HQ legitimately has no idea what is going on at the front lines. In the past, I've heard the excuse "we're a growing company, there are bound to be mistakes". This is my fifth year seeing the same mistakes over and over with no sign of improving. Company's been around since '98, first store in '01, filed for bankruptcy and restructured in '06. So, at minimum, HQ has had 7 years to figure out these problems. Things like "send customers tracking numbers".
Every year there is a shortage of best-selling products. Corporate doesn't buy enough material to keep making the same best-selling products year-after-year, so there's always a couple of times a year where you face this problem.
When something is discontinued or backordered because it's oversold, retail is given unbelievably short notice (a day or two most times), and bears all the brunt of customer complaints and returns as a result.
Constantly changing, never improving approach to policy. New rules rolled out at least once a week with no notice.
When you need a simple answer or solution from HQ, you're berated for asking or lectured on how it should have been done right the first time instead of given actual advice, answers, or options.
No idea how to define or measure roles. An "Operations Lead" position is held accountable for inventory but their job success is measured in credit card sales.
The solutions that HQ sees to its problems are things like "let's have another conference call!" (Store managers have to be on at least 3 calls per week).
No joke, we just recently rolled out a new sales tracking program that takes all of the automatically generated crucial data about sales, goals, etc and replaces them all with hand-written busy work that gives you a fraction of the information you used to be able to see. Welcome to the 90s!
There's been a lot of talk from HQ about selling this company, though we at retail haven't heard any solid details. I would be willing to bet that a lot of the outward "successes" are being overplayed and the failures underplayed in an effort to appear like its structure actually works or makes sense -- when in reality it's a company based around a genitalia pun, held together by duct tape and dreams. I give it another two years tops.
