7784 - you are DEAD WRONG. They ARE NOT Fair. I know two of the best GMs that I ever worked with were unfairly harassed and drummed out of the company because the new RVP felt they made to much money. One had corporate visits every week, just looking for paper on the floor or a spot on the window to use as an excuse to fire him. The other was railroaded by a false LP claim and fired, denied unemployment until they sued. The person that filed the (false) LP statement was soon fired themselves.
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I agree - additional staff reductions are inevitable. And some will be given severance packages and some employees who were formerly successful will be PIP'd. Does anyone know about all the hundreds and hundreds of contractors they are using? Not all of them are working on business critical projects. At some point, someone will have to be looking at them too. They may not be getting benefits, but the amount that Staples is spending on them is insane.
Low market shares cause this to happen, they just simply do NOT have the marketing to support keeping some stores open. As for pips and evaluations, Staples doesn't run that way, they are fair when they lay people off and fair about unemployment benefits as well. If you look at the economy as a whole, no one is really doing that well in retail. People just do not have the extra money to spend on extra items and shop around for the best possible price, most find that online or at deeper discount stores. Brick and mortar stores are just not that economical to maintain any longer when they can't produce the sales. There will be layoffs in the future, there will be store closings in the future for a lot of retailers, not just Staples and this isn't abnormal for the economic outlooks in the next 5 to 10 years. Bashing a company and it's policies is just foolish speculation. It's just the face of retail in the US.
I am sure they will be ongoing waves of layoffs as retail continues to sink. They will probably do some each quarter, in addition to the store closures.
They will also be giving out a lot of "does not meet expectations" on annual evaluations to GMs and SSMs that did not meet ESP or tech goals, even if their stores made a profit. Next will come the Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) so they can claim the managers job was in jeopardy before they were laid off, thus not eligible for severance or unemployment.
If you even have to ask for more information on future layoffs - that's a sign that you should get out ASAP.
What are you talking about? Stores? Corporate?