I know Area HR's use to have direct reports and there use to be two per district in my area but that was all eliminated and now it is one per district. They don't do covid reporting, nor do they do internal investigations as we have a centralized area for that and they don't answer benefit questions (mine will flat out tell you no and go to myhr). So, besides being an administrative assistant to the DM and frankly an admin assistant to the SSA's, what do the Area HR folks do? They don't even conduct training and development (our safety district person or store manager or computer does those). If there is a position Marvin and his team wants to take a look at - I think they would save a lot of money by streamlining the Area HR folks even more. These folks are all at 80k and above per year - again I say, for what?
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Our Area HR BP just left the company and when it was announced, everyone openly cheered! From Store Managers, District staff and SSA's, they were not afraid to share the relief of him leaving and how toxic of an environment he created in such a short time. The District Team needs to be revamped.
Our AHRM is the same way. If you ask her about something the answer is always either ,” It’s online!”, or ,” partner up or reach out to your asm and store mgr, they can help you with that.” Again, her position adds nothing of value to the business. Like others have said, with everything automated and the SSA’s now around to handle the paperwork and many other hr-related duties, and TA handling recruitment and screening, I think we’ve found another position that we could really do without.
I think some of the district team adds value and gives insight but our AreaHR is not one of them. He is honestly horrible. Refers everyone to myhr and refuses to answer basic benefit or hr questions, is up the DM's rear end kissing bu-t and protecting his store managers from what should be (most of the time) termination or at minimum a PIP. He doesn't coach, train, support and pushes everything off on to others. He literally pushes off his work to other district team members and SSA's. If myhr and associate relations is in place as well as a centralized benefits, payroll and covid team - why are the Area HR's still around? It is a valid question. Zero value - time for Lowe's to save some money and "rightsize" their district teams.
I agree one hundred percent with the original post. It's time to get a smaller water cooler and start cleaning house in the regional and district office. If our so called CEO wants to put "more face" on the sales floor, get rid of the circus that comes to town once in a blue moon . Just think of how many full time employees you can have if you get rid of half the clowns.
I say it all the time they would rather cut an employee's hours and save $5 then get the 5000 from the customer that needs help and is willing to pay they are downright evil people
Our DM is a jerk, plain and simple. His marching orders from his old JCP/HD buddy (the Turtle), was to eliminate the "good old boy" management and long term employees. Four store managers were fired or walked out in his first month in the field. All he does is try to play gotcha. He is disrespectful and arrogant toward employees. Not one time have I seen him reach out and speak to employees. He certainly didn't introduce himself when he "snuck" into his role by spying on his stores and taking sneaky snapshots of employees on his phone. Oh...and they "conveniently" found a store just outside of his market for his wife to manage. He brings ZERO positive influence to the market. None. This is not the same company folks. All they care about is stock performance, and they obtain it by eliminating payroll at the store level. It is an unmitigated disaster, and it will come back to bite them.
I've worked for other retailers where the District Staff's purpose was to listen to the stores and communicate store and customer needs back up to HQ in attempts to make the Company better. At Lowes, from what I've seen in my couple of years here, their purpose is to cut costs to the bone while driving out what they consider to be overpaid employees via threats and intimidation. All while ignoring the customers and their needs. Our DM visits resemble a Warden reviewing his prisoners. Ignores customers. Never asks what we or they need, just spits the Company buzzwords and criticizes. Constantly threatening and driving down what semblance of moral we might have. The only time he has anything positive to say is when he finds something to post on Social Media in hopes his bosses will see what a bang up job he's doing. He's always front and center on that. The old JC Penny and Sears Management at Mooresville know they're short timers. They also know that if they max out their multi-million bonuses via cutting labor and other costs, they will be able to retire in luxury and support their families for generations to come. If you're ok with working for this kind of Company, good luck to you. Me, I'm outta here. There cannot be anywhere worse.
I don't know what the market people get paid, but I saw an ASMs bonus check one time and it was more than i was making a year and I had been there for eleven years at the time.
The district HR’s are involved in a lot of HR related processes for the market regarding employee relations and issues that come up. They are very busy and very important for the market. The SSA’s in the stores are not HR’s and the company needs HR’s to help prevent being sued. Stores and district staff rely on the District HR for issues that come up in the market
I've been saying this for years. Most of these area and regional positions are truly not needed, including HR. I would say that a regional HR manager is probably needed but that's it. area HR mgrs are down to being mostly 'go-betweens' from the store managers and regional HR and that's it. Why do you need an area merch/MST manager, or a--get this--regional 'protection plan' manager? Or for that matter, an area Pro manager? From what I can tell most of them do nothing but follow the RVP's and market directors around, high five everybody, take selfies of themselves handing out service patches, and that's it. They add nothing substantive to the business.
I agree and will take it one step further- what value does ANY of the district team offer? Bloated overpaid know it all’s. True story- when our district bozo would come in- he would Never leave until he found ‘something wrong’. As soon he ‘found’ something he would leave. It could have been 7:30 AM or after lunch but then he would leave. Guess what myself and another ASM would do? Purposely leave something messed up. Side stacks out of place, cleaning stuff (brooms, dust pans) in the aisle, anything for him ‘to correct’ and then he would leave and not bother us. He had to find something instead of actually helping us. And that is one of the biggest problems with district people- they always play GOTCHA instead of actually helping or assisting the store. They are huge waste of payroll. Do you have any idea what a DM makes yearly? Take a wild guess what their total comp plan is- most associates jaws would drop if they knew what people made.