Are we dealing with corporate level refugees from Bob Nardelli's Home Depot? This quite similar to hoe the Depot changed after Bernie and Arthur retired. Bring in a person who knows only numbers and not how to work with and motivate employees to help grow profits and stock value. The Depot got rid of full time employees who had put many years into their careers and brought in part timers who didn't know or care about customer service. The old axiom is true: you get what you pay for. If Lowes really wants to keep the customers coming back into the stores, the corporate folks need to look at who is keeping the stores functioning! A hint---it's not some yokel sitting in a desk in North Carolina or anywhere else!...it is the employee on the floor in the store who spends each day working face to face with the customer!! If you really want to make a profit and see stock prices soar, get out from behind that desk and get your fat a-- out to the stores!!...and not just the local ones! No, get out nationwide and spend time learning what working in a retail store is really like. Work with the employee on the floor, work the same shifts, punch in and out for lunch and try to take a break when the store is busy and understaffed keeping a smile on your face as your lunch time gets pushed farther and farther back. Try to get the stock on the shelves while "specialists" stand or sit at a desk in that area thinking they are too special to do the basic duties of a retail employee. If you want a successful company, have mangers on the floor who are being motivators, not hermits hiding in back room offices. Have corporate people come to see a store in real life condition and work to help us improve by giving constructive guidance and advice, not a quick tour of a store that has been cleaned up just for a visit to make the store manager look good. Listen to the concerns of the hourly employee on everything from poor merchandising plan-o-grams to benefits. Listen and pay attention and follow through. All employees need to spend time working in a store with customers to understand the effects of the poor training programs coming down from the higher levels. Customer service is the number one issue in a retail business and Lowes is falling into the trap that Home Depot fell into so many years ago and is now just starting to recover from. We can be better...a business is only as good as the employees taking care of the customer. We must be customer focused but not letting the dishonest customer take advantage us by letting them get refunds on stolen merchandise or merchandise that has been used and abused! Have the balls to say "NO" and mean it....even Walmart says no!! Learn from the employees in the store or suffer the same fate as Sears, Kmart, JC Penny, Builders Square and so many others where the employees just give up caring. Most of us DO care...but it is getting harder!!!
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I bet not one corporate level stooge has the balls to take you up on your challenge to actually work in the stores to get the real retail experience!!! I dare them to make an effort to try it!!!
Here at corporate our managers, directors and VP's still tell us they know nothing....while people have been walked out all around us. We are told to work and keep our heads in the weeds.
It is the most awkward experience and you feel lied to and betrayed.
It is like a terrible nightmare, and you dont know what may come next.
I am very happy that I left Lowe's 3 months ago. I was a head cashier and dealt with all the BS from management and ASMs that did not respect the front end. I went shopping a week before Christmas and there was 1 cashier on the front line at 10:45AM on a Saturday! Yes, 1 freaking cashier. Not an ASM in sight as they generally hung out in their little office in the back of the store. We were told non-stop that labor is the most controllable expense. Well Lowe's is acting on that mantra. My ex-stores reputation as SLowe's will now be SSSSSLOOOOOWE's. To the FT employees on the floor I suspect you will be next. How many times were were told we are getting you 2 PT cashiers instead of a FT cashier as then you will have 50 hours instead of 40. Well almost immediately we were told sales were down, or expected to be down, and our part timers got cut to 15 hours. So we ended up with 30 instead of 40 hours. But Lowe's saved on benefits. The long customer lines be damned. Retail is a joke. Niblock should go on Undercover Boss and see what is really happening in his stores. Not the fake feedback is getting from each level of management that scratches each others back so that they they can report back up the line that everything is great! Give us a big bonus for being so fantastic.
Posting same thing on different threads is considered trolling here. Site admins may nuke all you ever written and block your IP. Just sayin'
This is just a continuation of the stupid decisions that started with Tillman
How I feel exactly. Well said anonymous.
I agree with you 99% except the sale specialist standing be hind the desk I've been assistant manager at home depot at nardella took over depot as asales specialist I hit every aisle every day that I work fashion and rough I also cut blinds cut lumber answer code 50 bring in carts from parking lot and a team player I don't know what store your from but it sounds like your sale specialist are losers you can't judge people that are losers from your store nation wide the only thing g nation Wide with Lowe's is the department manager losers I've been with Lowe's for 6 years and a sales specialist and I still have my job after today because I earned it and it shows on paper it the best thing that happened to Lowe's on Tuesday is getting rid of low life department managers with a big head a good thing the brought back mcdonald value meal for losers at least t j we break room will be clean at least I will be able to eat my lunch with out the break room being full of department managers
you've hit the nail on the head. far too many complacent and ineffective employees and managers that have attained positions that they need not have. too much falls on the backs of those willing to bust their asses and not get any recognition. i posted earlier and i am trying to spread this story so more can see it. i guess i'm no better than a troll at this point, but Lowe's already views it's employees as mere peons and it really showed today. i love my job, just not all the politics that come with it, or all the lousy decisions that corporate makes. our STAR based interviews are a joke--this allows anyone who can come up with a convincing story or response attain a position they don't rightly deserve--the questions for interviews are available online, and it's easy to fake your way in. even more so, if your management and hr team are lousy, you'll only get lousy in response. i have, or had, in this case, a newly hired department manager that had almost no retail experience, or experience in the department he landed in--it's been specifically up to me to groom him and let him take the credit for the turn around in our department, and for whatever reason, i got passed over. i know it's a blessing now, but in terms of things, this is a trickle down example of poor decisions from the top down. here is my original post.
I work in the Whiteville, NC location--store 2869. Today, we allegedly lost one of our most valuable Assistant Store Managers--while it's not "official" all signs point to it, as he was not here today for the ASM meeting. The Department Managers were later called in to the meeting today, to where the Store Manager gave a brief preface that he was told by corporate to read this piece of paper explaining that the Department Manager position was being dissolved, that if the DM's chose to continue working with Lowe's that they must opt in for a chance at a service manager position, to which only five would be hired on as. From there they would have one year if they did not land the service manager position to find another position in our store, lest they lose their job at the end of the year. This was also the case for our OPE specialist as his job has faced the same dissolution. The meeting was very concise, and not a single department manager was allowed to ask a question, as the Store Manager said he would not be taking questions, nor answering them.
Overwhelmingly, the morale of the store shifted dramatically after the meeting and it was just miserable to be in the store today. This was all because of a promise that the CFO could not keep to stockholders--and even with this re-structuring the majority of us doubt that there will be a meteoric rise in stock price because of these measures. Our little store has seen a generous up-tick in business since Hurricane Matthew, which is the basis of us having a near unheard of $25 million dollar year in business, whereas our store typically hovers in the low $20 million(s) in yearly revenue.
It is disappointing to hear all the stories of the department managers I have spoken with today, regarding their climb to the position, the amount of time invested and hard work to climb this ladder. Granted, there are some that need this wake up call, that are not a good return of investment for the company's dollar, but there are many who make our store great. For the first time, I am truly disappointed with this company, and question my own integrity for staying and trying to climb the ladder. This is eliminating the dream of advancement, and replacing it with a culture of fear--fear that your job is always at stake now, This is ultimately proving that now more than ever, you are just a number in this store, and in any Lowe's store--no matter how much you've contributed or improved your particular department or area.
The one thing, that I've collectively gathered from talking to my fellow associates is the pretense that perhaps we will finally be rid of a very ineffective HR Manager, who tends to play favorites and doesn't aid in the process of advancing associates who truly deserve it. This also leads us to the hope that our very crude and poorly performing Store Manager will be gone soon as well. We've learned that our store is a sort of two year training ground for Store Managers, and hopefully soon, his time here will be up, and we can move forward with more sincere, involved and effective leadership.
Luckily, I am not a department manager, but now, talking among the other sales specialists in my store, we now fear that we are next on the chopping block--that the department managers who have lost their title may resort to any means necessary to come after our positions, being they are the next pay grade down. We also fear that in this new culture that corporate is manufacturing that the role of sales specialist may be dumbed down to something any floor associate could do, or is expected to do. This is a potentially poor decision that not every one is suited for or able to do--to properly serve our customers, something that is instilled and trained into us upon hiring or promotion as a sales specialist.
I do not relish the fact that I'm going to have to train a bevy of newly hired part timers in the next year and more, nor do I enjoy the fact that I am going to lose so many talented and amazing people to make room for them.
Lowe's has a motto--"Never stop improving." I really don't see this as living up to that motto, nor establishing an environment for the employee where they want to improve them self. Why try to advance in the company when it can all be taken away?
I wish nothing but the best for all the one's that have been let go or put in a impossibly difficult place today. My sympathies and prayers to you all.