2020 and we also only got a half of a bonus due this thing called the bonus Multiplier. You are going to be made aware of it fairly soon because you see all of the bonus eligible people already know we are going to get screwed again for FY2023 bonuses. And in case you didn’t know you have a highly disengaged workforce right now. You talked about how there are going to be some tough times ahead but you see the people who have been here as long as myself have already endured the hard times before you even came to work here and frankly we are fed up with having to pull up our boot straps and dig a little deeper to basically benefit this company’s stockholders. You see until you do more than give employees lip service that they are the most important part of this company that is all it really is lip service. This company used to be filled with people that had been here for years and those people used to be celebrated until Stefano came along and then a lot of those people started leaving this company. I used to be proud to work for this company but that pride has left and frankly I am not sure if it will ever return for me with this company. Frankly people used to come to Walgreens from other companies including myself and they used to say how much better this company was than where we came from I don’t think that is said any more. You said that you want to get into stores and talk to employees. Frankly no RVP, DPR , or DM is going to take you to a store where you will hear good and honest feedback some of the questions you should be asking the Front End staff who just got blindsided last week that no matter how well their evaluation was they only get a 1% raise. Ever since we started the evaluation process we have been told by higher ups that this was a way to reward the better employees instead of just giving everyone the same raises each year no matter how long they had been with the company and with one decision last week all that went to he-l. If you truly want to get honest feedback from the field how about instead of pushing all of the employee disengagement back at the store managers you allow team members to provide honest feedback towards how the company has treated them in the last few years and stop pushing it back onto store managers to fix the problems that corporate has created. But I doubt that will happen. So I have tried to keep this very civil to this point but I am going to say some things now that are not going to be quite as civil but I think you need to hear some brutal honesty. You have taken over as CEO for a company that right now is a real shitstorm. We had pharmacy walkouts, you have front end team members planning walkouts, and you have more proposed pharmacy walkouts next week. As I said earlier you have a highly disengaged work force that is not just at the store levels, you had people let go over a month ago to do another realignment/ restructure I have seen multiple of these in the years I have been with the company. Because of the fact that bonuses have been withheld so often you have lost managers who used to be the people that newer managers used to call to help each other out with the knowledge that they had from the years of experience. Most of the managers in this company have less than 6 years experience being a manager and some should not even be managers but the pipeline of managers is so weak that DMs are forced to put less qualified managers in place. I do wish you luck in your new position but sadly at this point I have put up with too much sh-t from people higher up than me and their poor decisions have screwed me out of bonuses too much. I am tired of getting screwed out of my bonus even though my metrics were good and I executed the way I was supposed to only to have someone else decide that we don’t deserve bonuses. For someone like myself who is self motivated and has over 30 years of experience in retail Wal-Mart does not seem like such a bad place to go to any more at least if I am bonus eligible there I don’t think they will have one person deciding if my bonus should be paid out or not.
14 replies (most recent on top)
Yeah when they have a hard staffing like they did during the pandemic they will regret that and this company is unfixable it is bleeding money and all Pessina wants is to sell but he screwed himself with this clown show c-suite left by Roz
What Tim cares about is fixing the financials of a sick company. Its not to make employee happy.
The fact that Roz Brewer gets $375k/yr and a $9 million cash severance despite tanking our stock and ruining our chances at raises and bonuses should be enough to pi-s you off.
If they give a CEO who tanked the stock bonuses, do you really think they’d sacrifice and not pay themselves too?
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/health-care/walgreens-ex-ceo-roz-brewers-severance-package-includes-consulting-fee
Back to the office… who doesn’t know how to do math? This should be a basic skillset at the executive level in addition to negotiating your golden parachutes while you stiff the working class. You have 3600 support office employees and 2500 workstations. You are in the process of selling our other HQ buildings to save money in case you forgot, Ginger, you should have known this. Is there another announcement about downsizing we need to know about or is this a tactic to force attrition so you don’t have to pay severance and can fit everyone into a 4 sad sardine like buildings that pose as a global HQ for a $135B company. No bonus in 2019, many people left after that poor decision. 75% bonus during covid year due to not hitting #’s, but after listening to earnings calls you’d thing that era was the roaring 20’s. Your lack of transparency related to the bonus has us questioning everything. The company benefited from all the vaccine income but somehow this was lost in the #’s. This year our group hit out numbers bit apparently others did not, thanks poor healthcare strategy that has no ROI in sight. No bonus this year will be the last straw after return to work, no merit increase and all the typical BS comes with a company of this size. You should be thankful people even want to work here. Please don’t drive the good ones away with no bonus.
How does anyone know if executives and VPs get bonuses? Is this actually true?
May I please request that you break up the text into multiple paragraphs.
It makes it a lot more easier to read if it is broken up a bit.
Thank you so much.
51 cents is a pretty huge raise for Walgreens!
Changing a 1% to a 2% or a 3% raise doesn't do anything. If one makes $17 a hour a 1% raise is .17CENTS. If the raise goes to 3% it now is .51 CENTS. That is $20 a more a week before taxes. THAT DOES NOTHING..It's still an insult when workers worked through all the cr-p the last three years. Why even give a raise at all, it's a complete insult. That is why many are leaving. Yet you pay a fired CEO nearly $400,000 a month..in three months that is more than many make in a full lifetime.....to consult? to consult what? I sure hope people wake up and have some pride and move on...you deserve better.. Don't fall for the lip service. How much insulted does it take for people to wake up.
Pizza? Jeans? $20 gift cards? No. Morale will be boosted without this id--tic return to office mandate, raises, and bonuses, especially when dividends are paid out, and the c suite and VP’s get their bonuses.
Pizza and jeans always work to boost morale. Recognition cards, electronic and otherwise are a real winner as well!
I would love the opportunity to ask him what he is going to do to turn morale around. It’s very clear store and support office employees are fed up with the lack of basic leadership shown at the executive level. Embarrassing.
So adding to my initial post I will not make this one as long this time but I will give you credit for the sudden change in the 1% raise across the board that dropped yesterday afternoon after the initial Compass was dropped over a week ago. Seems like the winds of discontent reverberated enough through social media and this company has taken a lot of PR hits. But one thing about the new changes why not just make it the same as you did for the pharmacy? This still creates not an inclusive culture by not having the same increases across the board and it creates a divisive culture of FE vs Rx which is already a problem. Have you ever heard of the Four Way Test that Walgreens used for over 40+ years to build this business. There is one massive fail on that test. Is it fair for all? As I said in my original post you have a highly disengaged workforce that is not just at store level this goes all the way up the chain throughout the ranks and we are very restless and very angry and when RVPs and DPRs start micromanaging us it is going to get ugly here quickly you have already seen this on your first day here.
Usually, I would say working in-person with your co-workers in an office is essential to a company's success. You build comraderie and can work as a team. None of that applies if you work in a call center at Walgreens. Toxic workplace culture and high turnover are the norm. Much of it dictated by corporate. After working in the call center (prison, sweat shop) for this company, I'd have to say working from home is the only thing that makes the job barely tolerable. Having to work in-house for Walgreens would be my tipping point to finally leave.
Mr Wentworth has a lot of work to do. You have an entire corporate office that is fried. How many more years do we have to endure no merit increases or bonus? 1% which has been given the past few years and of course nothing this year for corporate team members doesn’t cover the cost of living increase or the extra costs for open enrollment. Year over year again I'm in the hole. For the past two years we heard how great we were doing working from home how adaptive we are and now all of a sudden it’s a forced 3 day return to the office? Why???? There isn’t enough parking, childcare center is closed, not enough seats or equipment and it’s Covid and flu season!!! Conference rooms are scarce. Nobody wants to sit in an open concept work environment and listen to everyone on calls because there isn’t a conference room or huddle room available. This was extremely poorly planned. Your workforce doesn’t want to come back to the office. Working at home is pretty much the only thing we have left that gives anyone a sliver of happiness. This is a huge mistake and has pi---d everyone off. Gas is expensive- the commute to Deerfield is not close for most and it’s unnecessary. Upper management has said in numerous meetings that they are hoping we all get sick so there is a strong cough cold season. Really???? Who says something like that? Many team members loat family members to Covid - how dare anyone say they hope people get sick to drive profit! Is that why you want people back to the office when flu and Covid cases are now on the rise so you can make another buck off us when we get sick? Your staff are insulted and defeated. The tank is empty and we have nothing left to give. Time to think long and hard Mr Wentworth. The people are watching and listening. This is NOT the time to force people back.