The Wall Street Journal-20080111-Home Depot Shifts Overnight Crews
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Home Depot Shifts Overnight Crews
Home Depot Inc. plans to reassign overnight-shift employees to days at its lower volume stores, a change that puts more workers on the sales floor without raising costs.
Combined with a change in how products are ordered, the work-force reassignment is part of the company's push on customer service, according to Paul Raines, Home Depot's executive vice president for stores. The switch won't reduce employees' hours or result in layoffs, he said. The change could affect as many as half of the company's 2,000 U.S. stores.
The decision reverses a plan implemented several years ago by former Home Depot Chief Executive Robert Nardelli, who switched freight receiving and stocking to overnight hours to reduce aisle clutter and safety concerns caused by forklifts operating during busy daytime hours. However, the change led to complaints of poor customer service.
A weak housing market has hurt home-improvement retailers including Home Depot, which has posted declining same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, for the past six quarters.
Even before the housing slump, Home Depot was losing market share to competitor Lowe's Cos. In the year since Francis S. Blake succeeded Mr. Nardelli, who was ousted last January, the Atlanta-based company has invested money and devoted more attention to customer service, employee morale and store ambiance.
"Our focus has been on efficiency and we found that there just wasn't enough work for the overnight crew to do," Mr. Raines said. Moving stock, which often includes the use of heavy forklifts, during the day won't undermine safety, he added. Most of the stocking will be done early in the morning and near closing. At the same time, the stores will use more manual pallet jacks, rather than automated ones.
A recent pilot program in Texas involving 92 stores and 10,000 workers didn't result in a rise in accidents. About 16 people lost their jobs because they didn't want to work days. At the chain's high volume stores, overnight-shift workers will continue to handle restocking.
