Given the performance, the layoffs we are seeing today are just an introduction into what is going to happen over next two quarters. You will see fairly large realignment of the Home Office, you will see movement of P&Ls and there will be many heads that will roll. Unfortunately, the folks who got us here will still stay around as they will continue to play the political game. The middle management will always take the biggest hit with some of the staff being impacted as well. Just look at what Target went through back in April (you can find their board with thousands of messages here) - long story short, they laid off 2000 people in a week and they are much smaller than we are. They stabilized the stock price drops and they are slowly moving up. We'll need something drastic like that to happen to even make a dent in the overall financial performance.
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I did not survive the Layoffs. While some Associates negotiated an exit for months i advance others of us were completely sideswiped. For me it's deeply troubling as Respect for the Individual was lost in translation. I believe Walmart could have demonstrated leadership and respect for the Associates providing transparency in the decision making process as Doug's statements indicated. I hope people who shop at Walmart continue to press Walmart for accountability where decisions are made and not those whipped about through the mirade of changes constantly evolving withing Walmart.
Regarding movement of P&L's and realignment - necessary and makes sense. There should be a detailed reconciliation that Doug sees that takes the sum of all the business line P&L's and reconciles it to the "real" consolidated P&L. That would unearth some skeletons in those business line P&L's. Last remark: "immateriality". One heck of a lot of screw-ups get excused as immaterial because the numbers are so big. It is used an excuse at all levels in the organization to ignore waste. It would be interesting to add up all those immaterial screw-ups. I'll bet they would get material pretty fast.
The way to account for the waste is to get real intell, and who should be believed? You would think open door or surveys would give that, but it isn't safe to question anything or state your opinion unless you have been given permission and it is the party line. When the "successful" people don't have the answer they make one up and the fact that it works is unbelievable! Pointing out the elephant in the room (the fact that the systems are not meeting the needs of the business and no one has quality information from which to draw conclusions) is an unwelcome message. Who is going to tell Doug that? Likely the ones that have nothing to lose -- and we won't be asked.
I agree there are middle managers that are useless. It is survival, I guess, having not survived. Intelligence, experience, knowledge -- not valued because you don't understand the "culture". What is the real culture? From where I sit, put your head down, put in your time, be there all hours that get you face time, make sure your face shows up in all the right places even when it is a waste of time, don't question, and conform. That earns you stripes. Any diversion from the formula is sacrilege. Status quo Walmart isn't sustainable. Growing big is NOT the same as being big.
I dont think we need any layoffs, what we need is someone who will account for all the waste that we have to deal with due to executive mismanagement. Many middle managers in the HO are useless too...