By: Rich Bergeron
So, what kind of major incident would require terminating the employment of 20+ people just before the holidays?
Rather than let existing managers who were on salary work as many hours as it took to keep their departments in line, upper management began cracking down and trying to make sure every overtime eligible employee stuck to a tighter schedule. Time and a half payment for every hour an employee worked into overtime obviously added up quick. The upper management crackdown raised tensions and lowered the quality of customer service at the same time. While some employees were able to work overtime hours without pushback, others were repeatedly cautioned and chastised for going over their allotted 45 hours of work per week.
Modernizing your backend systems so this doesn't happen is an absolute good and helps ensure this doesn't happen.
— scorpstang (@Brucifer387336) November 9, 2024
It does NOT help that the company and its subsidiaries run on ancient systems and is a major follower in adaptation than to get ahead. @AholdDelhaize @Hannaford pic.twitter.com/v2epB5VwMZ
It would be a different story if every fired employee knew there was some kind of glitch and exploited it knowingly. Instead, we have a situation here where they were never given any indication that what they were doing was wrong or unauthorized until the day they were all suspended before ultimately being fired. More importantly, the lack of any warnings given or proper instruction on how to use the coupons from upper management makes me question why the store manager who oversaw the coupon roll out didn't get the axe. If there was no justification for firing him because he didn't police the coupons as diligently as he was policing overtime hours, then there was even less impetus to fire the end users who were just trying to save money on groceries in a tough economy.
All the heartache, agony and distress these ruthless and cold mass firings caused could have been easily prevented by proper use of technology. The same could be said about Hannaford's current cybersecurity crisis. This is a corporate failure at the end of the day that the company is laying at the feet of loyal employees. Those workers had nothing to do with neglecting to install failsafe measures in the software corporate officials used to spy on them and detect all this alleged unauthorized coupon use.
What's worse here is that corporate could have taken a much more civil approach to address this situation. All those fired employees could have been warned or officially reprimanded instead of having their jobs terminated. They could have been required to pay back the discounts they enjoyed, and many of them would probably be fine with that. Corporate investigators and store management instead chose to go scorched Earth in this situation, and there's absolutely no justification for that under the circumstances.
So, at the end of the day, why should anyone who currently shops at Hannaford reward such callous and uncalled for behavior by continuing to do business with a company that treats their senior employees that way? Why should any Hannaford shopper trust that the company's technology is safe to use with all their cybersecurity and data breach struggles? After all, if corporate officials can spy on employees using their rewards program, they can do the same snooping around in customer rewards accounts. Will Hannaford punish customers who supposedly abused these coupons next?
The key here is a lack of accountability at the Hannaford corporate level that typically takes years and massive amounts of money spent on formal lawsuits to ultimately correct. I don't think anyone should wait that long to directly address this pompous and callous example of corporate malfeasance. The time to address this nonsense is right now.
Show these out of touch clowns that firing employees without cause has serious consequences. Having no consideration for decades of exemplary service to the company by some of their best employees should not be tolerated. It's time to speak to real abusers here in the only language they will understand.
Close your rewards accounts. Switch your allegiance to any other supermarket. Share this site. Tell these corporate bozos that they messed up and must literally pay for it in lost revenue. They had no problem burning good, hard-working individuals who were just trying to save a few bucks, so let's cost them a few more bucks in return. Please join in the boycott.
If you were an employee impacted by these firings, feel free to reach out to me at rich.bergeron@gmail.com or by phone or text at 603-630-6235. I want to use this site to tell your stories. Use the same contact information to share your story if you have another example of Hannaford's corporate corruption or greed that is not related to this one. I am also the author of a comprehensive book on representing yourself in court and would be happy to offer free guidance as to how to seek justice through the courts for any victim of Hannaford's piss poor corporate leadership.
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