Lowe's Employee Appreciation

I took a part time job last summer to fill in the gaps between semesters at ASU. While job hunting I found Goodwill was holding a job fair, so I dressed to interview and went down to my local thrift store. After signing up for a goodwill account and filing out an application I waited for my turn with the rep from Lowe's. The interview went well and in two weeks I had a temporary job as a weekday team member. My job was perfect for my needs: 10 - 2 pm, and I walked around the store helping customers. During training I spent a week in every department learning about products. After a couple of months I felt right at home. LOWE'S gave us ample training and supplemented it with videos, one on one, and handouts.
Their mission statement instilled a sense of pride and empowerment for their employees:

"Our goal is to provide customer valued solutions."

 

    There was room for improvising, thinking outside the box, and even old fashion elbow grease.
During my last 5 months I took part in safety barbeques, employee lunches, and volunteer service work. As Christmas approached we began to gear up for the season. I am not oblivious to business needs, and expected black Friday sales to be typical of the commercialization of the holiday season. However, I was very surprised at the value system of the corporate machine. They changed little things in a few months that ripped at the fabric of their own mission statement.
First the cheer at morning huddle went from "never stop improving" to '"sell some stuff". Then the pep talk of pushing sales for unnessacary items. After the sales and inventory reports came back, the entire store was emailed with the amazing news. We broke almost every one of our records. Our store was a success and in the email from our own store manager the success was a direct result of associates stepping up to the challenge, digging deeper and upholding our mission statement. We had successfully separated ourselves from the competition by providing superior customer service. In the bottom line model we made more money, increased sales and found ourselves in another bracket: the 45 million dollar store.

That's when the bottom fell out of the illusion of a corporate giant making people first instead of money.
With only two weeks till Christmas Lowe's announced they were cutting 400 payroll hours. Several full timers with over 5 years were fired and there was another employee lunch scheduled with a Wii tournament.
Suddenly the store was vacant of red vest experts  and customers  wandered the isles hoping to find what they needed. I went from 30 hours to 15 almost every part timer was down  to less. Fulltime associates worked without backup and their departments left abandoned so they could take their lunch. For the last  three weeks I have worked a total of 6 days and while I have a secondary source of income many  others do not.



This treatment of people will undoubtedly trickle down to customers and the once valued asset: people will be the one cutback that costs the store millions. It is this very reason why corporate America continues to decimate the economy: the greatest resource in business is people. If the value of the bottom line outweighs the camaraderie of human beings then we shall perish in refuse of our greed.