7-Eleven Lays Off Nearly All Its Corporate Staff?
Convenience store giant 7-Eleven let go of an unthinkable number of its corporate employees in one fell swoop.
7-Eleven didn’t lay off nearly all of its corporate staff. However, considering the number of people they did let go, the company may as well have. According to Business Insider, the convenience giant axed a total of 880 people from its corporate workforce. Included in the layoffs were some of 7-Eleven’s top performers.
The way the company went about the layoffs was harrowing. Based on accounts of the affected individuals Business Insider detailed that the night before the dreadful news the group of nearly 900 received an email inviting them to a 7-Eleven corporate headquarters restaurant called Cantina. One by one all 880 entered the Cantina and received the terrible news that they were now out of a job. The group of those laid off included everyone from top performers to newly promoted individuals with kids on the way.
7-Eleven employees, both former and current, who were there on the day the mass layoffs occurred described it as a “devastating” event akin to a “bloodbath.” One employee remarked that the company could have handled the situation a lot better and with a lot more dignity. Sadly, many employees never saw this figurative bloodbath coming and were completely blindsided. And it’s easy to see why. Just last year, in 2021, 7-Eleven experienced what could be described as a landmark year for the convenience titan. One employee revealed that the company paid out bonuses that were close to 200% that year. It’s mindboggling to think that in less than a year’s time the company would go from breaking records to breaking hearts.
Unfortunately, it looks like 7-Eleven was too overzealous for its own good. “Somebody didn’t forecast right and they thought that the good times were just going to keep rolling,” lamented one employee who was able to escape the mass layoff spree. The fact that the layoffs were poorly executed could be an indication of more serious woes for 7-Eleven. Whispers of a hostile takeover echoed through the company’s corporate sector after word got out that an activist investor took a huge stake in 7-Eleven’s parent company Seven & i Holdings. Although, that remains complete conjecture.
7-Eleven has pinned the overarching reason for the layoffs on their acquisition of Speedway. The company asserted that as with any merger or acquisition oftentimes layoffs and reorganization efforts are necessary. “We are just over a year into our integration process following the $21 billion Speedway acquisition and, as with any integration, our approach included assessing our combined organization structure,” said a 7-Eleven spokesperson. They also attributed letting go of 880 top executives in one fell swoop to the fact that they had delayed laying off anyone during the height of the pandemic. Thus, in a sense, they were playing catch up with the number of people they needed to let go. Not that that would inspire much confidence in anyone currently still working for the conglomerate.
Regardless of the company’s reasoning and defense of its actions, 880 people were still left blindsiding and without work. As a result, the morale of those left has been utterly decimated. “They said, ‘This is no longer 7-Eleven, this is 9/11. The people who are left here are just walking around in shock, and there’s still dust in the air,” an employee in the thick of it admitted.
