Working for a company during a turnaround has its challenges. Best Buy is chaotic right now. They are implementing ready fire aim tactics. They do not know what is going to work outside of cutting more SG&A. They have cut too deeply and they are asking hourly employees to take on a workload that is more than they ever have without compensation. They are asking hourly supervisors to do salaried work ie: open and close the building, deal with upset customers, deal with contractors, do overnights for resets and so on without compensation. Salaried managers (especially General Managers) are expected to be able 24/7. With email coming to the general managers at all hours day and night. With the recent USOM changes, there is no direct communication from corporate, territory or district to assistant managers, it all comes through the GM. GM is expected to filter, cut and paste and forward emails as a way of running a multi million dollar business. Conference calls come at random times, and can be added at any moment, and as the GM, you must be on these calls. This leads to an inability to have a work life balance. Period. In addition, with the reduction in salaried managers and hourly supervisors and the extended hours, there are simply not enough hours in the day to get through all of the communication, playbooks, coaching, training, hiring and customer issues that come your way. The expectation to hit targets and the pressure that goes along with it is staggering. Certainly, anyone at the General Manager level knows to expect performance pressure, but the targets are moving and inconsistent. As a GM you are held accountable to lines on the P&L that you have no vision to. The "operational" P&L that you receive has lines that have no explanation, yet you are held accountable to them. The bonus carrot is hung high, yet most of the time the targets are simply out of reach. Lastly, with the SG&A reductions, there is no District staff, only a single DM, and quite honestly, the writing is on the wall that they wont be around for long. This means that there is very little opportunity for advancement compared to 1 year ago when the District staff mirrored the store structure.
