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Many HRMs had difficulty adjusting to Home Depot’s rough-and-tumble environment. "This is the toughest retail you’ll see; the jobs are not easy, and the people work hard. We’re not moving pillows and sheets; these are warehouses—drafty and cold." According to Duren, "Blake is reaffirming our focus on our core values. It’s been a welcome message. The culture has shifted back to realizing we are a retail company that needs to focus on customers." Home Depot’s board tapped Vice Chairman Blake to succeed Nardelli. A lawyer, former diplomat and assistant U.S. secretary of energy, Blake also had come from General Electric and had no prior retail experience.
"For example, the fact that Mike Buskey, our senior vice president of HR, U.S. store operations, knows the business—seasonal, inventory, hurricanes, underperforming —is what makes him so effective," explains Paul Raines, who was executive vice president, U.S. stores, before leaving Home Depot this August . So far, the reorganization looks like a win-win for the company and HR. "I’ve been doing round tables with district HR managers and the three who support them," Crow says. "They love it. They say, ‘This is a fun job. I can make an impact on the business more than before.’ And the store managers like it as well. They’ve gone from having one HR partner to a team of four." And Donovan expected that they would develop into true business partners, providing important perspective for each store manager.
HR Business Partner (m/f/d)
Buskey oversees HR in Home Depot’s 1,964 U.S. stores.Raines likes Buskey’s assertiveness. "He’s an invite-yourself-to-the-party kind of executive," Raines says. "The key to success in HR is you’ve got to get in the foxhole with the other people. That’s what it takes."
"All of us are out there. Never go 48 hours without being on the floor of a store." No doubt, HR professionals at the company would not be prime movers in shaping their destiny and the future direction of Home Depot had it not been for Nardelli, now CEO at Chrysler. Their ascension began in 2001 when the board put outsider Nardelli in command. It cost $39.7 million in annual salary to snare him from General Electric after he fell short in the competition to replace GE’s outgoing CEO Jack Welch. Authorities said a scary situation at a Home Depot in Baytown was "resolved peacefully" after police swarmed the building Wednesday night. "If I felt there was a risk that managers would cut corners, I wouldn’t have proposed the change," Crow insists.
Director Human Resources (m/w/d)
Constantly on the move, she uses her car as an office. “I have three HR partners who help me out with reviews, performance management, coaching and leadership skills,” she says. Based on his experience as an HRM in Phoenix, Marron, who also was a longtime manager at CVS, is wary because the reorganization appears to place more HR responsibilities on store managers.
Nardelli could see, however, that there were potential problems and liabilities that could be addressed only by developing better systems and controls. With his exposure to HR at General Electric—where human capital is a top priority—Nardelli knew Home Depot’s laissez-faire approach was not sustainable in the long run. Gain the intel you need now to successfully anticipate and navigate employment laws, stay compliant and mitigate legal risks. The specific accommodation requested to complete the employment application.
Director Human Resources (m/w/d) Raum Frankfurt/Main
To verify your email address and activate your job alert. Some HRMs were working as many as 55 hours each week. "They wanted us to find out what people think, but you can’t get people to talk unless they trust you, and they won’t trust you with harassment and discrimination complaints, for example, unless they know you," Czarniecki says.
News, trends and analysis, as well as breaking news alerts, to help HR professionals do their jobs better each business day. The fired HRMs received two months of severance pay and were offered an opportunity to apply for the new district positions or other openings. "We’ve whittled the number of displaced workers down to about 800, but still we’ve lost some really good people," Buskey says. But while the change in attitude and approach to customers has received praise from some critics, Home Depot’s stock and financials continue to falter, exacerbated by the poor economy and housing crisis. When Blake took control in January 2007, a share of stock sold for $39. The company reported that its net earnings for the first half of fiscal 2008 (through Aug. 3) plunged 41 percent compared to the first half of 2007.
Corporate Info
He had doubled sales and increased earnings per share, and the wholesale business was showing a profit. But the stock price remained flat, disappointing shareholders and Wall Street. He had become a lightning rod for critics, including shareholder activists, who objected to his compensation package. The Home Depot is an Equal Opportunity/M/F/Vet/Disabled Employer.
Nardelli’s right-hand man, he ushered HR into the C-suite, giving it an active voice in strategic management. The remaining HR transactional activities—like putting people on and off the payroll and transferring them between departments—have been insourced to a 220-person HR phone-access services center in Atlanta staffed by customer service representatives. In consultation with his senior HR team, Crow weighed his options, crafted the reorganization proposal, and presented it to Blake and the executive leadership team.
"Unless they’ve made an improvement in the quality of the management since I left in 2004, I’d be concerned," he says. "The managers in the stores were so poorly trained, had so little understanding about dealing with people, it was scary." Lacking retail experience himself, Donovan assembled a core of senior HR executives with strong backgrounds in retailing, establishing credentials that the company now seeks in all HR appointments.
"You get to know the players by being there—that means you have to be there sometimes until closing, at nights when there are evening crews and on weekends." Crow sits on Blake’s six-person Executive Leadership Team, meets alone with Blake daily and travels with him on store visits. He staffs the board of director’s Leadership Development & Compensation Committee. Early on, it became clear that Blake was cut from a different cloth than Nardelli. "We’re back to our old-school approach preached by co-founder Bernie Marcus," says Raines, interviewed before leaving Home Depot.
Crow believed he could revamp the HR operation and plow the savings into the stores. After the April 1 announcement, changes were implemented May 1. In February 2007, Blake, staying in-house, promoted Tim Crow as executive vice president of HR to replace Donovan. Crow had been vice president of organization, talent and performance systems.
With stores, distribution centers, and corporate offices across the country, your next opportunity might be right around the corner. The line experience makes executives more relevant, agrees Carole Pietak, vice president for the 480-store Western Division. "You have to understand the culture of retail—the hours, the high pace—and be able to juggle." In his seven-year tenure, he grew the company, adding stores in the U.S., Mexico, Canada and China. He committed to establishing a wholesale business that some observers thought was drawing attention and resources away from Home Depot’s fundamental retail operations.
With the housing market in the doldrums and the economy teetering on recession, the world-leading hardware and home improvement retailer had to make tough decisions. Ten percent of the 5,000 staffers at headquarters in Atlanta had already been let go. Storage and Distribution Global GMP Depot Network Our expansive network supports the regional requirements of worldwide clinical trials.
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