this store is full of s*** they are cutting job to employees who have been loyal to them for years, they say you can reapply for the same position at a lower pay, what kind of company does that. i could understand if they were lousy employees to begin with, but these employees worked their ass off to get the job done, first they cut their hours from 40 to 35 hours a week, and still wanted the same jobs to be completed, now they lay them off.does the company realize what they have done to those employees-they have bills to pay, food to buy, families to support! rather than laying off employees doing a great job, why not cut management positions, who evidently cant budget worth a damn. I hope the customers realize what they have done to their employees and go shop at heb or trader joes.....I hope this company goes bankrupt- it would serve them right---YOU DONT TREAT EMPLOYEES LIKE THAT!
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San antonio was a failed experiment. 1 store was fine but it was due a huge overhaul. Instead they opened a new store and thats when it got real.
I agree too that people do not understand that the TLs are under immeanse pressure. They know more is in store for them. They just dont know when.
As for budgeting, all I ever heard was "make it work"..
"What kind of company does that? Every f***ing publicly owned company in America. For so long they shoved culture down our throats that we actually thought Whole Foods wasn't part of that system. Jokes on US!"
I totally agree. I was caught off-guard and will never believe 100% that the company has a culture any superior to any other company's.
I also work in the area as OP and some of the best employees were cut this week. It's so unfortunate.
Not that Anonymous169732 will come back to read this, however I was a TL up until about a week ago. I left the company because things were going downhill and things that were happening on a regional and store level weren't good decisions for my team and I had little say in what was going on anymore and I was miserable working there. It's not the same company it was when I started 9 years ago. They projected we'd be doing 20k more than what the team was actually doing, and neither store nor regional leadership could help offer any solutions to fix the problem (since we were still doing roughly the same percentage of store sales as we had been) - they just kept saying we needed to make labor. Which meant everyone's hours got cut, and I took the bulk of the cut so that my team could keep as many of their hours as they could (which meant I'd work anywhere from 25-30 hours a week just so the rest of my team could get their 36-40 hours). So call me an ***hole all you want, but I did what I could for the team I had, and in the end it wasn't enough and I was seeing the support I needed, so I left. What others have said is correct - if you make your labor budget by too much, they wind up slashing it. Shit, they'll even find a way to STEAL your gainsharing if you make too much of it. There was a team up here where all the TMs were supposed to see $700 as their gainsharing bonus one month, but since regional felt that was too much they found a way to slash it (even though that team worked their ass off with being shortstaffed because 2-3 of their TMs were out on LOA plus all of the other callouts and hiring freezes at the time). I can't remember how they wound up phrasing it, something about "retro paying" or some other BS if I remember correctly. They keep on slashing labor budgets, encouraging TLs to not give full $1 raises during a TM's job dialogue, and force us to find a way to make labor without giving us tools to help increase our sales so that we can actually AFFORD to pay the team we have. I'm willing to bet there aren't too many TLs in the company right now who are happy with their jobs. Hell, the only reason it took me so long to leave was because I felt stuck and felt like I had no actual marketable skills to be able to get a different job. The TLs are just as sick and tired as the TMs are, they just aren't allowed to show it to the TMs because it's bad for morale.
Former TL - don't forget that you shouldn't let your gainsharing checks get too high. You know...one of the big benefits of how great we treat our TMs. Because if you make consistently too much, your labor will get cut too. Work hard and efficiently...but not too hard.
Yes there were folks that needed to go but that is not what happened at my store. It was the killer specialists that got the axe. The ones who should have gone stilll have their jobs and there are no jobs for these specialists to choose from. Theylet good the wrong people.
It's true that TL's don't have a say in the labor budget. It's also true that a good TL will see their team punished if they consistently make labor. How? At least in the SW, if you are consistently making labor, your regional VP's will cut your labor % the following year- and they LOVE doing this. So the formula goes something like this- work hard to make labor consistently throughout the year and we will punish you by lowering your labor % next year, while also insisting that you give your TM's a yearly raise, and also while knowing that sales across the company are on the decline, and sales in your store are on the decline because we've opened yet another metro store within a few miles of you that will cannibalize your sales- all of this making it harder and harder for you to make labor. When we start squeezing your labor, making it impossibly difficult to schedule enough man-hours to get your department's work done, we'll be sure and blame you, the TL, for your inability to manage your team properly. At least that's how it was a couple years ago when I was a TL- I've since moved on, but all of you should know that the problems in the SW region have existed for a long time. Regional coordinators and VP's were scrambling years ago to find solutions, but all they could ever really do is point the finger at TL's and below...if you were an ASTL or higher, you were pretty much safe apart from a major mistake. Years of failure on the part of Regional Leadership has brought us to where we are today- store level TM's suffering.
MN is the only one one here that gets it. The rest of you have no clue how wfm operates and sound like a bunch of pricks.
SW is bloated with over paid, under performing TMs and this was a long time coming. It's for the greater good of the employees, the company and the community. Take your entitled crybaby asses on down to walmart and ask them to make you happy.
Bye Felicia
What kind of company does that?
Every f***ing publicly owned company in America.
For so long they shoved culture down our throats that we actually thought Whole Foods wasn't part of that system.
Jokes on US!
I agree that you don't treat employees like that. I used to work for Whole Foods in Santa Cruz. It didn't talk long to realize that their "Core Values" are a bunch of BS. So much for "Team Member happiness"! Don't drink the Kool Aid people!
You know that STLs and ASTLs make bonuses when teams make the labor right? And that their bonuses are cut when teams don't? So of course it's in their best interest to make sure they are working within their budget. For all the STLs and ASTLs that have been so sad and crying during this process, I wonder if they'd be willing to give up their bonuses...
regardless of projected sales...you dont treat employees like that, how about you getting layed off and seeing how it feels, evidently you are not doing your job if the projected sales are not up to standards hope you find out how it feels a**hole
TLs don't have a say in the labor budget. It's all based off of projected sales that are targets created by STLs and Regional Leadership. If the department doesn't make their projected sales, they have less of a labor budget to work with so hours wind up getting cut just to make that budget (because STLs have been really pushy about teams making their labor).