Thread regarding Whole Foods Market Inc. layoffs

It is awful! Lots of apparent changes with no real direction by team leaders. No concrete structure about and for the process. "Just do it this way", "too much product", "too many out-of-stocks". Our store is just going through the process and it is frustrating. New hires are leaving within days or weeks. Seasoned employees are frustrated and overworked, then talked down to for not being faster at their job. Not the work-life balance that they spout to new hires.

Here! Here!

If, for once in wfm’s life, they could roll out a new program with some thought and time, they might be able to make some lasting changes that do not send everything into a chaotic tailspin. One at a time! With thought, planning, and integrity. It’s not that OTS at its core is a bad idea (besides the incredible waste, psychotic fine details that create fear and anxiety), the intention is valid. We were functioning willt nilly and on the whim of STL and regional “bright ideas” that do not systematically sell down inventory first but shove it in every nook and cranny of sky shelves and backroom space and letting it die. Somethong had to be done for team member safety, clealiness, and waste. Got 10 carts full of crap in the backroom? Yea, it needed addressing! However, stop slapping things together and expecting smooth sailing. Training 101!! Oh, but training has always been a problem for wfm. They cant roll out ANYTHING right, at least in the RM region. Get it together, people! You are your own worst enemy!

I'm a Team Leader for WFM

If a team member that chops vegetables all day (what they were hired to do) and doesn't speak English cannot recite our top 5 best selling items in my department or our 5 most wasted items on the spot (no looking at our "board", I get a write-up. We'll talk about the "board" later...

If a customer accidentally knocks a tag off of the shelf on my day off and a regional inspector comes that day and sees it, I get a write-up.

If a team member sets a drink down on a shelf in the backstock area of the store and walks away and an inspector sees it, I get a write-up.

3 write-ups = fired

All of us Team Leaders have "boards" with literally 20 clipboards hanging from it. Everything on these clipboards is accessible by the "big wigs" with the click of a mouse from anywhere in the world, yet we spend our ENTIRE work week maintaining the "board". Ungodly amounts of paper and plastic are used and discarded daily. Despite our legendary "Green Mission", we no longer compost and throw tons of paper and plastic away daily in the name of OTS.

The people grading me and my fellow team members do not know the OTS system themselves. Your "grade" changes depending on who "walked" you.

Some Team Leaders have received live "crash courses" in OTS. I would say that makes up 5-10% of us. Most of us just receive threatening emails with several detailed attachments that we are supposed to digest and execute literally overnight as "training." Executing means that every single team member on my team must be experts in OTS the day after the email is received by a Team Leader or you risk being inspected, failing, and getting written up.

Despite all of this "organization" that OTS supposedly brings to the company, we currently work into the early morning hours counting EVERYTHING in our stores by hand once a month. The "counts" currently serve no purpose as there is no goal dollar amount to record for your inventory (with the old system Team Leaders could gauge if they over-purchased and make adjustments for the next fiscal period). Before OTS, you have targets that can be calculated using margin calculators and such. Each store spends roughly $5,000 in labor to perform these "counts" that have no purpose and inventory is tracked daily by OTS anyway.

When each team receives their products from the loading dock, items from certain vendors are recorded on a white board with markers. You total the items together and write the number on the board. That's great, but what about the other 3+ vendors that delivered us product? We don't record it. The numbers that are recorded are erased daily and no record is kept. But if an inspector comes by and your meaningless number is not on the board (even though most of your new inventory came from those 3+ vendors that are not counted), I get a write-up (even if I'm off that day because my team should be fully in OTS mode at all times).

The only time I see my team members or the sales floor is on my way in and out of the building. My labor budget has been cut to the point that I do not have assistant managers when I'm not there and we have gaps in coverage for hours with no one working in certain areas of my department.

If OTS was just "ordering to shelf" then the I could see its merits and totally get how it reduces waste, improves efficiency, and gets more attention to customers. The claims by Global that team members are spending more time helping customers is a blatant lie. Customers know WFM for its legendary customer service, this has been destroyed by the severe reduction of morale and hours of tedious tasks that serve no purpose but for pleasing OTS. OTS is a very old system used by many, but WFM has turned it into a disaster. If you want to help customers, don't cut labor and have empty shelves.

This is a Whole Foods problem, not Amazon. OTS was initiated last May in attempt to prove to potential buyers (Amazon,Wal-Mart, Kroger, etc) that they had their ducks in a row. Millions have been invested in the OTS program and despite all of the negative feedback nationwide (coming to England and Canada too), Global and regional keep ramping up expectations. We are told that very few disgruntled team members who are likely lazy, not smart enough, or don't value their job are the ones making these articles possible. Not true. Many Team Leaders are college educated people and the customers are the ones with the biggest complaints. Vice Presidents of Regions and Executive Coordinators don't just quit for no reason. They think it is unethical. Their jobs are not in jeopardy if OTS fails, the Store Team Leaders and Team Leaders take the fall. So they have nothing to lose except sleep because they no how abusive the system is. That is a bold statement to give up $300,000+ per year because the system is so bad that you don't want to be associated with it.

I loved my job a year ago (as did 90% of employees), hopefully something will be done but that seems unlikely.

It s---s.

Been with WFM since '04. Never thought about leaving until now. Wasting hours upon hours filling the same info into half a dozen different forms. Cutting down a forest's worth of paper on a daily basis. "We care about the environment" - HA!

So how does this increase revenue again??? Not eps or inventory gimmicks but real money at the front door.?

So sick of being told "It's not a back stock reduction program" ... Every time we are about to have changeover store leadership wants to know why the displays are light. Its ridiculous it's like you can never win.

O.T.S Our Time To Sell! As in the company! Hopefully this will line us up for someone to even think about buying us private equity firm or another grocer whatever! With the amount of money supposedly in the back rooms at just the stores who went live it is an atrocity that we didn't have systems in place to prevent that. Pretty sure every other grocery store/retailer has had that on point for years! But better late than never I guess. To anyone complaining stfu and get real! If you ran a business I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want some jo shmoe grocery TM or glorified buyer buying whatever he feels like everyday with an open checkbook, High out of his mind while doing it! Or an STL making a call to stack it high watch it fly! So get with it and let's make it look like a shiny new car!

I have no interest in ever working at WFM again. The job market is actually really good at the moment.

Why are trolling this site. Ur sad have fun applying to lidel

90% of the product is UNFI grocery buyer. When a computer also does the ordering you won't be around. Learn to love OTS and figure out a way to survive the long game.

Wfm has to many products and vendors for order to shelf to work. Try being a Grocery buyer for a week and get back to me.

OTS - Order-to-Shelf

Will someone explain what exactly the "ots" is? Thank you

It's really helping sales that's why the company is doing so well. Just keep looking at data, we all know this is a last ditch effort not to be sold.

We need OTS signs in more places:

1. Lift the toilet seat before you pee

2. Don't leave your dirty dishes in the sink

3. Don't park right in front of the store while the rest of us park way out there where we are supposed to

4. Don't sit there yelling on your phone in the breakroom while others are trying to eat

5. Why are you so stupid that you apply for a job you are not qualified for, and why are we so stupid that we hire you for the job?

I have read all of the OTS stuff, and I am very dissappointed that nowhere does it mention 'free pizza'.

Glad to hear there is light at the end...I assumed so. I am also convinced the process is eliminating ill-qualified leadership. Maybe that is part of what is driving the whole process. In the many years I have been with WFM this is the first time that I have seen some sense of order to daily business. Glad for that.

Now let's get back to team member happiness.

Leading up to certification was stressful but after its a breeze. Fight through it people it gets easier. Remember it's Whole Foods not Your Foods.

I like that the requirements change monthly. This keeps everyone engaged.

We actually have a label where our scale goes.

It's been a joke so far in my store, as far as implementation. Our backstock in grocery is still overblown with product constantly spilling out onto U-boats. I chalk it up to poor leadership. We will see what happens from here.

It's a great idea...having a back of the house plan has made some aspects of the job more organized generally speaking. However, the whole never outs issue is crazy. Our Grocery team can collectively have only 5 of our subteam's best movers be OOS during a Sunday night OOS count by the astl. Failure to comply and you don't get certified.

It has turned our store into a bitter pool of people working their butts off. Our leadership is barking expectations with no notice of good work done.

Newly hired leadership also have very little experience to offer us. They are constantly making poor retail decisions that impact back stock s.o.p. requirements.

Store morale for us is at an all time low.

I agree with a previous post that part of what is happening is more attrition.

Combo teams....a fail.

What's next?

Let's watch....

We are in the early stages of it. The micromanaging down to the minutia seems like overkill. Do you really need to have to label where a cart or box of pen goes? I understand the need, to a degree, because some stores were not managing their inventory well and there seemed to be a general lack of oversight on the STL, TL, regional part for those incapable of their jobs (like the store in my region that had a gruyere base on the table for 1.5+yrs and the TL was out the door before any accountability could be had). It seems a general extreme reaction for not holding people accountable for years and, like many things, it's been created by those who spend little to no time in the stores and lack a general concept of storage space, etc.

we are about to start this month.our store is very small with a warehouse the size of a hallway and we avg850-900k a week..and in this region they dont deliver on certain days of the week..sunday??? so we have to over order on days before and have pallets and things everywhere..otherwise we run out of product..how does this increase sales coming in the door??and we also sell quite a few random cases of product or large orders out of the blue.missing sales cuz of product sitting at regional warehouse versus ours.i really think this is part of that "attrition" process but to get rid of tl,atl,buyers and bring in outsiders at a lower pay scale.but nice clipboards and allocation of astl labor to clipboard walks versus helping customers and making better sales decisions..way to go global