In the weeks leading up to Christmas Furner executives will be out and about doing pop up unannounced visits in clubs throughout the country. They will be targeting clubs that are on the table for closure next year. The visit will be intense. Your clubs can look like the Buckingham Palace it won’t matter you will receive a red if your metrics. Some of these visits will get rid managers and associates on Final coachings to reduce some severance cost. There will be no notifications of clubs closing until the evening before the shutdown. Managers with career preferences saying they can relocate will not be receiving severance and will be placed in stores biased on their coaching and performance, stores can be out of state. Clubs who sales went to Sam’s distribution centers will still be using a budget biased on previous sales with truckloads making it impossible for Sam’s share. The focus with closed clubs will be a change to using their buying power for truckloads. Stocks are falling this should please shareholders yielding more investments towards Sam’s.
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Good comments at the top half of this post. However, if someone was to ask me... I think if we are concerned with cleanliness right now there is mostly likely a breakdown in other areas of the club or an underlying issue much bigger than cleaning. Cleaning should have already been done before the holidays hit. There’s multiple levels of leadership inside the building where did the breakdown occur? I still believe if it takes a market manger, regional or someone from home office to say clean then other conversations should be occuring most likely with the club manager AND assistant manger. I’ve seen many things, heard many things, forgotten many things but there used to be rights of merchandising (I may show my age?) and things were a given when it came to merchandising and a clean club was a given I don’t know when or what clubs that changed in but the answers were always in those rights. Sure, everything is perception that you can’t control or opinions that seem far fetched but it’s people.
I question what started this thought process in the first place. I don't think you can present constructive criticism without the authors of the idea being offended. I'm all for cutting staff for the sake of increasing profits, but you can't cut to the bare minimum and then have whomever is left wasting their time on tedious task that don't lead to increased sales or member satisfaction.
@Ww4NCwr-2lgw Good start!!! How can this be conveyed to management without being negative?
Ask the members, they come first right? Ask members. See how far down on the list a dusty t-pole matters to a member. I'm guess it would never come up at all. Neither would pallet profile. While having straight pallets is important having them be perfect is not. Ask a member how putting overstock behind the steel has negatively impacted their shopping experience and I'm guessing they would tell you they never noticed. If the goal is to improve sales (which should always be the goal) then everything that associates are doing that don't contribute to that goal is siphoning time.
While clean and neat make sense in the fresh areas and helped contribute to the uptick in sales for those areas, that's not the answer for non fresh areas.
So what is the solution then? Let the dust and dirt build up?
"Focus on what is in your control. Neat, clean, straight, stocked, or how you react to things. You have the ability to control all of that regardless of how many members are in the club or what you feel is right/wrong. But it takes everyone stopping and picking up the trash on the floor not just walking past it. It takes everyone supporting each other."
You do know this place hires snot nosed teenagers who mostly don't give a f--- right. Some are going to college and know this is just a small stop on their way to something better, others don't see this as a career. So "everyone" is not going to care about clean, neat, straight.
Also cleaning overstock behind steel, dusting t-poles, straightening pallets, and correct sign holders do not drive sales. They waste the associates time when they could be assisting a member, assisting other associates, or stocking shelves which are crucial when the staff has been reduced to nothing.
At the end of the day they are all ideas someone has presented I order to try and move the business forward though. I think it is great to see more robust posts with ideas, or true care and concern for the business, or even wanting to move the business forward vs negative comments that are not very insightful. There is always a fine line to a passionate associate and an associate that has move over under the lable of disgruntled associates. When you continue to give great ideas, give thoughtful feedback or just try you provide value. Value is where you succeed, value is where you persevere. I don’t agree with everything that has been pushed the clubs way, but I’ve never taken a note for not trying it.
From my perspective and I’ve been with the company nearly 20 years and over half as a salaried manager, the changes I’m seeing aren’t changes for the good. I am someone who enjoys learning new technology and innovative ways of seeing the job become efficient; however, can any one of us truly look at any program in the past, let’s say five years that really catapulted us forward? Sales pro- nowhere near what we were sold, FPP/FST-despite the phony workplace pictures, has it made us anymore in stock with less damages? CIM- has it really made finding an locating items that much easier? The list goes on and on, while some will put the burden on the associates to “follow the process”, the larger point I would make is “are the processes easy and are the effective?” I would feel safe to say that the overwhelming majority of associates would say no. The company has shifted in their mentality, the emphasis is not on the member or even sales any longer. The entire focus of the organization is to pacify the egos of the boss over the one standing in front of you. In my particular region, the conversations border on the mundane. There is no insight given into improving the business or even growing as a leader. It’s the general go-dos, “get more members” “go one layer higher on clothing” “clean outside the cart area” along with weak leadership tactics; such as, threats and sarcasm. I’m not a malcontent if some are wondering, I am one who has dedicated many years of my life and someone who is grieved to see the road we are taking in regards to respect for associates/managers.
Food for thought, just a different perspective...
While I will agree many long term associates have been displaced let’s look at the flip... many long term associates were in roles that had not been re-evaluated for a very long time. Hence when you look at the majority of elimination they were long term associates bc in almost every club you had long terms in receiving, audit, cash office etc. and nothing had ever been updated in those areas from technology standpoints.
Focus on what is in your control. Neat, clean, straight, stocked, or how you react to things. You have the ability to control all of that regardless of how many members are in the club or what you feel is right/wrong. But it takes everyone stopping and picking up the trash on the floor not just walking past it. It takes everyone supporting each other.
Not in your control, however worrisome you can’t control at the end of the day restructures, new initiatives, sales to a degree, visitors to your building, members coming in wanting to shop.
Focus on what you can control. Not what you can’t. If you are good you are good. So many times we can’t take constructive crisis and that’s all it is... we are here how can we be here now. Don’t plateau.
Maybe this post is mostly speculation but the goon squad is taking out long term club managers and assistant managers. There is definitely a focus on driving those long term managers out through bullying, harassment and threats of termination along with coachings for minor issues. We’ve all seen how in the past few years, they’ve targeted the elimination of long term associates. The company has no moral compass and will continue to wreck lives to cut costs. There is never any applicable advice shared during goon squad visits, “we need more members” “aggressively merchandise...” there is never anything shared that will change the trajectory. This is the reason for the obnoxious focus on clean, neat and straight, no trash in carts, etc. They have no real ideas to share or applicable advice so they focus on the impossibly small things that can’t be helped when you have thousands of people in a building in a day.
His mom is fake.
Not everything is fake news ....... move on troll
Fake News
Be on your best behavior if your in a club by a ski resort. Company write off if they visit surrounding clubs.
They already know which clubs will close. They are not making their decisions in the coming weeks. If there are these visits then it is just to look the places over, and decide what they want done with the place when it's empty.
Yes one club calls another when HO pays a visit then everyone is in panic mode. everyone starts to clean, straighten up your areas. No more helping the members its all about how clean and neat the store looks if they pop in. That's what's most important