An open letter to the new leadership regarding the retail store level (I know you read this site every day) as well as store personnel:
So it's been a few months now since your new regime took over and while there are many positives there are still a lot of negatives out there that need to be fixed. This letter isn't intended to be another bashing session but hopefully will provide some insight into what many of us see and will never say if you step into our stores out of fear and intimidation..
What has made business sense:
The layoffs as difficult as they were on a personal side as well as day to day operationally actually make sense now that I look back at it from a business end. The company was to heavy on full timers to continue to succeed. I cried seeing the person at my store go but we were at a point with sales down that the business was bleeding money. As a company we had maxed out that credit card with the former leadership and the good times had to end. The former leadership wanted to reduce full timers for a long time and change the bonus plan but were to scared to do it. This new group came in and actually did the ugly job and I realize that you basically hung yourself as the bad guy and created a lot of ill will cleaning up the former leadership’s mess.
More of a retail approach. This nonsense of ignorant reports given out by regional managers and folks at home office to justify their job that made managers sit in their offices for their entire shift needed to end. While we must never lose sight that we are a retailer that services students on a college campus the key word here is retailer. We do what we do to make money for Follett and to pay a commission to the college and that requires the store leadership to be out on the floor where the sales happen. For the store level: go into any grocery and it's rare not to see a manager or assistant on the sales floor doing something! Lead by example and you get the most from your people. If you don't like the business end of what we do our experience transfers well over to the campus business office as well as student services. It's not as heavily focused on financials there and a job on that end would allow those of us that enjoy working with students to do that without worrying about making money.
Not wasting the whole day arguing about 1 or 2 more books on the shelves or "controllable investment" restrictions. The regional manager and GVP bonuses were built so much on that, that it was pretty ridiculous how much time had to be spent on tasks to appease their bonus needs. How many of us had our regionals flipping out on us because we couldn't find 1000 dollars more to return???
The new bonus plan is realistic for the retail field. The old one pitted the managers against each other in many ways. Now everyone is on a level playing field. How many people actually got above 20% anyway on the old plan? We had a better chance of hitting a progressive in Atlantic City than getting a 50% bonus. This new plan unites the management to a goal of making the store profitable. I know at least at my store the complaining has stopped over supply purchases and other areas and everyone is more conservative than before.
While there is a lot of silly stuff right now like pallets of binders or another box of over priced clothing arriving at the stores I'd rather have the stuff than not have it. Can't sell what you don't have and it was a struggle with the last regime to have enough product. This area has improved greatly as DC shipments are arriving almost weekly now instead of once per month. How long have many of us been complaining that the damn notebook prices were to expensive? The .99 cent notebooks are a great value and a traffic driver.
Having books on the shelves earlier than ever before. We cater to students, the most impulse buying group out there. If you can't put it in their hands right now they will just go to amazon or chegg to get it. Sorry, but if I go to a brick and mortar and took my time to visit as well as spend gas and an associate tries to send me to their website for not having the product I go out of my way to not shop with you for a while. (Walmart, Kohls etc)
Getting rid of OMS during the critical rush period. Thank you for letting me keep my books on my shelves for my students and for my sales. Everyone remembers Fred P. flipping out on the calls to execute as designed. Well guess what? We were complaining because the design didn’t work! It’s so much more efficient when I don't have to worry about looking up the class section or shipping out an insane amount of books to some remote college in a city I've never heard of for no benefit directly to me during my busy time. My rush is slowing down and someone needs a used copy I couldn't move? I'll gladly send it then as it's $3 bucks on Fedex to send it down the road and keep a sale in the company vs. $5 bucks to send it from Chicago etc. Plus it might even benefit the bonus side on the company end. I had to ship so much more than I received that I was always on the negative side of the shipping charges and that was horrible. This allows that to balance out. It's more time that no one needs to be in the sr area and instead are out on the floor. Also, it is less time that the CMM have to be re-ordering books, printing pull tickets and so forth. Save the sale was stupid. Always in stock isn't.
What has made no business sense:
Hiring VP after VP? I get that a strong business must have a strong leadership base but how much money have we wasted on all these new/replaced positions. It's demoralizing to see a new VP being welcomed on the quad over and over while the payroll allocation to the stores keeps going down. You are asking us to tighten the belt at the store and do more and so should you. I read the postings and I don't even understand what half of these people do!
The regional managers are still not acting like what they really are in a retail store environment: Support and leaders for their stores. We all have had our email and overall back office loads cut down so why are the regionals still not in their stores helping to improve the operation, lending a hand and pushing the sales? You need a place to save payroll? Get rid of some of these laptop dwelling dinosaurs and get some young blood in there that is willing to work. The directive was to cut down email so why the hell is my regional bombarding my email box with .99 cent notebook sell through reports and copying the same email I just got from corporate. Find something better to do with your time! If I have to be at work well before the sun has even has begun to cross the Atlantic ocean and am willing to do it to see my store succeed why do you get to remain at home in your bed? Time to get out from behind the laptops, your cushy home offices and get into the stores and do some real work like they do at regular retailers!
You continue to slash away at the stores that depend on the minimum wage employees to succeed. These students need the work and we need their labor! Not only are we giving these students valuable experiences but often times they are spending their pay checks right back in our stores. In addition, it isn't good outreach to the campuses when we can't hire the students that desperately need these jobs. As any other retailer I want to keep my register lines moving. Stop being Walmart and give us enough payroll to stock the shelves and run the registers. I have no problem doing the receiving and stocking the shelves as a manager but my cloning machine to do both jobs at once still has it's patent pending. I'm also the most expensive cashier in the store and profit killing if I have to spend more than 30 minutes per day on it. Run the numbers I have..
The salaried staff is being killed right now with the rush prep loads. Many are working ridiculous hours since July due to the payroll cuts and we haven't even hit rush yet. Negative 11 hours of payroll? How does Paul D even still have a job sending this crap out? It's great that you want to spend huge percentages of the payroll dollars on rush week but we are in a business that requires major preparation time before the sales actually happen! I know that part of the Project Blue extended plan is to get as many as possible to quit. You can replace us with a much cheaper employee without having to pay out severance or unemployment. I get that but you must also realize that we are in a unique business that requires special relationships on campus. No other retail manager has to deal with the political nonsense we deal with on a college campus.
The store count has dropped significantly in a short amount of time. It was nearly to 1000 which would have been a huge mile stone. Now its in the 800's. This is concerning: Are we not competitive in keeping our contracts? Save the sale? How about save the contracts!
The CMM's are having to run way to many rep