Thread regarding Walmart layoffs

@dfic

Of course you barely graduated, you really only went to one of those those schlock internet universities Walmart pays for who pass out "degrees" to some of their more intellectually challenged associates who they want to have some kind of pedigree to make them appear to be more qualified than they actually are, if only on paper.

You are no pharmacist, that is obvious. While you might be the Timmy for which I'm named, you are only an impostor using the moniker "Timmyslilpp". Any casual observer could see that. It comes down to the quality if the posts, the originality and authenticity of the information, and the mastery of the language.

When it comes to posts authored by Timmylilpp, there is only one original. Accept no counterfeits or substitutes!

In retrospect, I can look back at my own pharmacist career and see multiple times I could have made better decisions and improvements, such as, I never applied myself in pharmacist school but I (barely) graduated anyway. When I actually got my first pharmacy job, I needed a lot of help. Actually, I felt fortunate to be hired by Walmart because I probably couldn’t do the job anywhere else.

@binc

Of course you are correct, academia has sold out the profession in the name of the almighty dollar. But they did so with the aid and cooperation of major corporations like Walmart who wanted the additional graduates to create a glut to drive down wages. Of course at the same time, these same corporations were accepting lower and lower and lower reimbursement from insurance companies because they didn't have the cajones to tell them no. Meanwhile, HWMM's put undue pressure on their pharmacists on many metrics including getting volume up by filling opioid prescriptions by pill mills. I'm sure you saw that they just lost a case in Ohio for doing just that and were found guilty of this crime.

The management of this company consists of weasels, ladder climbers, and yes men with no morals or concern for their charges, their consumers, or anything else but their next bonus and their next promotion.

Friends don't let friends get a pharmacy degree and work for Walmart in today's environment.

Travel nurses are getting paid $95-100/hr, and some pharmacist with 3 times the education are starting out at $30-35/hr. At that rate once they pay their student loan payment they are making roughly $15-16/hr. They might as well not go off to a pharmacy school and become a pharmacy tech. All of this is because of schlock pharmacy schools. The pharmacy schools are the villains of the profession. They no longer require a PCAT because most of today’s students can’t pass them. Probably 60 to 70 schools need to close immediately. If they aren’t a top 50 rated school no one should accept their students for a residency. If they aren’t a top 75 or 80 rated school don’t take their students as interns. If you can’t intern you can’t graduate and take the NAPLEX exam. Maybe then we as professionals couldn’t get paid and treated well without fears of layoffs.

@6ned

You haven't provided any data and most of your posts are innuendo and opinion. I stipulated earlier on that Walmart's attorneys had made sure to cover their bases on the WARN but most of your posts are either about that or your opinions regarding the internet articles I posted You dismissed one of the articles because it was written on June 29, which was right in the middle of the 2 week period in which they were terminating senior staff. When did you want them to print their story? Bloomberg and trade journals such as Dr-g Topics and Pharmacy Times ran excellent articles on the subject , but I imagine you'll disregard them as illegitimate news sources also. They don't fit your narrative. Here's a link to the Bloomberg article for you to ignore:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-26/walmart-eliminating-some-pharmacy-jobs-as-retailer-streamlines

I'm so sorry to disappoint you, but I left the company of my own volition. I was weary of the toxic environment and found a much better job with an independent pharmacy in the area. The owner expresses his gratitude regularly that Walmart was stupid enough to let me get away from them. When one has a good reputation a new job can easily be found even in a tight job market. Not coincidentally reputation is also why Walmart is sending out flyers and offering sign-on bonuses trying to attract pharmacist to apply for jobs just a couple of short years after they were previously shoving them out the door.

You seem to live in an alternate reality, so I'm certain that you must dwell in the incestuous sewer of Bentonville. You might want to quit drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, it's giving you delusions of grandeur. You must be a RM. Or maybe a MM who's also an RM wannabe.

So you did a little "poking around" pharmacy schools for info did you? LOL!! I'll bet! I work in a high volume independent small chain setting. We've done more Covid vaccinations, Covid tests, flu shots, and on-site clinics than any of your locations can even fathom. I've worked with 2 interns, 2 externs, and 2 new pharmacists (graduated in the past 12 months) all in just this past week. They all say the same thing when I tell them where I used to work. Nobody wants to work for Walmart. They've heard the stories. And yes, I offer up a few more for them to share with their fellow students.

You need to spend your time more wisely out in Bentonville. They're paying you too much to spend your time losing an argument to me on the internet. With the low morale in your stores your time would be far better spent in the stores and clubs figuring out which ones to close for "plumbing problems" come next January.

So...i worked in H&W division at walmart for years. There is some truth to this. Although the area of the country was not affected too badly by these cuts, they did happen. Especially southern eastern seaboard. The Carolinas for instance were hit especially hard. We lost quite a few in East TN. It wasn't just Pharm D's either, it was support staff as well. Many of those let go went to CVS and Kroger in this area. Walmart has been doing things like this for quite some time. We had major cuts right before Covid hit across the board with the division. I worked as a licensed vision manager for years but after what i have seen them do over the last 17 years i knew it was time for me to go. They cut us all down to bare minimum staff to the point we can not adequately care for patients. I could not handle the stress of it anymore and got out. Walmart will go on...they will always be mediocre until they learn to hire the right professionals to look over those divisions.

@5ubf

Ah, I see now…… the wound is deep and maybe still fresh.

But thank you for your final acceptance in that the information and data I gave you was, in fact, true, correct and accurate. It is, and since you have not been able to disprove even one iota of that information we have to come to grips with why you are still so angry about something that happened that far in the past. Maybe you haven’t moved on in a healthy way.

Some of those that were released were due to job performance issues, as we know. That could have been anything from low or lack of professional knowledge/skill, attitude problems, inability to get along with coworkers or to follow direction, gross negligence, etc. I think you’re the only one that truly knows which category you fall into but I suspect it’s been a career long struggle based on the level of effort you put into supporting your position.

I did, though, do a bit of poking around regarding pharmacy schools and found that to be quite untrue.

@5pfe

My retort must have been too long, because most of it was severely timmscrambled and cut, especially in the first half. No matter, because I don't really need to listen to any more BS that you choose to regurgitate from Bentonville.

@5pfe

Jeez, I have heard that adults are hard headed and difficult to teach, that most assuredly be true>>Firstly, that article is a 4th rate internet source, and notice who it cites as a reference: LinkedIn and chat sites. That’s certainly a reliable set of sources for stone hard facts, eh? >>Plus it’s written months before any resource action even took place. Check the date. Did you happen to catch that? >> Here’s a quote. Notice the word ‘could’. Actually, the accurate number turned out to be considerably lower.

“ The layoffs could reportedly represent as much as 40 percent of its senior pharmacist “

Again, your corporate lawyers and PR departments would not release exact numbers, so everybody was left to extrapolate. I know many people who worked for Walmart at the time, and everybody knew multiple people released.

I can see you are troubled and hurt over this. >>If you were affected, then I certainly understand.>>If you really want to know the outcome of that resource action, you can probably find it at the DOL website. <<<

I don't need to. I saw the lying and deceit, and I saw the devastation of people who were personally affected by the way this immoral action was carried out. If you'd like to look it up and post it, knock yourself out.

Again, the company's reputation among pharmacists and pharmacy students has been trashed. There was undoubtedly a thinly veiled effort to eliminate senior staff to cut costs and increase bonuses of management. Now nobody in pharmacy wants to work for them unless there is no other choice. Pharmacy interns on rotation flatly state that they don't want to work there because they have been warned by their professors and preceptors not to accept employment there except as a last resort.

This was handled just as poorly as when this cr-p company closed 63 Sam's Clubs without warning and then tried to gloss it over with a stupid PR release the very same day announcing raises. Or when they closed all those 5 Walmarts with reputed union activity for 6 months because they suddenly had "plumbing problems". I don't know how you corporate clones sleep at night, but I do know that Karma is real and you'll eventually reap your reward.

You must all have one of those degrees from a schlock online university that Walmart pays for whose diplomas aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Corporate goons like yourself have nothing to blame but your own incompetence.

Jeez, I have heard that adults are hard headed and difficult to teach, that most assuredly be true. Let’s set the record straight using facts.

Firstly, that article is a 4th rate internet source, and notice who it cites as a reference: LinkedIn and chat sites. That’s certainly a reliable set of sources for stone hard facts, eh?

Plus it’s written months before any resource action even took place. Check the date. Did you happen to catch that?

Here’s a quote. Notice the word ‘could’. Actually, the accurate number turned out to be considerably lower.

“ The layoffs could reportedly represent as much as 40 percent of its senior pharmacist “

I can see you are troubled and hurt over this. If you were affected, then I certainly understand. But, citing poor references that were written long before the reported action even took place, and reading them as a factual account of something that hasn’t even happened yet just seems like the wrong approach.

If you really want to know the outcome of that resource action, you can probably find it at the DOL website. You should be able to find the WARN documents, and see the exact numbers yourself.

@4ahl

Did you even look at the cited article? 40% of senior staff but only 3% of workforce.

I understand that math may not be your strong suit down in Bentonville, but just chew on those figures for a moment. Ask somebody from outside the company. They will help you.

Besides, I understand the pharmacy market and the stated perception amongst pharmacists is correct. As you corporate clones love to say, perception is reality.

@3ng1

Ok, we can go slower. Try to keep up.

Walmart, like every company on the face of the earth, constantly adjusts business goals, staffing, wage/salary and other business aspects fundamental to keeping it going. Workforce reductions are a side curse to changing business models if staffing levels cause the business model to be unacceptable. This is business. It’s economics 101.

Walmart follows the WARN process when reductions affect more than a handful of associates. An integral piece of the WARN process is a reporting of every age group, racial/ethnic group, veteran status (including preferred status), performance rating, salary band, etc.

When reductions are done, those candidates’ data are reported to the government and are available to you to.

If there was an overbalance of one racial group over another, or age group over another, the report would show that and Walmart gets its hand slapped pretty hard. So, they don’t do that. It might seem to you that all were long term or older associates to save on vacation, benefits and wage, but it’s simply not possible or true.

@3twf

You can live in denial if you choose. These people were marched into the office and released without notice. They used an algorithm established by a third party to eliminate long-term people to save on vacation and health care costs. They did it in this manner so they were insulated from an eventual class action lawsuit by the long-term employees they fired. You are correct that they were technically "displaced" which is a euphemism for a termination that takes place after a 60 day waiting period. So, in that regard, I believe Walmart was technically in compliance with WARN. After the 60 days were over, some of them were replaced with new people at a lower salary. This was done because of a nationwide glut of pharmacists at the time who would work for less than the previously going rate. I know doing your research takes time, but please do try to keep up if you're going to spew corporate office bulls^%t on this board.

The contention of the OP was spot on. They let 40% of their senior staff go nationwide without cause, their reputation among pharmacists is now sh-t, and now they are short staffed in their pharmacies because nobody wants to work there. It's an employer of last choice. And deservedly so.

https://www.ibtimes.com/walmart-layoffs-retailer-eliminate-40-percent-its-pharmacists-2803631

This is definitely untrue. Citing a reference on this website doesn’t make it true, either. In fact, with all the fake news here and all the highly esteemed opinions, you’d be crazy and gullible to believe anything here.

The fact of the matter is this: 1) there has been prior resource actions in pharmacy. 2) Some were performance related and some were released because they were simply undesirable. 3) In the 3 cases in recent history, anyone covered by the federal WARN notice, even if they were not told of a resource action ahead of time, still was covered and protected by the WARN process. That’s the law.

Any salary associate received severance.

Those are the facts

There was no notice given period. I know for a fact.

@2sfl

Don't speak up until you know your facts. It makes you look stup......um,.......let's just say less than intelligent.

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/ZIIsPn5#OP

This is bogus. The federally required WARN notices are always filed and affected associates were given plenty of notice

Me too