James Daunt talks about staff departures and defends the process.
At the end of the piece, in a comment, one of the outgoing store managers, who chose not to participate in the assessment process says this:
As one of the 66 who chose to leave, yes, there were plenty of highly experienced mangers whose departure was a massive shock for Waterstones, but after such a long service, the pay offs were too good to say no to. I left with no malice or hard feeling and had an incredible 15 years there, and am now grateful for the financial opportunity to seek pastures new. James is right, there are a lot of poor managers out there, and the process was indeed as fair as could be. In the short term there will be chaos as too many good people chose to leave, but in the long term it was absolutely the right thing to do. Too many people in and outside the business forget that it is not business as usual – Alexander Mamut bought a bankrupt company and if it is to survive, it has to change, radically.
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/daunt-staff-departures-no-one-has-enjoyed-process.html
