Much of what used to be great about HPB has gone and left for greener pastures. Even before the pandemic, the profit sharing checks were all but gone. That alone spoke to the issues the company was having. The lack of long term decision making that has been a problem for the company for a very long time. Over the past three decades the company has been behind the curve in technological decisions and has had to play catch-up that whole time.
Communication is another chronic issue for the company. The company's culture became one of flip flopping back and forth between so many changes that the staff was constantly wondering if they were on the same page or not. Should we use boxes or cartons to store books? Do we price books on the outside, inside, or spine? What is the minimum price point for an item? What standard are we using for accepting coupons? The list goes on and on. And what's worse, the answers to many questions depended on where you worked! There was no standard from corporate. They basically handed off those decisions to the district managers until it became too big of a problem. Which segues in to:
Leadership. You either worked in a district that was blessed with it or cursed because of it. Many employee complaints were kept inside the bubble because it might make leadership look bad. There are even cases where policy from corporate would be muted because leadership didn't want to enact them. What HPB still fails to realize is that even if they don't communicate with the staff, the staff will communicate with each other. The lack of real leadership creates an incredibly toxic work environment.
The pay rate is another in the “CON” category. A few years ago after the company did a survey about how employees felt about the state of the company (which BTW never happened again) and the results were scathing. Included in this was the starting pay rate which was a little over $9/hr. HPB realized that not only were they losing employees to higher paying jobs but also hiring was becoming difficult because that is not a living wage. Seeing the writing on the wall, HPB raised the starting wage to $11. In reality, it all but eliminated the profit sharing checks so it really cost them nothing. Also max raise is like 3%/year.
