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Basically, the company instituted a new program where the store employees are being asked to lie to customers so that the store can get more profit. Is something like this very common in retail business'? Is there any kind of organization that oversees business' for shady/unethical business practices, or are they allowed to pretty much do whatever they want for more profit even if it means employees are told to lie?
Someone has a reading comprehension problem.
There is no indication whatsoever that anyone is being asked to lie to customers. Some less than scrupulous workers may be doing that because they find it easier to make money but nothing indicates that is a policy the company encourages or even abides. It is probably grounds for dismissal.
It's the same thing that was happening with Wells Fargo, when the employees opened up all those fake accounts to generate required sales.
Management at the top in every profession is usually totally clueless how their businesses really run. I'm perfectly serious about that. You take the board of directors or the CEO and his buddies in any corporate business and put them in their business workplace and they wouldn't know what products were sold or how they were marketed or how much they cost. They probably wouldn't even recognize their business if the name wasn't on the door. Most of them have never been in the service sector and their knowledge of customers is nil. Then they wonder why their customers are unhappy or their businesses tank. I know more than one customer has been fed up to the point of screaming after having a credit card application shoved in his face every freaking time he goes to the store.
I worked for BofA before we had to cross sell services. They lost so many employees when they instituted cross selling because they asked for such unrealistic goals. One of my coworkers was required to sell thousands of dollars of extra products each month even though she worked in the vault area and saw the same customers over and over. She also only worked Mondays and Fridays. She was a good employee, she'd been with the bank for years, and she really did try to meet her cross selling goals. When they started putting pressure on her, she basically told them where to go and found another job with a volunteer organization. I was just grateful I was out of the bank by then. I was a good teller. I did not have the personality for forced sales, though.
There is no indication whatsoever that anyone is being asked to lie to customers. Some less than scrupulous workers may be doing that because they find it easier to make money but nothing indicates that is a policy the company encourages or even abides. It is probably grounds for dismissal.
In English, as in the OP statement to which you're referring, "basically" is used to indicate an implicit cause or outcome. By establishing certain Circle of Life (CoL) policies and goals the Co. is, basically, saying something without explicitly saying it. This is a proper use of the word "basically".
Therefore, it's clear the "reading comprehension problem" is not with the "someone" you assume it to be.
To assume GameStop, or any corporation, would make a policy without having thought through the implementation and ramifications of it is rather naive.
The implied goal of GameStop's CoL program is reinforced by the ramifications of not meeting one's CoL goals. The more serious the ramification, the more likely for employees to do what it takes to avoid those ramifications. GameStop knew this before the CoL program roll-out.
In English, as in the OP statement to which you're referring, "basically" is used to indicate an implicit cause or outcome. By establishing certain Circle of Life (CoL) policies and goals the Co. is, basically, saying something without explicitly saying it. This is a proper use of the word "basically".
Therefore, it's clear the "reading comprehension problem" is not with the "someone" you assume it to be.
To assume GameStop, or any corporation, would make a policy without having thought through the implementation and ramifications of it is rather naive.
The implied goal of GameStop's CoL program is reinforced by the ramifications of not meeting one's CoL goals. The more serious the ramification, the more likely for employees to do what it takes to avoid those ramifications. GameStop knew this before the CoL program roll-out.
Absolutely wrong. Just because a task may be difficult to accomplish does not create the justification to be unethical in its implementation. How anyone would get to the observation that the employer is asking its employees to lie to its customers is beyond me. The sell, or even hardsell of used products is a component of the job; if the worker is unwilling or incapable of performing the task in an ethical manner they should look for work elsewhere.
I worked for GameStop for over 12 years and was a GameStop store manager for the last eight. Emphasis on “was.†I was just fired from the company over this exact program two weeks ago. During the holidays, my staff was afraid of being fired because of this program, so what I did was pass off my transactions to them that would improve their COL score while I took the transactions that would otherwise harm their COL scores. I did it to help ease their minds and the pressures from corporate. I thought I was safe because of my excellent track record with the company and the overall COL score for the store was above the company average.
Unfortunately, they fired me because “I was not an effective leader by not leading by example.†I did what I felt was right to my employees and I don’t regret it. This program led to my employees going into the back stockroom when they knew a customer only wanted new items, didn’t have a Pro card, trade, or didn’t want to reserve something... and I know my store was not the only one like this. People in general deserve a better place than GameStop to buy their games.
From a current employee:
Quote:
First, while not every associate at GameStop uses these dishonest practices, I know many who do. I have worked at 2 different stores (in both management and non management positions) and have seen people outright lie about things that would be in games to get people to preorder. Another thing people do is get people who don’t work often (8-10 hours a week) to do transactions under other associates’ names so as not to hurt the store’s numbers. These associates can’t possibly make their quotas, due to the limited number of hours they work, therefore they have to hurt someone else’s.
Believe me, we are all very tired of the COL, and it hurts morale overall.
Basically, the company instituted a new program where the store employees are being asked to lie to customers so that the store can get more profit. Is something like this very common in retail business'? Is there any kind of organization that oversees business' for shady/unethical business practices, or are they allowed to pretty much do whatever they want for more profit even if it means employees are told to lie?
GameStop is scummy all around. Their questionable practices aren't very common in the retail industry.
I had my share fo retail jobs, but haven't worked them in about 20 yrs.
I was never told in my retail days to lie.
I didn't read the OP's link yet. What are employees asked to lie about?
The way it works is GS gets 100% profit for whatever used games/systems sell. But only a fraction for new games/systems. Some people don't care, but for me and others we like getting new copies of games for various reasons. What they are probably more accurately being pressured to do is if someone asks for a new game/system tell them they only have used ones in even though they do have new ones.
If x employee doesn't sell y amount of used stuff they could easily lose their jobs. The shady unethical part about this is that say hypothetically one employee is working all one day, pretty much everyone comes in wanting x games new then surely the right thing to do is give the customer what they want, and in this case even if the employee does because they didn't sell used they are looking at losing their jobs.
They also have two rather annoying practices where they will open a new game and put the disc in a sleeve case while putting the actual case on the shelf for display purposes and if it's the last copy despite it being opened they still will sell it at full unopened price.
Another one is that employees are allowed to take games home that they didn't buy, play them, return them and again sell at full unopened price. I have actually received games that already had save files on them despite being "new" because of this before.
Another one is that employees are allowed to take games home that they didn't buy, play them, return them and again sell at full unopened price. I have actually received games that already had save files on them despite being "new" because of this before.
Even worse when you buy "new," the game's DLC promo code has already been used.
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