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When Whole Foods was bought out by Amazon a few months ago, pundits knew that sweeping changes were coming, they just weren’t sure what kind of changes they were going to be and now we know.
A system referred to as order-to-shelf, or OTS, is said to be taking an emotional toll on employees of the store.
OTS has a strict set of procedures for purchasing, displaying, and storing products on store shelves and in back rooms. To make sure stores comply, Whole Foods relies on “scorecards” that evaluate everything from the accuracy of signage to the proper recording of theft, or “shrink.”
What happens is simple: when a customer takes something off of a shelf and puts it in their cart, an employee assigned to a particular section at Whole Foods takes note of this and must replace said item with inventory from the back of the store. The replacement inventory is then checked by a manager of the store to make sure that it is in the correct place and that it is labeled correctly. If the placement of the item is off or the pricing is wrong, the employee who put the item on the shelf is docked points from a scorecard.
“Every item in our department has a designated spot that is labeled or marked,” an employee of a Colorado Whole Foods store said. “If that item is even an inch outside of its designated spot … we receive negative marks.”
The walks also involve on-the-spot quizzes, in which employees are asked to recite their departments’ sales goals, top-selling items, previous week’s sales, and other information.
Failing scores — which qualify as anything below 89.9% — can result in firings, employees said.
I can understand where maybe misplacing an item or incorrectly pricing it would receive a reprimanding from a manager, but quizzes for all employees? And passing is considered 89.9%? Ridiculous. Last I checked C’s get degrees and that is nowhere near a C. That’s overachieving and who would want to do that? Snake it til you make it. A guy in this article was quoted as saying that it’s not uncommon for workers at Whole Foods to be seen crying on the job because of these scorecards and I think those are definitely to blame for some of this.
But not enough attention is being brought to the clientele of Whole Foods across this country. Rich housewives and trust fund babies are the main customers of Whole Foods everywhere. These people are almost always high maintenance, and I’m positive that they make working at a place like Whole Foods much more difficult than it should be. God forbid some woman named Muffy or Tinnie can’t get 360 brand organic orange juice and is forced to buy Tropicana for her third husband and stepson Jackson.
And let’s not forget about Mercedes, the part-time yogi who lives in Tribeca and has never worked a day in her life. If she can’t get fresh kale from the to-go salad bar because one of the workers incorrectly placed it a few feet down the line from where it usually is she’s going to throw a conniption fit and do you know who is going to take the brunt of that? Some poor guy who is working his second job at Whole Foods as a stockboy and just got docked a bunch of points on some silly report card.
This whole scorecard business is getting me more fired up the more I talk about these hypothetical situations which have absolutely, 100% happened before. How about we just boycott Whole Foods and start shopping at local grocers? That would Bezos and his merry band of nerds in their place real quick. Either that or get rid of these fucking scorecards and give these employees a little bit of leeway. No one should be crying at their job when they’re making minimum wage and dealing with the clientele that shops at WF.
[via Business Insider]
Image via Youtube
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jduda@grandex.co
Guys, isn’t it funny that while Amazon the company further expands into utter glutony, the actual Amazon rainforest is getting smaller and smaller. Pretty soon, Amazon the company is going to build a giant warehouse in the Amazon jungle just to enslave the natives there and then club the rest like baby seals so they can “penetrate” the South American marketplce. Amazon will the probably buy out the US military and sell nukes at a steep retail discount and promising same 10 minute delivery. It’s gonna be grat, we all deserve this lol
Never change.
Bezos runs a tight, rough ship at Amazon. Only makes sense he brings that to Whole Foods. Also, crying at work is unacceptable except for a very few select circumstances.
Guy seems like a fuckin narc
Well I’m up 60% on amazon stock so keep buying shit at Whole Foods, you rawdoggin’ bastard
Bezos? We don’t run in the same social circle so I can’t comment.
Really?
Yea, I’m only in the millionaires club.
Yeah but he’s jacked af, so I aint saying shit
This might be the most agreeable article you’ve ever written, Duda.
Very solid take indeed. Imagining a WF employee crying in the produce section as I walk in to buy my kombucha or craft microbrew is very upsetting.
Whole Foods employees deserve our respect. Having worked in a grocery store that was in an affluent area while in high school, i can relate to their plight on a certain level.
Minimum wages for that standard of efficiency is absolutely bananas
I will be taking my business to H-E-B, and Central Market occasionally.
This is just another reason why Aldi is the best grocery store
As someone from Seattle, exactly how I expected this transition to go, Amazon’s hyper-attention to every detail is not a perfect match for grocery which is inherently imperfect.
Are you one of the “capitalism is evil” Seattle folks that gets a daily Starbucks and buys stuff from Amazon?
And Will is to blame*
Weirdly enough, I hardly shop at Whole Foods unless I’m hitting the hot bar / I’m being lazy.
Bullshit
If a person cannot arrange vegetables in a standard manner, there should be a point deduction system.