REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
Macy's is laying off 2,000 corporate jobs.
- Macy's announced a three-year plan to turn around its business on Tuesday. This included the closure of over 100 Macy's stores, its HQ in Cincinnati, and three of its tech offices, impacting hundreds of jobs.
- In a letter emailed to tech employees on Tuesday, the company's CTO Naveen Krishna laid out forthcoming plans for his division.
- Employees that were laid off this week were told that they could apply for new jobs at its offices in Atlanta. The letter confirms that there will be 500 new jobs on offer in Atlanta, meaning that many of these workers won't have the opportunity to stay on.
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Macy's announced a three-year plan to turn around its business on Tuesday, ahead of its annual investor day on February 5.
Dubbed "Polaris," the new plan is aimed at cutting costs and driving growth to generate gross savings of $1.5 billion annually by 2022. To do so, it said it would close over 100 Macy's stores, its HQ in Cincinnati, and three of its tech offices, impacting 2,000 corporate jobs.
In an email sent to tech employees on Tuesday and obtained by Business Insider, the company's CTO Naveen Krishna laid out the forthcoming plans for his department. A spokesperson for Macy's did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for further comment.
"Our goal is to have modern technology tools and platforms with lower total cost of ownership and higher productivity. In the coming months, we will empower our front-line colleagues with tools to make their jobs easier. We will modernize our technology platforms to support growth and profitability initiatives, and simplify infrastructure to reduce costs," he wrote.
He continued: "To get there, we will need to make some significant organizational changes. While this is where we need to go for the business, this is also very difficult because the changes we are making impact our colleagues."
These "organizational changes" include the closing of Macy's tech offices its San Francisco, California, and Lorain, Ohio and the closure any tech operations at its office in Mason, Ohio. These changes have impacted hundreds of workers, who either have the option to apply for a new role at its newly formed tech hub in Atlanta - which is spread between its existing offices in Midtown Atlanta and Johns Creek - or will be laid off.
Up until this week, around 1,250 people were working at Macy's office in San Francisco - 880 of these workers were full-time employees and a further 200, contract workers.
A notice sent to the state of California confirmed that 831 people would be laid-off from the San Francisco office. The impacted jobs included anything from senior management positions to analysts and engineers.
But according to this letter, around 500 new tech jobs will be created in Atlanta, which means that many of these workers simply won't have the opportunity to stay on.
"This expanded technology hub will allow us to leverage great technology talent and streamline development and support accountabilities into a single VP role," Krishna wrote, before laying out the vice presidents that will take responsibility for each tech team.
"Our refined team structure and geographically-consolidated technology hub will position us to better support the organization by eliminating redundancy of work and providing clearer role responsibilities; enabling us to make decisions faster and operate more quickly; and reducing total cost of ownership," he said.
Krishna explained that the Midtown Atlanta office will be home to the "digital platforms, store systems, and cloud platform technology" teams. While the Johns Creek office will house "computer & operations, corporate systems, supply chain, store systems, and common services," he said.
"Support and functional business partners from product, enterprise security, finance, HR, corporate communications, and procurement will also reside in our Atlanta or Johns Creek offices," he added.
The new departments will fall under the leadership of the following vice presidents, according to the letter:
- Michael Manougian, VP of technology operations, data centers, and infrastructure.
- Karen Gray, VP of merchandising and corporate systems.
- Nandu Gandhi, VP of supply chain, algo-retail, and contact center systems.
- Ravid Yeddula, VP of digital platforms, marketing, common services, and store systems.
- Vikaas Chatpar and Joe Tirocke will lead the capital planning and technology governance teams.
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