Theyve got rid of the wrong person

[bazwillrun]

Marks & Spencer Group PLC said fashion chief Kate Bostock would leave the company following the biggest fall in quarterly sales in the division since 2008.

Surely its the HR, sorry personnel people that hired her that should go for making such a massive rickett

[sandyRoe]

M&S is relatively expensive. Maybe in these straightened times the customers are buying in places like Primark?

[craft1948]

That would be partly due to the massive drop in quality of M&S clothes.

[sunny-dave]

Pants ... not what they were ...

[Bazile]

Why should the HR people be the ones to go ?
Persumably she was hired based on her previous performance - if she has not performed well in this appointment , then you can hardly blame it on someone else

[Davethedog]

Always annoys me things like this, they still made a profit and we are in hard times. As Sandy says lots of people are counting the pennies and Primarks profits are through the roof.

[bazwillrun]

"You can't expect the hirers and firers to be held responsible for how any member of staff performs. "

so where does the buck stop then ?

[Bazile]

The buck stops with her - which is why she is leaving

[bednobs]

seems quite unlikely to me that she was interviewed and offered the job by the HR dept. That's not what happens where i work - HR do all the paperwork etc once the person has been employed.

[smurfchops]

I think M&S have expanded too much. They took over a closed Littlewoods store near me, purely for menswear and household, when they had perfectly adequate space in their original store nearby. There are far too many rails of old fashioned items of women's clothes, a lot of older women are much trendier now and would rather go to Primark for fun stuff at a good price. I would love to know, what do they do with all their unsold stock at the end of the season? I have noticed that our local (very large) M&S is very quiet now, the queues at the tills are minimal, they are just not selling, and have far too much stock. Concentrate on more trendy fashion for young and old alike at fair prices, as well as for mature women, where there is too much bright snazzy colour (I think the majority of older women apart from the trendy ones, would tend to wear clothes that are conservative and help them blend into the background, less Crimplene and more cotton, no creases down the front of the trousers) and some things are really revolting. Put me in there, I will show them how to do it !!

[mike11111]

Not quite sure what a rickett is, but must applaud the use of the word "personnel" rather than the ghastly "HR".

[Bazile]

''...Put me in there, I will show them how to do it !! ''

I'll have a word with the HR department

[jomifl]

At least you know people have really suffered to make Primark's products. The same cannot be said of M&S.

[bazwillrun]

Rickett is just a term for a cockup

and as for HR, I've always laughed at that name, I remember when a company I used to work for ages ago changed the dept name from Personnel to HR, everybody was peeing themselves

Makes them feel better about themselves and more important I suppose

[bazwillrun]

"Ridiculous notion that someone else should take the blame if you can't do your job"

dont be absurd, why then do people expect government ministers to resign when a departmental lacky makes a cock up

[bagpuss63]

Smurfchops-heard they now do a range of cheap food. I havent been in to look myself, but I don't know why they bothered. You can get brand names on offers in supermarkets, and I agree about the clothes. Havent got even undies from there for years

[bednobs]

again baz, have you ever had a job where the interviewing and hiring decisions were carried out by the personnel department? Usually jobs at this level the person in charge chooses their team surely?

[ladybirder]

So it could be that Kate Bostock was the only failure out of how many people that the Personnel department hired? So is it 100 successes and one failure and you're out, or only 10 successes ...?
And anyway I agree that at that level it isn't the PD who do the hiring.