'It was devastating': Inside the 'bloodbath' at 7-Eleven, where nearly 900 corporate jobs were just cut

• 7-Eleven just laid off at least 880 corporate employees.
• Insider spoke with three verified employees and contractors about the corporate "bloodbath."

The night before the layoffs, hundreds of 7-Eleven corporate employees — including "superstars" who'd shined in recent years, newly promoted up-and-comers, and expecting parents — received meeting invites. Some were asked to show up at the "cantina," an eatery on the ground floor of the company's headquarters in Irving, Texas.

By the time those workers clocked in on Monday, July 18, it was clear that cuts were underway. Employees paced around the office, crying and commiserating. After arriving at their scheduled cantina appointments, they were ushered into offices usually occupied by the human resources department. There, they faced their managers, HR representatives, and a squad of unfamiliar security guards.

One laid-off employee who lost their job that Tuesday recalled to Insider that their manager said, "Take some deep breaths. Everything's going to be fine."

Then, that worker was laid off, along with at least 880 of their colleagues.

The latest news out of 7-Eleven comes at a time when many companies are cutting labor costs through hiring freezes and layoffs after undergoing overly eager expansion during the pandemic.

While the public mostly interacts with store employees on day-to-day pit stops and Slurpee runs, 7-Eleven also employs corporate staff to handle areas like real estate, legal matters, and recruiting franchisees. Insider spoke with three individuals — one current 7-Eleven employee, one laid-off worker, and one laid-off contractor — who each criticized the manner in which the layoffs were conducted, labeling the company's actions as a "bloodbath" that proved both "sloppy" and unnecessarily "devastating." Each person has worked with 7-Eleven for many years, and Insider verified each source's work history.

'Banner year' in 2021

These employees say the mass layoffs didn't seem like a looming threat as recently as last year. 7-Eleven thrived during the pandemic. Shoppers flocked to the company's delivery services, which doubled in 2021. The Franchise Times even reported on 7-Eleven's planned foray into the quick-service restaurant space, with its eight new "Evolution" store laboratories. One employee described 2021 as a "banner year" for 7-Eleven, one in which the company paid out 188% of the bonus allowance for eligible employees.

7-Eleven operates and franchises over 13,000 stores in the US and Canada. The chain has been on an acquisition spree, buying gas station company Speedway for $21 billion in 2020 and over 1,000 Sunoco stations in 2017. Employees say the pandemic-era success brought on a "touchy-feely" and community-focused vibe to the work environment.

"Suddenly, 2022 comes around and we're not making what we budgeted," a current employee said. "Somebody didn't forecast right and they thought that the good times were just going to keep rolling."

Since 7-Eleven is a private company, Insider could not verify comments about business performance.

A spokesperson for 7-Eleven sent a statement to Insider expressing gratitude "for our employees and their dedication to our customers, stores and Franchisees."

"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," the spokesperson said in a statement. "The review was slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic but is now complete and reflects roughly equal reductions between the 7-Eleven and Speedway brands. These decisions have not been made lightly, and we are working to support impacted employees, including providing career transition services. We remain committed to treating impacted and non-impacted employees with dignity and respect."

Signs of trouble

Layoffs at 7-Eleven aren't new. But workers said this round was different. Adding to their concerns about the effect of the acquisitions, another development made employees nervous: As Reuters reported, in May 2021, activist investor ValueAct Capital took a $1.53 billion stake in 7-Eleven's Japanese parent company, Seven & i Holdings, and sent a letter to investors arguing that the company might be primed for a break-up.

But employees told Insider that in retrospect, the writing on the wall may have come in the form of increasingly harshly worded emails from the HR department, first requesting and then demanding that workers return to the office. That was despite the fact that, according to employees, the headquarters lacked enough desks and docking stations for returning workers.

Now, they say those emails were likely a preview to the corporate bloodletting, a means of pushing out remote workers without having to pay severance.

"I've worked for companies years ago that had layoffs and we always knew it was coming," the laid-off employee said. "They would offer you a bonus to stay to a certain date and gave you time to seek out other employment. But with this, we heard nothing. Nothing."

Contractors underwent a markedly different layoff process, however. One laid-off contractor who worked remotely told Insider that their team received no heads-up, and had recently been promised that their jobs were "safe." On the day of the layoffs they found themselves locked out of their online workspaces. They spent hours trying to figure out what was happening. By day's end, they learned that 7-Eleven had cut their jobs.

"7-11 overreached," the contractor said. "And they didn't treat their contract employees with any sort of respect, because they don't view us as employees. Even though we take on a massive amount of the workload, they don't care about us."

Unlike employees, contractors are not entitled to layoff-related compensation, nor are they qualified to have paid-time-off, vacations, or sick pay. Employees receive one week of severance pay for every year worked at the company, along with two months of recruiting services.

'This is 9/11'

Current employees told Insider that resentment over the layoffs could come back to haunt 7-Eleven.

"People were crying and shocked — people who were total superstars last year," one employee said. "Stellar people were getting laid off." The worker said that they had already noticed laid-off team members connecting with competitors like Circle K on LinkedIn.

Many former employees have taken to the message board Layoff.com to vent their frustrations. A laid-off employee told Insider about speaking with a former colleague who had held onto their job.

"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.'"