No severances being offered for those who refuse to go part time and do not wish to transition to supervisor roles. A small selection of districts (not sure which yet) will test having two IS's. Expect to close a lot due to morning shifts focusing more and more on sales, and task reductions continue to take away what little justification there is for a full-time IS. ZB's will be done once a week, floating experiments with completing it at night. The push to focus exclusively on sales from 8am-5pm is getting stronger and stronger. Expect to get yelled at for even picking up a customers mess during primetime because it would mean being distracted from selling.
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They know VS is an idiot - but DeSanto protects him.
Region 1 would be much better off without VS, but they use him to drive people out so they can hire lower paid people off the street, and then drive them out when it's time for a raise or -gasp- even a bonus.
In my 30+ year professional career I have never met a man more vile and foolish than VS. The man is over 50 but has the temper of a 2 yr old.
VS is an IDIOT
Sounds like a company desperately needing any sale they can get. The problem is they have lied, cheated, and swindled so many customers they are not coming back.
Welcome to Big Lots!
"VP's that take action on instinct not facts " - you mean like spazing out and kicking over displays and using arm sweeps to knock product off endcap shelves onto the floor? That's VS in a nutshell!!!!!
Literally closing the truck bay door as a truck pulls away and he slams open the dock doors and demands to know why receiving is so full - "Uhhh we just took in 15 pallets of crap we don't need , idiot"
Associate fixing the shipping box display, refastening the nuts that hold the racks in place. VS comes in and accuses her of sitting on the floor playing. The guy is an absolute idiot and never thinks before he speaks.
Anyway - good luck ISs - this rumor has been refloated for years now , you all honestly should have been prepared...but I do sympathize with you.
@LTReM8b-shs is right on point.
All the talk about "Task Reductions" do nothing! There are always operational tasks that HAVE to be done like taking in a truck and working it out to the floor and filling / blocking each night. There is also planograms and seasonal resets that stores NEVER get the proper amount of payroll for.
The people that design the PoGs photoshop images of boxes to fit in said spot, while the real product can not fit.
They guesstimate the amount of time it should take to complete a POG based on having the whole section already cleared of older product and the shelves /peghooks already in the correct positions. They also do not have to factor in customers. What may be a 2hr task during off hours turns into a 6 hr tasks when the associate is called to register constantly and customers come into the aisle or need assistance elsewhere.
Even if the cut the ZB to 1 day a week there are still RTVs/RTWS each week as well as damages to process. So now most stores do not have an Ops Mgr, , If they have an Ops Sup they are usually the MOD while the GM and SM sit in the office. The only reason the IS position was tolerable was because it was FT with benefits. If they lay off the former FT ISs and place the tasks on regular associates it's going to get real bad.
The bottom line is Framingham sets stores up to fail.
it's all about keeping the stock propped up for another year or two.
Wait till the inventory shrink goes through the ROOF! The increased selling will in NO WAY compensate for the inventory shrink that is going to occur. IF you are a thief get a job at Staples, no cameras, and now NO FULL TIME INVENTORY SPECIALIST. What a joke, corporate so far divorced from reality it is insane. If you stay employed by this company, unless you are in high school or college, you are a fool. No defined career paths, VP's that take action on instinct not facts and incompetent GM's that have turned into robots for the VP's!
This focus on "selling" is the same talk we've heard from this company for many years now. Task reductions never work because the tasks being removed haven't been getting done properly anyway, and the reality is that there are still a lot of daily tasks that require payroll that is not available. So you end up in the same place every time and sometimes worse because as they "reduce tasks", different departments at corporate will create doomed "selling" initiatives that will waste everyone's time.
The whole point of this is to put the weight of the failing company on the shoulders of stores. It'll be the stores' fault when it fails again like it did last time and the time before that. Staples is not making a comeback and the big bosses know that. Staples will continue to fail and continue to get smaller until it disappears. I know it, you know it, they know it.