Any one have any info on this guy? Based on reading previous posts it looks like he's the one who decided to get rid of buyers. I feel like he made a decision that he should have to pay for. It looks as though he is grossly out of touch with how WFM operates. I mean getting rid of the people who order and specialize in a specific product. It seems toe like a basis for resignation, or severance.
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Bill Jordan the Rocky Mountain RP is way smarter than the last one, and he's so far not a bad guy at all. Our region has made smarter cuts than other regions. The buyer role was a place that made sense to consolidate and the team trainer program was a huge waste of time and labor too. David Lannon, Ken Meyer, Walter Robb, John Mackey are the real problems. They are way out of touch. The next cuts, and there probably will be more, should come from the regional level. Multiple Associate Coordinators for each team? Produce has 3 or 4, specialty has 2 or 3, Seafood has a coordinator and an AC?!?!? For what?????
Haha, someone spray painted "wfm rich rolled" on our store dumpster the day after The Layoff, and I've been wondering what it means.
Okay but what about the bakery buyer. Our bakery had ONE BUYER and so did every bakery in our region. That's ONE BUYER/RECEIVER doing the bake, juice/smoothie/coffee bar buying/receiving for a BUSY store. That person lost their job. Now we are left with an ATL, who got hired on their cake decorating merits (it happens a lot), who NOW has to LEARN to buy, during the holidays, while still doing other ATL duties??? It may make sense to cut-down the number of buyers, in departments that have multiple but they should NOT blanket-sweep this situation like they did. They should have left it up to STL at individual stores to decide WHICH buyers they could do without. Some of the busier bake departments, with holidays coming......are going to be SCREWED.
Floral specialists got axed right and left. Yes it is a small, highly perishable, labor intensive subteam. Some of these specialists provided services for weddings, special events etc. These customers are left wondering who is going to take care of them. Maybe Tom Rich will do the corsages. You can't simply have on the guys in produce do a wedding. We had regular clients and specialized skills. WFM is determined to get rid of specialized service. I see meat cutters being next. Everyone is expendable.
4 buyers isn't necessary in grocery. 2 buyers can buy all categories. Usually frozen and bulk combined sales are less than dairy. Hire more team members to put the truck to the shelves. Buyers will buy more, stock less, but teams save labor and gain more team members as a result.
Current RP of RM is a petty oaf.
Sorry, I meant belch to the current Rocky Mountain President, not Tom who I guess is the RVP.
I worked with Tom a long time ago, he's a good guy caught in bad circumstances. As for the specialist role; think about it, and this isn't popular, I know, but if WFM had an inventory/order system like the one Home Depot has had in place for years, Specialists would not be needed at all. A human may be required in a light role to adjust on an occasional basis, but face it, one sold equals one ordered is much more efficient. WFM is top heavy, many layers of executive coordinators, coordinators, associate coordinators, global buyers, and then a ton of RVP's, Come on...and the Rocky Mountain RVP...I worked with him too, belch, no comment.
If you don't think 4 buyers is necessary in grocery then you also don't think a buyer is necessary on any other team. The grocery sub teams do more volume than most teams. Bulk is the smallest sub team does as muchor more than seafood in a lot of places yet seafood gets tl atl sup? As far as other store not having buyers they have an actual inventory system that works!
so just follow the herd right. if it degrades the quality of life but everyone else does it its cool right. wow people have such low level of self value and ignorance of who truly they truely are and no imagination as well.
Again, if indeed tom rich was the one to make the desicion. NO ONE had a moral obligation to obey this psychopath's whim desires. This is what people don't want to see, because it means that they have to take responsibility for their actions which is true eternally regardless if accepted or not. Tom isn't the one to blame, it's the people who didn't CARE and just obeyed .
A question to everyone here: who is MORE morally culpable ? the order giver or the order follower???
"WFM FOR LIFE" unfortunately the days for Wholefoods are numbered. The monopoly is over! Remember Winn Dixie used to be called "Beef People" till beef was out fashion. John and Walter need to look at the structures of region offices. There are no cash registers at region offices!
He made the right decision though. Multiple buyers on a team is useless. There's no need to have 4 buyers on a team that is pulling numbers of $200,000 a week. The argument that buyers are specialists is trash. So many buyers just but without truly knowing how their overbuying and under buying is affecting their teams bottom line.
As much as I don't like this I don't think it comes down to one RVP in the Rocky Mountain region. I'm sure they were used as a "task force " to crunch the numbers but this comes down to Walter Robb, ken Meyer, David Lannon and the 11 regional presidents who voted this thru.
I met a guy at WFM who what a tattoo like this :WFM FOR LIFE.