Thread regarding Walmart layoffs

Optical hiring practices need to be reviewed to be competitive with the industry. Many jobs could be filled with qualified candidates except for the fact that when applying canidates are told that pay is non negotiable. RM says there is a system that weights their qualifications and experiences and comes up with a number. No one will take a chance at a new job if they aren't sure if they will make more money. Many of the best opticians have been pulled away for better hours, pay and benefits. Walmart needs to step it up.

Back to school warranty time

First mistake. You trust what your MHWD and RHWD say. Do you realize that optical is a nuisance to these folks? These MHWD’s and RHWD’s are almost all pharmacists. They went to college for 8 years or so to become one.

They then hated their retail pharmacist job so much that they maneuvered to the point of being promoted and in charge of large handfuls of pharmacies.

Then, the company added the optical dept to their plate of responsibilities.

Optical is a nuisance to the current HW leadership. Period.

Well my regional told me something is in the works last Tuesday when he was in

I point blank asked my MM about these “supposed” changes, and she said it’s not true. Pretty sure the people commenting about this are the same people year after year that just try to get something started.

Yup! That’s right. The $20 warranty is a dead giveaway that NVI will be taking over. It’ll take about a year or so to phase in all of the states with the paid warranty. That way, there is limited kerfluffle from customers trying to redeem a “free” WM warranty at a newly absorbed NVI store.

Curious if there’s any correlation between 2.0 stores and non 2.0 stores of who goes to NVI and who stays with WM. Hard to imagine WM would invest so much into remodeling so many 2.0 stores and then offload them. Unless of course that’s part of the deal, sort of like a buyer requesting improvements and repairs on a house before purchase in real estate. Or, the ones that have not been remodeled could end up being the ones offloaded to NVI. Or, maybe the ones that are not remodeled, end up being closed and remodeled stores offloaded.

Anybody’s guess, for now.

The new warranty is the same price as the NVI subcontracted stores. Luxottica isn’t going to take over, it would be NVI.

Well, as was stated. Offloading the optical to be owned and operated by National Vision or Luxottica makes sense, and has been expected to happen for several years now.

Being operated by a staffing firm like Kelly Services, does not make any sense.

Clarity in communication is key, but, as is consistent with WM, communication is not their strong suit.

Birdie is correct. I was informed from a source of same outcome. I think what Birdie meant. Is that the third party staffing will be a different company brand that works in house with their own benefits, marketing etc.

Current staff would be offered to join and keep rank or allowed to transfer elsewhere is what I have been told.

Ha! Exactly. They’re not going to have third party staffers applying pantoscopic tilt to a three piece drill mount for a heavily myopic patient with compound astigmatism.

Especially in licensed states.

And how about the doctor relations? Doctors signed their contracts to have WALMART optical trained staff aide them in operating their business. Not Jimbo and Stacy from Kelly Services.

As the prior commenter indicated, you have NO idea what you’re talking about.

You’re one of the ones who think the optical dept removes the frames from the wall and sells them to patients as is.

You probably also think that optical “adds the medicine” to the glasses via a liquid drop infusion method.

Ignorant.

Lol. You CLEARLY have no idea how optical operates. You must be division 1 LMAO.
😂😂😂

Turning it over to a third party staffing agency makes perfect sense. You become an employee of that company. Your pay rate starts over at the bottom tier, your sick and vacation starts over, you have decreased benefits. Staffing levels will be cut.

Alright sh1t stirrers. Todays the day right?! Put up or shut up!

Need a union

I heard they were going to put vcams in some markets

The family member in corporate who is supposedly saying that the VC is being outsourced to a third party staffing service has no idea what they’re talking about whatsoever.

Could they be offloaded and sold to luxottica or national vision? Absolutely.

But a third party staffing service? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

But

Yea. Let’s take a 45k a year job and a 30k per year job and COMBINE THEM. And let’s pay them 42k per year.

What about the vcam position that was supposed to come down

The Optical Manager position will be eliminated and be replaced by a new position called H&W team lead. Optical managers will have to re-apply for this new position. Rumors of possible responsibility for D40 OTC. Sounds like a trainwreck in the making

National vision has been in some walmarts for years. If walmart would get rid of all the optical market managers who know 0 about optics; then they would be able to run profitable vision centers once again. You put pharmacists in market mgr positions over optical for what?

I heard from a family member at corporate that Wal Mart will be outsourcing optical to a third party staffing service starting in October. Service will remain in each store. Just under a different brand. Ala the hair services.