Just had a meeting and the store manager advised that the company is restructuring and were letting our in store hr manager go. The hr manager has till July of 2019. Very unfortunate situation. There is more expected restructuring to happen per my store manager.
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If an employee gets an additional raise from their SM will they still get an annual increase?
What happens when the only way an SM can leverage payroll is by severely cutting hours because sales are not being generated? This has been happening for the last 3 months. Often times our store has between 300-500 hours that needs to be cut. Full timers cannot be cut and part-timers are working 45 minutes a day to five hours - sometimes for an entire week, if at all. You can imagine what that does to morale when an employee makes a 90 minute commute just to be immediately sent home. This week I could only work 3 hours.
Even worse, this SM has only been at the store since April and has bragged about how all the other SMs in the district are jealous because of his/her relationship with one of the Vice Presidents of Store Operations. Even our Market Directors have cautiously worked around this SM because that individual has made it clear to all they are "untouchable".
Of course I recognize there are ebbs and flows in retail in general. However, surely at some point, there has to be a justification and accountability for continuously slumping sales, no? I'm not sure how this works.
Apologies the new position will be a regional position. Not district. It is a new position. Each store will add a min 12 positions.
Taxman, wouldn't the district position to oversee PSA managers be the PSS? That's the same job they do now.
An SM can give a different rate than pay rate advisor and it requires than explanation and their signature. Basically if audited they need to be able to explain why. Yes an SM can give pay increases it just gets very messy if they aren’t evaluating everyone and just giving the increases to those that ask or is a favorite. The annual cost of living increase is set for all associates and is automatic. It is about 2.8% and will appear on your Pacheco the pay period following your anniversary date , unless you have changed jobs then it goes by the new Anniversary date.
MSAs new jobs will be posted around the new year. Depending on store size there will be a lot of people hired on as the new team members. Our store gets 12. This is paid for by the vendors and they will be working all the isles. They are also hiring a new disctrict position to manage the manager PSAs instead of having them to report to the market director which is now a district manager.
Conference call with all manager across Lowes on Monday. The rest of the changes will be announced. Well not all the changes, but the next phase.
Workaround just means that maybe you can find a way to have two Asa’s part time instead of one full time. I think Lowes would like that since they want the stores to be 50% part time.
Taxman,
Please clarify "workaround" for me. I have never heard that term before.
Also, what is rule SMs when it comes to raises. I know for a fact that our SM has been bringing in new hires above Pay Rate Advisor recommendation, if they ask. In addition, other team members who have been with the company less than a year have been asking for increases. Does Corporate automatically give an increase every year? If so, what is the amount based on? Thanks.
Oh and I’m sorry, forgot to mention EOS. It is not part of the retention plan. EOS isn’t even part of any managements bonus this year. They took it out, including HRMs.
One thing I do remember is that the new hires psa teams will be recruited, interviewed and in Lowes system but will be an employee of another company. It’s a strange arrangement.
I’ll get more clairification.
The HRM lawsuit had to do with overtime pay and it was settled.
The HR rention plan requires they have 98% completed rvr training and 90% (somewhere like that) fully staffed. If they have that the beginning of December then they get 3%, the same a few months later and they get 5% then in May 7% for a total of 15%.
I don’t know how your store will be able to have 2 PT Asa’s instead of one full time, as each store has a limited number of positions and the systems literally won’t let you add more than what is allotted. You can’t even calculate a pay rate if you don’t have an open position and in PeopleSoft, which will be workday, it will only be listed as full time. Maybe if you plan now you can work on a workaround by the summer?
Someone else asked about the MSA positions. I’ll get more information by Friday. Honestly it’s been talked about a lot in meetings for a few months but I’m sorry I didn’t pay closer attention. I’ll get more details and report back.
I am a former HRC now ASA. The SM and HRM are a bit sketchy about what they tell say so your information is very valuable to me.
I am part time but I have worked as many as 35 hours (sporadically) to handle the work load. We scored 100 on our last HR audit. Since I do not want full time, the SM wants to hire another part-time ASA after the HR is gone in July.
Do you know the results of the lawsuit filed by the HRMs? Will training and EOS be part of the HRs retention package? Thanks again, Taxman. me-me
Any scoop on the MSA transition? A lot of it has been in public forum. Found a lot on connections today. Any insight taxman?
We were told a few months ago about the msa positions and how they would hire a lot more PSAs. This is supposed to start rolling out soon. There is also a meeting in December for the market directors in North Carolina. That’s when they will be given the next big changes. Recently a bunch of corporate also just quit. Restructure is continuing into the new year.
I believe new regional MSA positions will be posted and go live. formally PSA now MST "merchandising Service Teams"
There's a live conference call on Friday, 10/12, for all SMs and ASMs, for a big announcement. Anyone know what's going on THIS week?
What else do you want to know about the HR HRC changes? I am happy to share what I know.
Someone mentioned that the managers SSM and ASM have taken over most of the HRM duties and this is true. They have been setting the stores up to function without HR for the last 4 years. That was when the HRMS sued Lowes for lost wages.
A new system called WorkDay will be rolling out in July 2019 that will replace PeopleSoft. It will be more user friendly so employees can do everything on their own. And WorkDay will share information with our talent center so that will eliminate a lot of redundancy with data input. The sad thing is that it doesn’t roll out until the HRMS are all gone so the managers and employees will really have to take the online training seriously when it is available. There won’t be anyone else to do anything to help people in the stores.
HRMS were an unfortunate waste of payroll but that was mostly because of how Lowes used them. The last few years they slowly took away HRs ability to do anything and had them hand out phone numbers. I don’t think Jennifer Weber has a clear purpose for HR. Once they are gone and the new HRBP and Talent Aquisition positions begin the TA will be handling recruiting, the new store Asa will be handling admin in the store. There is a phone number for all employee relation issues. Not sure what alll those Area HRBP will be doing. That’s a lot of money to not have a clear purpose.
Taxman, If you hear anymore about the AHRMs and HRCs/ASAs, please post it here I appreciate your information.
Thanks! It's hard finding out anything and that's why rumors multiply. Any other information you have would be appreciated!
HR at LOWES is a financial burden for the company anyways. Service/Support were taking on the roles of most in store HR situations anyways with doing payroll, scheduling, vacation requests, sync ups, etc. ASMs at most stores took care of hiring on their own and can now walk associates out of the store without necessity of an “in store” hr. HR kept their chair warm, wasted profitable space by having an office when we should’ve had additional selling space! usually they assisted in other useless associates being useless because they spent their time BSing in the office all of the time anyways... The HR in Venice is a drunk, not sure how she even keeps her job as she’s had a DUI while working for the store, and she can’t even uphold company policies just makes up what she thinks is good at store level. It’s nice to know she and the rest of them will be going away.
Went to talk to my hr because my benefits are totally messed up and I was told he’s leaving and to call the benefits line. Not even a question about what’s wrong, just call 800 number. You’ve got to be kidding me!
I don’t have time to spend sitting on hold all day. Who the hell is going to fix this for me? Not HR. I couldn’t even reach my area HR. Stupid.
Leadership changes coming. You will see many leave because their job just was changed and they are being offered much less money. Some people cheer that hr is gone but it won’t stop there. More cuts coming. Happy new year.
Ear communication devices? Guess they need them for all the delegating and code 36’s (two 18 year old girls) that they let each other know about.
Hey, but all of our managers now have these fancy new communication ear pieces!
This is BULL Sh-- Lowe's is sinking never going to pass HOME DEPOT
The next meeting is with market directors in December. They will likely follow the same scenario. I was told they will be adding more leadership roles in the stores but it is not confirmed. The new changes will be effective around that time or beginning of the year.
HR managers were given a retention bonus offer that is contingent on some operational targets. If those aren’t met then no retention bonus. They were also told to apply for the area hr business partner positions but all total they will be posting around 80 hr jobs and about 1800 HRMs will be laid off.
New position added to the store reporting to the store manager will be admin support associate. They will be a csa3 and some admin hr duties and operational duties. HRMs are not allowed to apply for this position.