Thread regarding Advance Auto Parts Inc. layoffs

Agreed totally. The worst was that VP of HR who came. Spent all her time on the internet, personal calls, or lookin to party. She could not answer anything and was not to be trusted.

I agree with the poster that talked about about store targets being unattainable. I worked in one of the DCs and every year it seemed the criteria by which we were judged would change. One year they had a piece conversion to compensate for items that AAP and CQ had different unit of measures loaded. The following year they removed that conversion, only to do god knows what the following year after that because to be honest I stopped asking. No one could answer how our targets were derived, including the people I spoke to at corporate. How can you be given goals that change every year on how they're computed, be held accountable for those goals, and have your bonus based off of them? NO ONE could explain how they came to the numbers, and they changed from year to year.

Take care of your people and the people will take care of you. AAP does not look out for the employees.

I also left Advance ahead of these cuts and agree with the comment below. Advance lags behind the competition. Here are a few things that I think will personally pave the way for it's downfall. 1) Hiring from the outside with hefty salaries to lure them in which limits opportunities from within. 2) Poor choices from the higher ups, and then reverse and try a different approach which did nothing but bleed money. 3) outdated technology. 4) Horrible morale. 5) Zero positive reinforcement and motivation. 6) Turnover. Turnover. Turnover. 7) The communication company wide is atrocious. 8) Inconsistent. I was once talked to because I rented a car outside of policy despite it being the same price as a car that was in policy. My former boss rented a Dodge Charger a couple weeks later (which I have a picture of in the parking lot), and that same talk did not happen to him. If you have rules they should be for everyone and everyone should have to follow them. I take responsibility for not following a policy even though the Nissan I rented was the same price as a car within policy. A Dodge Charger though? Seriously? 9) The CARQUEST integration; a disaster to say the least. 10) Certain managers across the company. My old boss would tell me where he was applying, interviewing, how much he currently made, how many internal promotions he rejected, and spoke freely about people within the company. Now that I'm out I don't mind sharing my opinion but when I worked there I did my job and went home. It was unprofessional to say the least and killed what little morale was left from the acquisition. Not just for me but for the building.

My family and I will never set foot in one of their stores again. Ever.

I left Advance recently, just ahead of these cuts apparently. Agree with other comments, the Carquest acquisition was a disaster - looking back AAP really got nothing from the integration: in my region, at least 75% of the knowledgeable Carquest people left the organization in the 12 months following the deal, AAP did not take advantage at all of the expanded distribution footprint (remember 5x delivery?) and morale was an ongoing problem. Store sales targets were random, you know that if you'd had 2 good years of beating target you'd pay the price in the third year with unachievable targets. I had stores that were running a 10% or better comp and still missing target, when the company as a whole was running a flat sales comp. AAP will be acquired by someone, these numerous stumbles have been disastrous and AAP lags behind it's competition with Wall St.

So this little fat English guy comes into my store and starts scanning merchandise and then starts yelling at people. Maybe Trump can send that piece of garbage EVP who has ruined mercandising and supply chain home. Hundreds of people have lost their jobs but he keeps soaking up the big bucks while others take the fall for his incopentence. If he could find a mirror low enough to the ground he should look in it and see who he sees looking back. He might feel the need to vomit like us at the mere mention of his name.

I worked for AAP for 14 years, most of which was as a "General Manager". First, we had a CEO who was from Food Lion. Next we had the reject CEO from Best Buy. Neither of these men were from the automotive industry. Both of these men only catered to one customer base. The shareholders. When you loose sight that the customers that PAY YOUR BILLS are the most important feature of you business, you have a huge problem. You want to point fingers, point them at the head office.

I was a gm at a carquest store for more than 15 years we were independently owned and the store was very successful once advance took over and the storm started sales dropped almost immediately and the culture as they called changed as well,the morale was down the job became very challenging long hours no compensation outrageous goals,high employee turn over it was just the worst experience I have ever had being employed,I left last month to the competition and what a great change it was no more b.s ,my life is so plane now with no more advance drama I have to come here to stay up to date

I could see that. It just seems no one knows who is drive the ship or which direction it's going. So they try to back the boat up to head in a different direction but heading that way also fails. Happy I'm gone and left that company in my rear view mirror.

We lost our way when we went public