In a recent memo to employees obtained by Bloomberg, Home Depot announced that all employees–including executives–will have to work a full eight-hour shift in a store once per quarter.
This is brilliant, and how all businesses should operate when the core functions of the business differ substantially from the corporate office.
Home Depot isn’t the first business to send corporate folks into the thick of things. Twenty-five years ago, when I worked in the corporate offices of Wegmans, everyone had to spend time in the stores. And during the holiday season, it was all hands on deck. If a store needed me, into the store I went.
To keep reading, click here: Home Depot Plans to Make Every Employee, Including Executives, Work in Stores. It’s an Absolutely Brilliant Move
I fully support Home Depot’s initiative for all employees, including executives, to work in stores. This strategy enhances understanding of operational challenges and strengthens team cohesion. Having seen similar practices in other organizations, I believe firsthand engagement is invaluable for appreciating the customer experience and recognizing frontline efforts.
This strategy enhances understanding of operational challenges and strengthens team cohesion. Having seen similar practices in other organizations, I believe firsthand engagement is invaluable for appreciating the customer experience and recognizing frontline efforts.
I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with this one. I work for a restaurant company, and there was talk at one point of having us do this, and I responded honestly that I would quit if that came to pass. It’s not because I think I’m better than our restaurant employees, or because I don’t want to understand what’s going on in our restaurants. It’s because I’m an extreme introvert and TERRIBLE at customer interactions which would hurt the brand. I produce really good work when I’m sitting in front of my computer, or responding to someone who has a technical question. But I wouldn’t know which dish to recommend without long training that would take me away from the necessary support work that I currently do. So I think it’s important to understand why the company hired someone and what their strengths may be before making a blanket policy like this.
Agreed. I hated it when the boss tried to “help” as a cook. They could do the work, sure–but there’s a tremendous difference between someone who does the work all the time and someone who occasionally lends a hand!
The question is, what value is this adding to the company? And the answer is going to be, not much. The executives will gain some first-hand knowledge of what’s going on in the stores, but not nearly as much as they would as a customer. And in exchange they’re going to make all kinds of problems for the employees who have to work there day-in, day-out.
That’s just not true. What an executive learns as a customer is not the same as what they learn on the other side of the table.
But this does highlight one issue that comes up a lot. There are a lot of customer facing rules that simply are not fair to staff. Like “the customer is always right” – no. Or rules that don’t *allow* staff to fix a problem. Or operational issues that are invisible to customers such as under-staffing, or non-functioning equipment, etc.
Home Depot is the Joke of All Time. They expect their store HRM to check the bathrooms and replace toilet paper and paper towels. You don’t have an office (you conduct business from a public training room). They don’t have a postage machine. You have to go to the Acctg Mgr for a stamp. The Store managers are dictators. Believe me, I did it for two years.
I was being asked to hire people at $12 an hour. I walked in the store one day and saw a new face in the lumber dept. I asked the store mgr. “Oh, I worked with him at another company and I hired him.”
He hired his old crony, Part Time, and gave him $15 an hour, $3 more than the full time employees.
On another occasion I walked into the cafeteria first thing in the morning. There was a pair of feet sticking out of the broom closet. I looked inside, and there was a guy sleeping. I kicked his feet and asked what he was doing. Turns out the Store Manager had not only hired him, but several of his cronies, without my knowledge. They played for the local Arena Football team. I hope that store manager got free tickets.
My son was graduating college two miles from the store, and my boss wouldn’t give me time off to attend. Have fun “learning HR” from The Home Depot. I went to my son’s graduation, and the heck with Home Depot.
The article says the head office people have to approach it with the right attitude. Which is a start, but it still bangs into the big problem: there is no such thing as unskilled labour.
A just-hired retail employee is no use to man or beast for the first day even if they have had other retail experience. One with no previous is no good for at least a week and that week needs an experienced one riding herd on them. There might be basic shelf management or something but on the whole that still needs checking after.
So each head office person needs to shadow a skilled employee who feels secure in their job (so they can tell the HOP to shut up or to do as they are told without fear) and that will be hard thankless work for the employee if the HOP is supposed to do more than watch. Yeah the HOP is supposed to be humble, who polices that and what are the consequences to the arrogant ones?
I worked for a telco at one point. Senior managers got to sit on the call centre floor and listen in. They weren’t speaking on calls but they had tp discuss them after each one. They had to sit and pay attention to calls or training materials and only go on scheduled breaks. Most of them said they were grateful they did not have to deal with customers because they had absolutely no idea of the minutae of the telco’s offerings or how to troubleshoot and 8 hours is not enough time to learn. (And at least one said the only scheduled breaks would drive him mad which got him a lot of Looks.).
I bet when you went into the store you did very simple jobs if you had no previous experience and didn’t learn all that much about the rest of the store.
OH! HOW I BEG TO DIFFER WITH YOUR LAST SENTENCE!
In 2001, my company got a new CEO. He came in with his scythe, and offered an early retirement incentive to cut payroll, which I took at the age of 50. My final task was to hire my replacement – at 75% of my salary.
The incentive was so good that I began the process of buying and opening my own business. The Home Depot job was a bridge. I brought a wealth of HR experience, and I prided myself on knowing the process of each place I worked. Prior to that, I worked my way through college in several retail jobs.
Not only did HD have draconian employee policies, they even treated mgt (at the store level) like peons. I did not have to “learn” anything during my HD experience. They should have listened to me. You don’t treat people like that, and then expect loyalty in return. From what I’ve read, Jeff Bezos should be listening. He might be the richest person in the world, but I couldn’t sleep at night if I got there trampling on the backs of people.