I totally agree with those who think that there is a long way to full automation in this company.
Why do some think it will happen so soon?
4 replies (most recent on top)
I was on a conference call with the actual lead programmer of the in-stock program with video evidence of the bugs we were experiencing and he refused to acknowledge there might be a fault in his programming. He kept saying it was functioning as intended and blamed a 3rd party software. It took months and other tech people with amazing people skills to get him to admit something may be amiss and to look into it. Then he sneakily issued a fix without communicating about the resolution. The ordering app still is next to worthless especially since we never finish load and go weeks or even months without working certain backstocks. They will give no more labor to reach the goals and even when Tm's leave they aren't replaced making it worse.
Whole Foods margin is crazy high compared to other retailers with much better technology and support. It's like 44% in dry grocery. That's why they have the whole paycheck image. Greed. They'd make more money by reducing margin and bringing in more customers. Not to mention carrying conventional items. Conventional stores have an organic aisle, why not have a coke and oreos aisle at WF. They already don't care about any of the core values. As far as grocery ordering goes the buyers no longer do much. They just accept the orders the g-n tells them to. The next step of that process would be to eliminate buyers and have to TL auto accept all the orders. The wages they pay buyers could go to hiring cheaper TM's to fill shelves and work backstock and cycle count which is far more important to the automation process. It may take a while to get fully auto but the process is already begun. Most stores with 4 buyers will only operate with two starting now. The buyers wont be fired but won't be replaced if they leave.
i wouldnt worry about job security when you work for a dump like whole foods
Not going to happen for a while. Couldn't even fix the bugs in their existing software. How good is the IT at Whole Foods? Probably not that great considering how little they pay their employees. Not that they are cheap but the retail industry has razor thin margins and can't really afford the best talent out there. Manual work and labor is here is stay unless they section off their eatery and put their retail fully online with Amazon. Maybe keep the few profitable stores open. But that will not happen for a very long time.