Thread regarding Whole Foods Market Inc. layoffs

The Op explains the kind of company this is. I thought the same thing.

As long as regional royalty like Omar Whatever are still around, nothing has changed. You're better off with a retail career at QuikTrip or RaceTrac. You're stocking shelves, cleaning, ordering and doing inventory. Might as well make decent money doing it. Grocery is and always will be a hellhole for everyone except the owners. Although in this case, the owners (Amazon) are finding out it can be a hellhole for them too because they bought a fantasy.

Vjust cause you personally don’t* see

I’m still pissed at the company cutting our demo guy first two years ago. He was one of the hardest working people I knew in the store, was happy in his job, and customers still were asking where he was over a year later.

And with some of the ruder comments here — just cause you personally see some of these positions doing hard work, doesn’t mean they aren’t doing jt.

A lot of of regions dropped demo 2 years ago. Surprised so many still had them.

The reason your store still has a demo position is because corporate Is keeping it in place until January 15. They wanted to make sure these people would work themselves to the bone running their holiday tastings and sales driving during Thanksgiving and Christmas before they were shoved out into the cold. That is they waited to tell them the Monday after Natiomal Hiring Day. They wanted all 6000 jobs filled so they would have no choice but to work the events and wouldn't be able to find anything else before the holidays were over. Sick and wrong and downright cruel. Same with concierge. Who would handle the holiday table and catering orders through the holiday without concierge? They found out after hiring day also. I can't wait until the press gets wind of this one. The so called "ethical" company with "core values". What a joke.

OMAR G--E is to blame. OMAR G--E!

To the person below this comment -Yes and you will have a demo person until Jan14....then bye bye.

Try reading some of these comments to get yourself well informed.

We still have demo in our region, so I'm not sure where OP's source info is from.

Let’s face it, concierge was a game changer in the industry years ago but like most tech matters WFM didn’t stay ahead of the curve. When you have big box retailers and other grocers offering same day curbside pick up for their groceries all with the touch of an app and not having to call or submit a list via email it becomes clear what the easier, less time consuming choice is.

WF has always done this I had offered to cover my position in another store after the person working there left. I knew the position was on the way out so I figured why not keep my options open get to know some more people so I could potentially work in the other store if need be. But they hired another person then about a month later they eliminated the job and told him to go pound sand.

It would be considerate if they stopped posting for jobs that could be eliminated. Stop filling them. Otherwise one could end up in a precarious situation when they could have stayed where they are.

Youre the idiot that made a career out of sampling crackers. Get a real skill you hippy

We can't half a-- it. We were told that the expectation was for us to execute at the same level and produce the same sales we would have before the announcement. It was not said outright, but was heavily implied, that if we didn't then we could kiss any hope of another position goodbye. Even though some think we are lazy, this core group in the Southwest has always exceeded expectations and worked very hard. They will see the difference if we don't and we can say so long to any chance of a job.

You don't need to try for the holidays just half a-- it no reason to try if you are not going to stay anyway. If you are going to stay just be a leach like allot of the TM out there and work on finding something else.

You don't need to try for the holidays just half a-- it no reason to try if you are not going to stay anyway. If you are going to stay just be a leach like allot of the TM out there and work on finding something else.

Many will have to take pay cuts. We were told that if we make more than the median pay for the position we find, then we have to go down to the median hourly pay. There are people who have been with Whole Foods for years and would be making more than the median hourly pay if they had just stayed a regular team member and not become a demo specialist. I know regular team members who have been in their roles half the amount of time long standing demo specialists have been in theirs and these team members will be making more than the demo specialist that have to take the pay cut.

As one of the lazy people that has busted their a--, let me also tell you that we were lied to. Since the summer we have been killing ourselves in the Southwest to do huge events every Weekend. What you are seeing in the stores nationwide for the holidays is what we have been doing for the specials in the weekly flyers every weekend since July with no help or increase in labor. We have executed 4 active station tasting events for months. So much work and no help from leadership. We were told our new Regional President was committed to bringing theater back to the stores and viewed the Southwest demo department as the model of what could be done, since we were profitable. We were told demo was going nowhere and that what we have accomplished in the Southwest was amazing and continuing our efforts company wide was the goal. What they didn't tell us was they wanted an outside company to accomplish that goal. They led us to believe that not only were we safe, we would have opportunities to bring the program to the entire company.

Now we have to execute these Holiday events that are so much work, knowing at the end we will have no paycheck because they held National Hiring Day before they told us. That timing was not a coincidence and I feel so betrayed. Core values? I think not.

If you don't need to take a pay cut why don't you just stay doing something else? I went through a job cut I just did something else for the time being making the same money until I could GTFO.

I was one of these "overpaid" and "lazy" people. I busted my to make sales, pull off "events" and figure out how to sell products in the demo progam (some are good-others not so much). While the "writing was on the wall" for some time, it is unfortunate that we had to go this route. There was no hint of remorse-but that is just business for them. I can't wait for this decision to come back and bite the new regional pres in . Further, I do not want any of the regional teams to ask me to "help" with any other sales building "schemes." If I was not good enough to have around, please do not come to me in the future for anything else. It is hard to not take this personally, but it seems like the room full of decision makers put little thought into the "people" aspect that they claim to treasure at the store level. Shame. Now I need to figure out how to supplement my income and source of insurance.

SW Region Demo was a different program than the rest of the country. They had to earn their salary through vendors paying them to Demo. They couldn't be lazy or they got fired because they weren't earning their keep. They had minimums that had to be sold each demo and reports they had to write to the vendor. Every single one of them not only earned their salaries, they made the company money through sales and vendor fees. The other regions didn't have this demo program, so rather than take the time to build it they went the easy route and hired a third party. Welcome to Amazon people. These are good people who worked hard.

Wondering about the demo person in my old store in NA. Did they get cut too?

I’m not sure why this came as a surprise when other regions got rid of demo a while back.

Is this post two years old? The demo team was the laziest useless group wholefoods had. I thought they got rid of this position years ago. Next they need to ditch the receivers that sit on their a-- all day and complain how over worked they are but really just b---s--- in the back. And all the VPs

There are still stores with bulk/frozen buyers???

In my store there's a non-perishable buyer for bulk and grocery, and a perishable buyer for dairy and frozen. That's how it's been since the restructuring.

It's so wrong they did this after National Hiring Day. It is hard to find a full time position in this company. Even if there are part time jobs it won't be enough for people to pay the bills. I know my store filled several full time jobs that could have gone to these people. But their stupid holiday weekend events going on uninterrupted were way more important than these people feeding their families and paying their bills. There has been a lot of heartlessness with Whole Foods, but this is really the worst that they have done. How can they live with themselves? Knowing these people could have found something and they purposely kept them from it so the handful of stores that still had demo people could earn them a few more dollars during the holiday season. The few extra dollars won't make that much of a difference to the company while the lack of a job could ruin these people's lives. Companies have to make hard decisions, but this was unethical and greedy.

It is really too bad that the little things that made Whole Foods special are now gone. These people were like "cheerleaders" and ran tasting events..often with little help or support from TL's and STL's for YEARS!! Way to treat them. I heard that if they stay, they are taking a pay cut--didnt they earn it in the first place?

With the last layoffs the stl in my region did not know until 2 days prior to the layoffs, it was kept secret, the tms knew 1 day before as they all got called in last minute.. these decisions come from the top

I heard that the top brass has been gunning to get rid of these positions since he took over.

What ticks me off is the way in which they did it. Good job, we don’t need you.... but get back to work. We really need you to facilitate the Holiday Menu crap this weekend.

Demo positions in the five stores I have worked at were filled by highly paid and tenured tms. In some cases the position would be filled by a former team leader who stepped down.

My point is the positions were held by people with wages of $18-$22 per hour. The concierge makes a bit less...but usually they are lifers too with high pay.

So that's two more "good paying" spots killed off.

My bet is the next trimming will occur with Frozen buyers.....maybe even Bulk. Frozen for sure though...that one has been talked about for the past year.

Can you imagine an ATL who does the Grocery Buyer's job??? I can....

It doesn’t surprise me that they waited until after National Hiring Day. They need them to make money during the holidays. Who cares that they get worked until they drop only to be unemployed at the end of it because the supposedly ethical company didn’t want to give them the opportunity to find something before the holidays during the hiring event. Disgusting. And shame on their STLs for letting that happen.

So much for no cuts, bunch of lying bastards.