The biggest con to HD Supply is the "old boy" network of GE alumni. It started from the top, and they brought in their friends and buddies, talented or not, competent or not. The problem is that in a company as big as GE, you can have 20 guys in a row, and at least 2-3 are going to be competent leaders who know what they're doing. However, when you have a smaller company and you can't afford to carry a lot of weight, you have to be much more discerning about who you invite to work with you. The GE alumni don't seem to get this, and they invite their "buddies" who are mostly idiots and don't know what they're doing. Then the rest of us are stuck with maybe one guy who gets it, and the rest are horrible GE clones.
Upward mobility in the management chain (at least in IT) is virtually nil. Unless you're a GE alumni club member, you're not going anywhere. And most of the Dir/VP's have the balls to just tell you that straight up: "we don't think you're good enough for that position" and then they go and hire another GE alumni. If it weren't so blatant, I'd be more surprised by it, but they have zero understanding of how poor most of those GE alumni are. So, whatever position you come in at is where you'll stay.
The HR department is something out of a nazi staff (sorry to use that word, but it truly is). If you make a single mistake for any reason, they'll write you up in a heartbeat. They don't understand the concept of common sense. If it's a rule violation, even if accidental or minor, they don't care. HR likes to think they rule the company, but they only rule by fear and intimidation (sound familiar?). Two of my employees were given written warnings for posting a "hey, anyone want to buy a playstation game?" message to a distribution list, and the tattle tale was another IT manager. Really? What is this, third grade? Even forgetting the petty tattle tale antics, there's no reason for an HR department to be so hard core. It's all just fear and intimidation.
This extends into the GE alumni leadership too. At one management meeting, the VP told the staff that there was to be no more negativity, and the next person who said anything negative would be fired. It's as if they were simply clueless... There is negativity because you treat your employees so poorly. Trying not being a jerk and watch the negativity go away. My mouth dropped open when the VP said that...
Another horrific GE carry-over is the 90/10 rule. Every year, regardless of performance, the bottom 10% of employees are cut. Oh, the senior leaders get all excited about this; it turns them on. They love feeling like they're keeping the cream of the crop. The problem is that it's another fear and intimidation tactic. All the employees know about it, and everyone is scared to get in that bottom 10%, so they do anything they can to throw someone else under the bus. Wonder why they don't do across-the-board 360 degree reviews? Well, it's because employees cut each other down just to make sure they're not in the 10%. They actually had to stop trial runs of 360 degree reviews while I was there because the response was so negative. And the worst part is that even if you have a team of five stellar performers (like I did), you have to cough up one body for the 10% "Performance Improvement Plan" no matter how good they are. Unless there happens to be another peer manager with a lot of flakes that you can trade, you have to PIP one of your folks. It's downright unfair to the employees.
