Since the Corporate Express merger there has been more than a couple hundred employees who were laid off. The total could easily be in the thousands but it never went public because it was done in phases. Third party resources are becoming the norm for them. It's easier to reduce than adjust.
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The recent layoffs could also be a chain reaction dating back to the Corporate Express merger. When Staples bought Corporate Express the Staples Advantage (Contract) side of Staples became bigger than the retail side. When the merger happened it was considered to be hostile. What made it hostile on the contract side was that even though Staples bought Corporate Express they tried to adapt to the Corporate Express platforms. The old time Staples folk wasn't having it and did put up quite the fight because the change was so drastic. As a result many employees were trying to stretch their jobs to retirement without having to adapt to the newer platform or lose their benefits. With the retail and e-commerce side you see re-formatted stores to cater to multiple vertical markets which can be easily based from the contract side of doing business.
I'm sure that some of this is result of the economy and of Amazons success. I have to laugh on how Staples brought Amazon into the picture of reasoning for the Office Depot merger. Staples Advantage presentations often mentioned how their e-commerce system is second to Amazon.
I was a SM back in '07 and received the letter to join the class action as part of the Stillman class. I opted out. I was loyal to Staples for hiring me. (all the things that are going on at Staples now were occurring in the company I left before Staples). I was working 50-55 hours a week on salary, most of the time was spent selling and managing. At the time we were getting bonuses and my stores usually did well.
Fast forward to early 2010. The recession had kicked in and Staples had severely cut payroll to stores. AMs were still salary and I was working 60-70 just to cover the store and get the bare minimum done.
GMs were told that Staples had settled the lawsuit and was opening the suit to all AMs, to prevent future claims. Furthermore, all AMs would convert to hourly.
My GM called myself and the OM at the time into the office and told us that Corporate WANTED us to join the non-Stillman class. Again - because by doing so we were joining an existing class action and this would forfeit any future claims.
It took over a year for the settlement payouts to reach the non-Stillman class, while the Stillman class received theirs much earlier and received more, in way of damages, for the taking the risk to file the suit.
Several managers I knew that were in the Stillman class quit soon after.
At the beginning of 2013 they announced the restructuring and "reassessment" of all AMs. Basically all but the busiest stores would lose an AM. Many people that I knew were in the Non-Stillman class did not meet the assessment criteria and were laid off.
I was kept on, but the constant harassment started right away.
I think the mass layoff after the non-Stillman class action lawsuit should be a story. They let go almost everyone (assistant managers through reorganization) who was part the lawsuit. Then brought the positions back.
Yes, Shira would have been over delivery as President of North American Commercial. She ultimately would have presented it to Ronny for the final OK. I do remember being told that the SDO closure was a black belt project that they tested in one market, and everything was OK. Like that applied to the rest of the company!
On the retail side of the SDO closure it affected them also. The quad channel project had dot com orders for pickup filtering to the store the customer chose. They were shocked when I told them a Staples driver would delivery any longer, not to mention POed. They loved the fact they could tell a customer place an order online, have it delivers to the nearest store and it would be in the following day. We know how well next day is working with the couriers!
I also was on the higher end of the pay scale between salary and commissions. I believe I was the only one on my team that made more money on the revised commission program that started in July of 2013. My manager had it out for me from day one and looked for every excuse to get rid of me. He even went as far as suggesting I resign. I told him no, I'll get fired first, I won't give Staples the pleasure of not paying unemployment. you can't fire someone over a policy that doesn't exist and a PIP that was totally subjective.
Get lost, reporter, if you really are a reporter. Do your job instead of trolling us. Or maybe look into Brady's multiple affairs. That will sell more of your fish wrapper.
Were fulfillment / SDOs under Shira Goodman last year? I know she has everything in US now.
She is another one that should of went if she made the call to close SDOs. And whatever idiot decided Staples should sell cell phones should also go - that as a disaster.
I work on the fullfillment side. We have heard absolutely nothing, nada, zilch about any layoffs. I saw an article online last night and emailed my FCM who only heard rumors. I've been with Staples for 8 yrs; this past year was the worst. WMOS upgrade was a disaster, SDO closures a joke. Both blew up in their face. A waste of millions of dollars, and for what? $10 mil for WMOS that sucks and re-starts SDOs after all the people and equipment is sold off. Customers got the raw deal. Our metrics will take years to recover if ever, and we get held accountable for all the crap we never had control of and they'll want some kind of action plan on our reviews like it was our fault. Time to jump ship.
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I can relate to the one who said they were fired for BS, made up shxx, only to be told they can do what they want even if they are lies...they don't give a crap of peoples well being or way of survival. The only difference in my story is I wasn't written up, I wasn't warned, just let go, but yes I was at the high pay end of my job and 13yrs of service.
I'm glad to see I wasn't the only terminated for petty reasons.
I and another peer were let go yesterday and we're nowhere near Framingham. Apparently happened to alot of Staples employees.
Look within the ecomm organization under Masud, mainly women were let go and shamefully 3 on maternity leave! What a sin. Families whose mothers have worked there for close to two decades, never given negative written feedback. Oh but they'll be protected under 'removing a layer', total BS and corporate greed
Many of us have wrongful termination suites pending, many details there. Look into that. This is not new news, just unreported. Those of us who hit a certain dollar bracket in our positions were harassed until we sought treatment for stress or quit. They wrote us up with lies and petty things. We were run in circles, undermined and staff cut so we could not complete work. We were given outrageous schedules so we could no see our families, and our managers encouraged us to find other jobs daily. Some we offered demotions when that wasn't working at fractions of our pay forcing us to resign All this to save a buck at the expense of our families and well being. Report that!
Do not let this go unreported. Please someone, reveal what happened.
I'm a Boston Globe reporter. Would you please call me at 617-929-3292? We can talk.
I was just reading NYT and Boston papers and commenting on lack of coverage to this. If nothing else , Staples refusal to confirm deny the layoffs is a story. I was fired for bs reasons in the fall, not this round if layoffs, but what info are you looking for?
Staples employees, please respond to OP. What Staples is doing here, and their purposeful silence, needs to be reported. These practices are all too common and even a single article with the truth will go a long way and help many in the future. Don't let this go unnoticed. Don't allow these employees' years of service be for nothing.