Thread regarding Walgreens layoffs

To Neal Sample and Tim Wentworth, this is your Sunday edition:

For years, Walgreens followed a business model of old school retail with pharmacy operating under the same model. The store front generated imense cashflow, but tiny margins, while the pharmacy generated the profits. The c-suite did not need to innovate anything and you can see this reflected in the business culture where people cannot even articulate how their business makes a profit, but they know the myriads of details and exceptions about the few process steps they are in charge of. Fast forward to the last decade, a few things happened in the industry but the leadership at Walgreens did not know how nor were they willing to adapt.

• The retail business model has changed, led by online (I.e. Amazon) and wholesale (I.e. Costco).
• The pharmacy business model evolved where retail pharmacy alone became less profitable while the levers of profitability switched to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and insurance companies. CVS understood this and they got into the PBM and insurance business to make up for the pharmacy retail’s diminishing profit.
• Boots got into the fold and eat from Walgreens modest growth while imposing their British management style that never worked around here.

The two years of Covid fueled business growth only masked the downturn path Walgreens was on. The leadership & the board failed to realize that retail and pharmacy just don’t go hand in hand anymore as business models.
Roz basked in the short term gains from Covid and was completely oblivious to the cronic problems the business was facing. When things started to become shaky, instead of questioning the business model, she pinned it on IT and brought in Hsiao. Hsiao was a one-trick pony. He got rid of the old guard and thought that bringing in an army of engineers will just fix all of Walgreens’ problems. When he cut too deep, the board got rid of him and brought in Neal Sample. At the same time, they dismissed Roz and hired Tim Wentworth.
The board was really short sided as to what is causing the business downturn when they made those moves. They still don’t have a clue.
This brings us to the sh**t show we are all witnessing now. Tim Wentworth looks like a deer in the headlights when he reads his statements. Neal Sample is trying to do things that are inconsequential or straight up damaging to IT, like making efforts to bring back old leaders while neglecting the people who actually do the work for him. Tracy Brown is the leader of nothing as Walgreens does not manufacture nor innovate any products. They all created a buffer of useless people who make them feel good about themselves and never challenge them. HR is a bunch of bureaucrats who do things from the premise of avoiding lawsuits while reducing labor costs.
Sadly, this is the world we work in every day. Let’s keep this in mind next time we prioritize work over personal life or feel we owe Walgreens anything.

What can you really expect from Neal Sample? He's been fired twice before he showed up here. Who would join a company on the brink of bankruptcy if they had better choices? No doubt, he's here to make a buck, and he clearly doesn't know tech and business. He's a fake, only interested in buttering up vendors to make more money. Do you think he values you when he brings back people who can't cut it? Look at his new pharmacy VP - the guy's a retiree. And his CTO, who he swapped out after a disaster with the pharmacy renewal. That guy's head is full of sh****t. They're always saying we're broke, but his team is jetting off to Chicago every week. Can you imagine the good times they're having? He warned he'll look into anonymous complaints in his department, but people should be able to voice their concerns freely. Next time he'll say he'll investigate this place. His "Hey, what's up Cristin!" just shows how much he's enjoying himself. He's the worst CIO ever. HR's not saying anything because Neal is CEO’s close friend.

Tim Wentworth and Neal Sample are useless. They surrounded themselves with bobble heads and created an echo chamber for themselves, locked in and isolated from everyone on the 5th floor. All they do is create narratives. They don't have a clue about the business they are running. They were too greedy and ignored taking care of their people and now their own people are exposing them for the crooks that they are.
Like any corrupt system, it starts crumbling from the top.

It is easy to destroy than build, and while not perfect, Walgreens is in a much better place now than a year ago. The new leadership has some faults, but ultimately is trying to right the ship I believe. With all that said, there is one person who don't belong there...and that's Maria. Maria cares about one person, Maria. She an expert su-k up and is once again pretending everything that happened was Hsiao's fault and she's the victim. She is a pathological liar and cares only about people's titles when considering whether to meet them or not. Numerous examples of her shouting at people in meetings, but now all of a sudden it's kumbaya? She's hoping people would forget what she did.

Neal,

Here is feedback you can use:

• take off your funny mask when you come to talk to your people. You are not funny or witty. People are hurting and your funny go lucky attitude alienates them.
• a lot of the people in your team are smarter than you and you are benefitting from their work. They deserve straight answers.
• stop invalidating people's concerns. Don't call it bad behavior and try to empathise with people's hurt.
• stop bringing Maria and Tyler in front of the people. We are offended by just seeing their faces. Maria treated poorly everyone who had any interaction with her and Tyler rattles off HR jargon with no connection to people's problems. You can keep them on the payroll if you think they are valuable (nobody else does), but just hide them so people don't get to see their faces.
• your RTO policy is nothing but vailed quiet layoffs. University of Pittsburg published a study that proves RTO does not increase productivity and only creates employee dissatisfaction. Stop lying about the reasons you are doing it.

Have a great weekend!

It didn't help the morale that Neal Sample started the meeting in a threatening tone toward the people who submitted anonymous questions in the last call and called it bad behavior, assuring people that he can find out who the anonymous is.

Neal Sample went on and on about how he and Tim Wentworth have been spending time in the office. They were definitely productive and came up with:

• no strategy
• return to the office
• keep the lights on

ChatGPT would come up with better ideas even in the free version.

No surprise. Corporate in general is pretty tone deaf. I believe they totally underestimate how deep in the toilet employee morale is.