Just received another company wide email concerning ethics when selling. Funny, I have reported unethical behavior multiple times this year and it was swept under the rug. Marking down liquid armour, creating false rewards accounts, price matching to include ESP, and selling .com items as ESP Plans to name a few. Nothing done. Hmmm
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What does one expect from a company that just made a CTO out of a VP who has repeatedly hired his friends over more qualified candidates, bought companies in which he has had a vested interest either as an investor or board member, and continually promotes the ideas of others as his own? Seems akin to what the Roman Senate must have been like in its decline. "Go Big Red!"
Policy / Ethics violations are definitely not applied equally. Staples has been doing this in one form or another for at least the last 5 years. It is all about finding excuses to fire higher paid GMs, whether they run profitable stores or not.
Had a friend that entered his store alone 5 minutes before opening to get the registers out. The IS associate that was supposed to meet him at 7:30 to open had called out sick. GM was fired. Another GM in a store 10 miles away stayed by himself after closings to "sort clearance totes" because the DM wanted certain items to sell on his side business. That was perfectly fine.
VS went into a store while the GM was on vacation and held the GM accountable, rather than fire the GM he cut their salary by $20k.
After almost 20 years and great results, preasure with liquid armour and DM emails and text messages multiple times a day. Employees used coupons to upsale to customers and GM fired. Reason....violation policy. Best GM ever, salary was going to be cut one way or another. Newer GMs down the street marking down product to sell LA and ESPs, making way less salaries, kept their jobs. I wonder if lawsuit is justifiable? Just sad.
December, Jan and Feb are always interesting times on this board.
Similar to Wells Fargo, the people that are issuing the marching orders to obtain results by any means necessary are situated above those overseeing ethics. So a token few are fired for cause for ethics violations while more are fired for reporting these violations, though the listed reason is BS.
Staples is a desperate company, and those with any modicum of power will seek to preserve it.
I know a long time g.m. just got fired for using coupons to sell liquid armor. The dms maybe telling you to cheat but they won't have your back if you get caught! They are using this opportunity to get rid of high paid gms.
If you get fired for not cheating you're not doing what you're told and they say it's because of your numbers and your sales numbers are down simply tell the truth that you were told to cheat and you chose not to. Having a ethics always win over the cheaters
Cheat or don't cheat. It's your choice. If you are fired for not cheating you can still collect UI...you will win the case..if you have severance pay due to you, fight it.doing the right thing will always pay off.
They are getting fired for price adjusting items down for the purpose of adding in the SKUs they are getting pressured to sell, like Liquid Armor, Square Trade, Chair Assembly, etc.
Someone was fired a couple weeks ago for going through recent tech service orders, refunding the service fees and using the resulting credit to ring up liquid armor instead.
Of course LP is having a field day with this, they get to do their job and justify their positions by catching the scams.
Employees getting fired for price overrides and price matching. so much for taking care of the customer LP justification
FOUND THIS IN DEFINITION OF STAPLES IN CORPORATE DICTIONARY. RIGHT NEXT TO STAPLES IT SAY ETHICLESS. FAIR ABOUT WITH CUSTOMERS AND ASSOCIATES
That should read 2017 obviously
It was probably in response to this :
"Let the cheating begin - we were told that if we weren't cheating we weren't trying. So let's all take csats from home, fill out rewards, and ring in clearance as esp"
The pressure is on going into 2016. Many RVPs and DMs are feeling the noose tighten.
"Get it done, whatever it takes, no excuses"
Really? Because your job is finally on the line going into 2017 you expect customer behaviors to change and more people to buy your Square Trade Plans and Liquid Armor snake oil?
No, they know better. They are telling their stores to cheat. Cheat to make the DM and RVP look better.
The company wide email about "ethics" is just a smoke screen.
What Staples really needs is national exposure as scam artists like OD received about their "tech services".
Or another expose in the NYT by a former manager like the one reporting walking the laptop customers that did not want the warranty.
Either way it works for corporate..... Don't cheat and they terminate for poor performance or cheat and they fire for ethics violations. Either way ..no severance and they WILL contest UI benefits.
Any store that has put so much stock in selling warranties or services have all gone out of business. Nobody Beats the Wiz, CompUSA, Circuit City, Service Mechandise, Lechmere, Silo, Tweeter, Montgomery Ward. So much pressure that the employees snap under the pressure and shovel the warranty into the product. Marking down a product to sell a warranty is illegal in many states.
Some to close: Sears, Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot, Best Buy, Radio Shack.