A shadow of its former self - ECommerce Manager White Stuff Employee Review

How sad then, that with the introduction of a new CEO I watched as those brand values were slowly stripped away over the course of two years, and when the business saw its profit margins being impacted by market forces they ditched them altogether. This is a business that used the Covid-19 pandemic as a smokeshield to lay off almost half of the head office in the most mean and dispiriting way possible - it seems that plans were afoot to get rid of people well before the crisis hit and the process was then expedited with little to no consideration for the wellbeing of staff (I can count on no fingers how many times my line manager checked in with me whilst we were on furlough). New senior managers were brought in and spent no time getting to know the people or processes, but were tasked with putting together new structures and deciding the fate of long-standing employees. The redundancy process left out any considerations of loyalty, with business knowledge and length of service not considered in the slightest and disingenuous selection pools resulting in questionable outcomes - what I saw was junior staff favoured over more experienced people simply for the saving of their salary. When this process fell apart and the preferred employees chose to jump ship because they'd been treated badly, the business asked some of the senior people to come back - they declined. White Stuff, what does that tell you about how poorly you've handled the situation and how much the company ethics have been completely eroded? No Directors were ousted as part of this restructure - despite the business strategy failing - with their inflated pay packets ultimately the key priority for the business despite having a much smaller workforce to manage. Also, all of the CEOs mates from her previous company who were brought in at the start of her tenure (which we were told by our HR function not to discuss) also all survived unscathed. The writing would now seem to be on the wall for White Stuff, and those who have been laid off may have had a lucky escape - there isn't enough sparkling water in the world to keep this brand afloat, unfortunately.