Over on Reddit, multiple Lowe’s workers have reported that the retailer will be laying off their entire IT support department.
The Lowe’s community moderator has said they independently validated these claims.
According to workers who say they will be affected by this development, “around 200 people, perhaps more,” will be laid off by the end of the year.
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They are also saying that Lowe’s expressed plans to outsource IT services to an overseas contractor.
One of the affected workers said:
Even our managers are losing their jobs too and also got blindsided by it. Nobody will care about their jobs anymore.
Confirmed that some are staying and they cannot give their ex-employees references for new jobs due to legal repercussions from Lowe’s if they do so.
Lowe’s has not made any official announcements about the matter.
Sources:
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r/Lowes – The Entire ITSD is getting Let Go in Q4 23
r/Lowes – Lowe’s IT Support Transitioning to India
Robert
Looks like a case of the Monarch blaming the peasants for a poor harvest brought on by his decisions.
John
Corporate America doesn’t give a crap about America. Politics have nothing to do with it, just greed for the select few.
Chris I
Politics have EVERYTHING to do with jobs outsourcing and the tax framework around it.
If you don’t think greed IS politics I need some of what you’re smokin’!
Glenn Belton
Support outsourced overseas is no support as far as I’m concerned. It also takes jobs away from americans, people who may even be shopping at Lowes. I’m tired of trying to get support from a company when the person I am speaking to can barely speak English or has such a strong accent that they cannot be easily understood. Going back to HD even though it is much farther away.
Michael F
Lowe’s online experience was already not very good, I will only expect it to get worse from here.
Michael F
Never mind, I’m realizing this is actually just IT Support, not software development teams. Still a bummer to lose those jobs overseas but honestly it’s business as usual.
Birdseed
For now
bob
most of the software development is outsourced. Our management consulting firm works with Lowe’s. We are US-based.
Joe
IT supports a lot more than their website. In fact their website is a small fraction of what IT does for Lowe’s
Colin
My biggest concern is payment security.
aaron+s
Distinction between “IT” and “IT support” is significant!
Steven+B
Technically, yes. Support deals with users directly. Most IT workers in most companies are keeping everything running, including systems few workers touch. So Lowes has IT professionals keeping servers running, backing up and tuning databases, developing their inventory management software…and support people answering questions for kiosks.
Mopar
Yes it is, but also keep in mind IT support in a company like that is mostly internal. They deal with the staff and management using the systems the IT dept puts in place. This should be fun.
Stuart
I got the impression that this is IT support for Lowe’s stores. So when something goes screwy with in-store infrastructure or similar, this would be the team a store calls for help.
eddie sky
HD is next . Why yesterday morning, I was passing a self-checkout (to get some overpriced PVC trim aka Azek) when surprise, a clerk was talking to her phone (on speaker) that “the screen just has the Dell logo and thing spinning around in a circle under it”…
I stopped and said, “there’s an update…but if it doesn’t clear up in 15 minutes, power it off then on”…
Tech on other end said same thing…
BTW, an ivy-league university in your state, outsourced their HelpDesk for after hours and weekends.
IT fools painted themselves into a corner, letting directors make decisions.
JML
“Of the companies that had stock buybacks, Lowe’s spent the most, dedicating $34.9bn to its own shares over the last three years. Lowe’s CEO, Marvin Ellison, had a compensation of $17.5m in 2022, while the median worker pay was $29,584 for the year.” What more does anyone need to say?
fred
I find some of the US corporate culture hard to understand. I understand the pyramid structure of most corporations and expect that CEOs will earn more than the officers reporting to them – and son on down the line. The huge disparity in some corporations seems misplaced. What is really misplaced is that many in top management seem to be immune to business downturns and their salaries and bonuses may not reflect how well the business has performed.
In a small business that is not always the case. During downturns and times when we were struggling to grow our businesses – my partners and I often took less salary than our lead carpenters or boss plumbers. Our wives would sometimes remark that they might have been wealthier had they married a plumber or carpenter. But we were either building equity in our businesses or trying to keep the folks who were actually making us money (the plumbers, carpenters, mechanics et al) gainfully employed. Had we taken one or more of the businesses public – with I or others being a CEO answering to a BOD, with Wall Street analysts looking over our shoulders – it might have been different.
Gotdon
Nothing epitomizes this more than CEOs talking millions of dollars in “bonuses” as their company starts bankruptcy proceedings. It’s become far too common and quite frankly it’s an insult to everyone who works day in and day out to keep a company moving.
Jim Felt
fred. Exactly what my partner and I did for nearly 45 years. And internally nearly no one else ever knew. Those multiple recessions just came and went. Covid though was another matter entirely.
Lowes, unlike so many other not quite the biggest player in a given market, has never outgrown that appearance.
ToolGuyDan
Fred,
You’re spot-on, in part because your experience is that of a majority, or at least substantial minority, shareholder. Such folks tend to care.
Now, once ownership drops below 1% or so, the incentives become very different. Let’s say I’m the new CEO you hired for your old business, and you’ve told me I get paid $100k base, and up to another $500k based on how I grow the business in the next year. How do you measure this?
Profits? I underfund replacement tool programs and tell folks to use worn-out bits and blades a bit longer, cut back on sales staff and coast on their existing bookings for as long as I can, and cancel holiday bonuses and skimp on the yearly raises.
Gross revenue? I underbid all our competitors, cutting profit margins to nearly zero, and leaving no margin for customer satisfaction, R&D, or a rainy-day fund.
Number of jobs done? I encourage salespeople to close multiple small jobs, leaving big-job revenue on the table.
In fact, no matter what you choose, there’ll be a way for me to game the system to maximize benefit for myself in a way that, at best, only coincidentally helps the business, and at worst utterly destroys it. It’s known as Goodhart’s Law.
For big corporations, we’ve set up incentive structures that, often as not, encourage leaders at middling or failing companies to take big, risky bets. If they win, they’re not only paid huge bonuses by this corporation, but they get an even better deal—they’re a “proven winner”!—at their next gig. If they lose, well, it wasn’t exactly going gangbusters before they showed up, now was it?
Unlike most of my complaints, I don’t come to this one with a proposal. I don’t know how to make it better. But I know the current system is asinine, and that as recently as fifty years ago, we didn’t have it.
I don’t know if I’m allowed to link YouTube here, but if so, here’s John Oliver’s take on the subject: https://youtu.be/PsB1e-1BB4Y
Steven+B
As a veteran of the offshore outsourcing fad of 20+ years ago, I can tell you, that almost no one has ever saved money by offshore outsourcing. They were promised it would save money, but never delivered. Generally, when I see stuff like this, it screams gullible and stupid. If the worker had any talent, they don’t want to work for low wages. There’s a massive global talent shortage, especially in technical fields. Also, once someone gets good at their job, they leave for greener pastures, often in other countries. Few save money. However, the outsourcing company + the executive receiving kickbacks profit…but the company doesn’t. They get lower quality for higher cost. It doesn’t matter what the firm quoted you, the costs ALWAYS go up. There are always unforeseen circumstances and the total ends up being the same or higher….only for far inferior service. And once you lay off your entire support staff, you’re at their mercy….and the costs just keep rising because they know you’re vulnerable and can’t staff up fast enough to fire the outsourcing firm before you get more massive bills.
A W
Hey, Boeing saved millions of dollars in the short term by outsourcing the engineering code for the 737 Max flight control system to a less expensive team in India.
The less experienced engineers eliminated items like checking the redundant AOA sensor or cross referencing airspeed.
Because the communication between the new engineering vendor and the test pilots was low, Boeing managed to convince the FAA that existing pilots didn’t even need to be trained on the new system.
2 fatal accidents, a worldwide grounding, and a couple billion dollars later, I’m pretty sure they would take that decision back.
Randy
It’s unlikely knowing the consequences would change their decision. Their bonuses would have paid out before people started dying
aboeingguy
Just not true. You should know what you’re talking about before stating it as fact. The software on the MCAS was a supplier’s code, not Boeing. The test definition and training of AOA behavior, MCAS response, and pilot response, belonged to Boeing, and LOCAL Boeing engineers. The supplier’s local and offshore coded it 100% per the LOCAL Boeing Design Engineer.
Jim
Some times out sourcing labor fills a immediate need, and companies think they will save money instead of recruiting or retaining employees with higher wages. I work for a construction firm. While not outsourcing overseas, my firm would rather hire temp hands from staffing to fill immediate needs then hire new employees at hire wages that the market is pushing new hires to ask for. I’m not sure if they are afraid it will lead to a rise in labor cost thru out the whole firm or labor pool. Instead they hire temp hands that cost twice as much in labor and take 4 times longer to complete task that our full time employees produce. Most temp hands have no commitment to the company they are filling in and would ride the clock until they are sent bac
I can here it now sorry guys no bonus this Christmas we didn’t make any money.
Kwon
Oh this is probably a terrible decision. If the CEO couldn’t drive IT change and values, getting rid of the team that could do it is just sad.
Jp
Are they doing something half the other US companies didn’t do 10-years ago? I don’t agree with this trend, but nobody ever asked me. It’s not just customer disservice thats farmed out.
Andrew
It’s going to be interesting to see who they can find to support the old VAX or whatever it is hiding behind the shiny new web interface. Everytime I’m been in there you can see they’re still using it because they’ve got those old teletype interfaces all over the place. The registers at least appear to have moved off it, but it’s probably just a facade over the VAX in the background. When things go wrong they still pull up the old green screen stuff.
Pat R
Dang VAX VMS that brought back some memories. I used to support ROLM phones extending VTY service to a vax…worked great except you needed these massive power bricks to power the phone with an RJ45 connector.
When we rolled out shiny new ethernet, we had folks who thought they got their computer online by plugging their expensive new ethernet card directly into AC power through this brick. Old engineering maxim, if you can diagnose a circuit by smell you’re in trouble.
Dave
For the really crazy bugs in their web site, and store, I think it is a step forward.
Kingsley
For a large company outsourced IT or IT support is not a good idea.
Support is part of the feedback loop for IT. If they don’t work together things drift.
Edward
“So Lowes has IT professionals keeping servers running, backing up and tuning databases, developing their inventory management software…”
Is there any proof of that? Not from my experience with Lowe’s web site nor their in-store “inventory management.” More like contracted out to “Larry, Moe and Curly, LLC.”
Billy
Yes they do. I am one of them.
Addicted2Red
Explains why their app and site have constantly failed me when I needed it.
Robert
It’s just more of the same old same old for lowes. Layoff layoff layoff. It’s all they know. Was like that when niblock was acting high and mighty. Has never changed. Absolutely sucks to work there.
Bet they still have the money for the CEO’s personal protection though. What a joke.
Craig
Wonder how all the veterans that shop at lowes feel about them taking jobs from Americans and giving them to people overseas.
Stuart
A lot of Veterans have chimed in here: https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/lowes-military-discount-appliance-returns-changes-2022/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Craig
Thankfully in the Midwest we have Manards..
Jeremiah D
Menards isnt exactly known for their industry leading wages and excellent treatment of employees. I find their customer service to be better than HD though.
bigbullyTool
Please read the posts – this is IT support, not the “entire IT department” as your title suggests Stuart.
Most companies have already outsourced this type of work a long time ago. Other countries are way more specialized in offering support services in mega call centers. This isn’t highly skilled work, it’s solving usually pretty mundane technical issues that require system level access. It’s closer to “restart the router” when the internet is out vs network design.
Stuart
I understand the difference and included such phrasing in the post, but you’re right about the title – I added it in.
Whether accurate or not, I would expect for the in-house domestic team to know the systems in and out, whereas a 3rd party contractor (regardless of location) will be given a simple script or flow chart to follow, where they’ll be marginally more effective than a chatbot.
Joe E.
Add another reason to not shop at Lowe’s. I wish they would go away and take the bastardized Craftsman brand with them. Turn their locations into something more useful like a HomeBuys or Planet Fitness.
William
I’ve seen this play out personally being affected by it at one company. Then being hired by another company when they did this and it was a huge mistake and they were trying back track. It never ends well. It’s amazing corporations still try to run this playbook.
Kevin
Since roughly 2000, 2003 when Lowes and Depots expansions stopped Lowes was simply hit with the Walmart factor. The big expansion was over so the only way to keep Wallstreet happy ” Vanguard, Blackstreet” was to cut expenses. Number 1 expenses in any business is payroll. So stocks for employees , then managers were gone. Then stores went from payroll being 8% to sales to 3% to sales , then went bonuses to lower management and then upper management. Store managers were no longer allowed to manage their stores and Hr and loss prevention ran them. The Walmart Effect !!!
Charles Stopczynski
This will no doubt come back to bite them hard.
They should know better.
Mark
In my experience, this is terrible for the ppl at the stores. If the English is bad with the contractor (mine was – global mfg Corp in aerospace & safety products) they kind of go off a script and if you don’t have a typical easy problem you can’t get through to them what is going on.
They also make it near impossible to pick up the phone and call someone specific or escalate a call.
It’s just canned answers > try this > no that’s not what I am trying to accomplish > have you tried it yet sir? > no that’s not what I need I’m talking about this other thing with the email > sir if you are having problems with your email syncing I am trying to walk you through resolution> no I’m not having sync issues I need to create a new global mailing list > if you are not having sync issues sir than I am afraid I cannot help you with your project > okay well who can help me? > I’m sorry sir but we cannot help you with this> can anybody there help me > no sir I’m sorry but we cannot help you> okay who can > I do not know sir but we cannot help you with your project. Do you have any other issues you need assistance with today?
Ugh flashbacks haha.
Scott
I saw a video on Tik Tok describing this layoff and have decided not to do business with Lowes anymore. I have no desire to support a business who has no loyalty towards their employees. So years of purchasing items at Lowes is done and will go elsewhere for my purchases.
Chris I
….go where? Like HD?
……Amazon? 😏
bob
I am of the same thinking. While i cant saw i will absolutely not buy from lowes, they will be last on the list of options.
FYI, Ace Hardware just had a cyber attack, lowes may want to hold off on that layoff.
Neighbor Joe
Let’s look at the guy calling the shots. CEO Marvin Ellison. Joined Lowes in 2018 bailing on JCPenney’s after three disastrous years and 69 million in debt his final quarter. His sudden departure rattled investors and two years later JCPenney sought bankruptcy protection 2020. CNBCs Jim Cramer decried Ellison’s departure proclaiming JCPenney cannot be saved. Ellison is not obtuse and well aware of the impact. He is a hatchet man selling off building portfolio, laying off workers and outsourcing. No surprise Lowes is enduring the same pattern.
John
When I worked for them this was their end goal. I left thankfully before it happened. Last I knew the deal they were trying to broker was with Tata Consulantancy Services. Good luck them….