Thread regarding Sam's Club layoffs

Evaluations are used as ammunition to either retain or separate people from the company, its pretty much that simple. The reality is that you can do as much as you capable of to be an asset to your club, regardless of your role, and if someone doesn't want you there, they will use whatever means at their disposal to get rid of you. Walmart is anything but unique in the application these tactics but they have been at the forefront of their use, for years. Anyone who comes on this site and tells you otherwise is lying.

The burning question:

If your evaluation no longer has anything to do with how much of a raise you get, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Do a great job and get exceedes expectations or role model? You won't get a penny more. Development needed? Who cares, it won't put you any closer to termination than you already are.

Evals have just become a glorified back patting finger wagging event and everyone involved is miserable.

@xzc I didn't say I was a TL and got a development needed. I said I am a TL and was told by SEVERAL members of management that we have to give a certain percentage of development needed to associates. You can come on here and pretend that you don't know this, but I know the instructions I have been given. I have worked at 2 different locations and told the same thing at each. Say whatever you want, but I know for a fact.

First of all I am a manager and not once have I ever been told about a certain percentage has to be rated as development needed and if there is someone who gets a development needed then I probably haven’t done my job and correcting that person thruout the year and explain the proper way of doing things secondly Evals have no outcome of what someone’s raise is going to be so come up with some more bs to write on here. If you are a TL and get a development needed then you shouldn’t be a team lead All manager will get a development needed if all the numbers are not met. I’m a merch manager and if membership numbers are not met I get a development needed and vise versa.

Salaried management leaves with only 1 week of PTO no matter how much they have accrued. After our market wrote our evaluations for our salaried assistants last year we had a conference call where we were "educated" on how to correctly write an evaluation even though we had already received such training. We were then given 4 more days to "correct" them and resubmit them with "proper" ratings. We were also told that we would not necessarily receive a rating based on our business metrics. They explained to us that out of the clubs in our market they expected about 2 managers to be rated development needed and 1 to be rated below expectations because it was not possible for everybody to be rated at meets expectations or better. We were not to rate anybody higher than standard performer without permission from their market manager. It was pretty apparent that they used the evaluation system to get rid of long termers and older folks and that they did not want to have to give any raises.

Maybe true for upper management, but not store level assistants. Also, fired or not, your PTO all gets paid out. Half false info

@1zwq I'm a TL and I've been told by a few managers that they are only allowed to give certain percentages to associates. It is absolutely true. It s—s, but what doesn't in this company anymore?

Managers only give evaluations to team leaders and your team leaders give all the evaluations to their associates. Do you really think mangers go around saying you have to give 20 percent of the people development needed? Long term associates who won’t want to change and keep doing everything the old way probably are getting bad evaluations. Just my opinion.

Pretty true..
I was a good TL when you're raise was tied to your evaluation. $0.50 was max i believe. I was not allowed to give roll model or exceeds expectation.

A manager didn't even sit down with me for my 2019 evaluation. Crazy, I received via Workday....

@woj That's exactly what it was about. Friends are more important than ethics. Yup. Stellar response.

You not read too good.

Sounds like you wanted everyone to be your friend instead of writing honest evals.

I have to correct myself. The period of time I was referring to when I was a TL, was April 2010 to May 2011.

I have to concur at least based on my past experience from being a team lead during 2011 and 2012. One of my responsibilities was to complete the reviews and conduct the actual in-person review itself in the company of the manager directly over me, depending on the department the associate was in. For about a 3 to 4 month span within that time, I had the unique position of being the only floor team lead in the building. Because of that, I acted as grocery, hard lines, and center section lead simultaneously, and was relied upon to responsible for all three areas. Prior to many of these reviews I was advised that my results should have, "extremely high standards", to never rate anyone a "role model", nor to give an "exceeds" rating whenever and wherever possible. Then I was supplied a list of associates that I was going to be reviewing with several of the names highlighted. Oddly enough, the highlighted names were all people who had several years with the company and otherwise stellar performers, not just in my own opinion, but also in the opinion of all the managers. These were people who did everything that was ever asked of them and whose quality was never, ever in question. They never presented any issues in any area of their work or punctuality, and always went above and beyond all expectations. They flat out deserved ratings in the upper two brackets across the board. I was being told by the CM and MM to intentionally rate them in the middle (i.e. "solid performer"). I couldn't bring myself to do it and instead, completed the reviews I believed they deserved, based on my experience working with them. I made copies of each of those reviews for myself. I was subsequently left out of the in-person portion of these reviews and they were conducted without me. The aftermath was quite telling. My reviews were altered to show the ratings that were being requested, yet my name remained on the bottom as the reviewer. All of these associates were upset with me, to say the least, and one by one, left the company. Most of them knew that my review was changed after I showed them what I had submitted.
The point behind sharing all this is that everyone should know that this type of hijinx has been going on for at least 9 years, if not longer. I've never been privy to how it is conducted on the management side but I'm sure it's been going on in one form or another for just as long. Since I decided to transfer to another club in 2011 and had to step down in the process, I've intentionally turned down and avoided several promotions back up to TL. I was headed for MIT in 2011 when I made the decision to transfer and the CM was extremely upset with me for that because I was the clubs only candidate at the time. The whole experience soured my feelings toward ever going that route because if the tactics back then were that twisted, how bad would they be at levels on up the ladder?

Dumbest thing you'll read all day. Usually when i give a long term associate a bad rating it's because they're useless and really just a warm body doing a mediocre job. I've never once looked up someones pto to see how much they have. Not once, for any reason. You got a low rating because you s— at your job, take responsibility for your laziness.

100% true. They started doing this with managers below MM level for years now. Long termers, who were great performers too, have been being eliminated for a while due to being the highest paid and getting some of the highest bonuses. My CM has mentioned so many times,
Sam's doesn't know how or care to control any other expenses other than cutting people.

@OP What you are describing is the burn and churn method of promotion/advancement. In the past there were many threads here at thelayoff.com describing and discussing it.

Also known as "forced rankings", you keep getting rid of the bottom performers (whether it is deserved or not) because leadership has declared they are getting rid of the bottom 10%, 20%, or whatever %. Then the opposite at the top occurs. Good people who should get that decent pay raise and/or promotion don't because of the forced rankings.

The middle? They are stuck there with nowhere to go unless they do the work of 2-3 associates (as if this isn't already happening) and it still won't be enough.

Favoritism plays a huge role in this burn and churn.

If you're at the bottom, it's the kiss of death as the OP mentioned. You may as well start looking for a new job. There is no PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) involved like in the past. If you're at the top, you're constantly undermining your teammates and withholding knowledge to make yourself look good. The middle is dead-end.

No matter where you fall into this arrangement, it causes resentment and bad attitudes and huge turnover. The top is back stabbing, the middle is dead-end and the bottom will be termed or voluntarily quit. Retail a revolving door of new hires as it is. This makes it worse.

The Home Office started this 5-6 years ago, give or take. I left in 2017 and it was bad then so I can only imagine how it is now.