Best & Worst: Bob Nardelli builds himself a fat pay plan at Home Depot

Why focus on Nardelli - Jeff Immelt hasn't done any better with GE during his 5 years at the helm and gets a TOTAL compensation package greather than Nardelli to say nothing of the notorious GE perks Welsh was so widely critized for accepting. GE traded at a 40+ multiple in 2000' under Welsh - today it's half that. As the writer's is an owner of GE I would think he would be much more upset over Immelt's compensation than Nardelli's - could it be he has other motivations?

Ron: I look forward to your comments on "Immelt's Gentleman's C"
http://gwmt.bloggingstocks.com/2006/09/08/immelts-gentlemans-c/

We are experiencing a rash of grossly overpaid CEOs, who, with the help of their boards of directors and compensation committees, are raiding corporate coffers and stealing from their stockholders at an unprecedented rate. Astockholder revolt seems like the only way to stop the theives.

Home Depot was also once a great place to work and HD took care of its' employees... not since Mr Nardelli was given the reins...morale can't get any lower and try to find some help while shopping there... he has gutted the company of its' most valuable asset-knowledgable employees

I have been with The Home Depot For 12 yrs now. I joined this wonderful company when Bernie and Arthur ran the show, Everyone back then couldn't wait to get to work in the morning. Now that Mr. Nardeli is at the helm, associates volunteer to cut hours just to get out of there. Home Depot actually offers associates up to $1000.00 in cash to turn in other associates for stealing. As a long time employee I didn't need anyone offering me anything to stop someone from stealing from my store, but this has created a terrible atmosphere where associates work in the same building, but they don't work together anymore. We always had job security, now we have to look over our shoulder to see if we have a job tomorrow! Merrit badges...gone! The spirit of being original...gone! being a thinker which breeds creativity....gone! Raises....gone! Great assistant managers....gone! I haven't seen a raise in 5 yrs because I'm considered salary capped, but he brings home $30 million? My stock was my future, now it's toilet paper! Now that Tom Taylor, Home Depots last hope, is gone, there simply is no future!

Hang in there folks. Mr. Nardelli is working toward company growth, along with raising the spirits of the Home Depot faithful. The positive spirit of The Home Depot lies within the heart of the dedicated associate. There are many that strive to become great people and great leaders within the company. The focus shall not be placed on the CEO, but on the associate in the mirror who desires to make a change to his or her immediate surroundings, then presses forward to flood that positive change to another store, and another, and another. One person can change thousands with positive influence. Is it you? Let it be you, that desires to lead with a shining "Home Depot" smile.

HOME DEPOT SUCKS NOW BIG TIME

Just take a look at his croonies on the board of directors, it includes Larry Johnston another one of GE's Golden boys. Larry was also grossly overpaid by Albertsons. Supervalue could not get him out the door fast enough!!The only thing they learned from Jack Welch was how to make a great contract for themselves regardless of performance. When all the directors are part of the "Good Old Boy Network" the shareholders all get the shaft while these boys walk away with millions. Due diligence means nothing to these boards.

What kind of mindless propaganda is Jacky touting? Is she Nardelli's personal assistant or something? I work for HD too and I can tell you that everything said by Ron and Bob is absolutely true. HD is becoming increasingly worse in employee relations. Raises are almost non-existent. Not only do we receive only .25 a year, but that .25 goes to everyone, regardless of performance. If an employee is deemed less valuable in terms of performance, they MAY receive as low as .22 cents instead of .25, a difference hardly worth noting. In addition, we stopped receiving regular 10% coupons and still don't get an employee discount. We didn't even receive HD giftcards for Xmas this year! HD also recently abolished their tuition reimbursement plan to all part timers and cut the payouts to everyone else. The overall morale is in the gutter and the managers consistently push employees deeper and deeper with their "bleed orange" attitude. They expect us to give 110% and yet they treat us like trash? HA! Then they wonder why there are so many customer service complaints. Here's a little tip for HD---CHARITY STARTS AT HOME.

Shoping at Home Depot since Nardelli arrived has been a series of steadily declining customer service. I knew there was going to be trouble on the horizon when the store started carrying more GE products after Nardelli arrived, after jetisonning other quality products.

The attitude of on site staff and management is poor, and after reading the comments on this site I now understand why. Home Depot in the early days was a great place to shop, staffed by eager enthusiastic workers who treated you as if you owned the company. Not any more. Inventory is frequently out of stock, the plumbing repair parts carried are of the lowest possible quality, junk really, 50 foot extension cords are now 40 foot cords, you can't find a grade one board anywhere in the store, the lumber has more twists than a roller coaster.
Flash in packaging exteriors takes the place of quality products. The stores are dirty, the floors in bad shape, and there is dust everywhere. Customer service is non existant. Good PR-forget it!!

Lowes is making tremendous inroads because they have better inventory, higher quality products, cleaner stores, and the employees have a better attitude. Some day Home Depot will be a case study for a smart MBA candidate on how to kill a winning company in five years or less. Competition isn't killing Home Depot, it is imploding from within due to corporate management who do not understand this business, and don't give a hoot about customers or quality.

HD stock down 40%, IS THAT WHY HD IS MOVING TO CHINA?

Home Depot// I have stock in this company. I was an employee with Home Depot for 8 years...I started at $11.00 in 1996 and left at $13.40 8 years later. The rate of pay is showed as a comparision to other retail jobs, the pay is not what moves me...It's the respect of the company that I was given during the early days of my employment.It was there...It WAS a great place to work. Toward the end of my 8 years it went into the toilet. Respect left...customer service left, knowledge of the trades left, amount of sales people on the floor left, the only thing that increased is the work load...the managers gave you so many tasks that u were to fail no matter what you did..they planned for you to fail..so that they could say.." he did not complete his tasks" now..mind you..you are on the sales floor...helping people..but you did not do ur assinged tasks therefore you were punished with a baD WRITE UP...Management gave you a set of tasks that you could not do in the said time limit if the store was closed....but it was open...I am not making this stuff up...I like to work..its a honor to have a job in the country..born here in USA and proud of it. I am 58, not a kid with a poor attitude. Home depot is not respected like it once was..It is a horrible place to work. Ask any former employee that left there in the last few years. I worked there 8 years. I know what I am speaking of...!!! Nardelli get 30 mill...thats just great.

Home depot....not what it once was...customer service...does not exist..it sure did once..no more..just give me ur $ and get out..

I whole-heartedly agree with Ronald, Nick, Bob and Thomas (Scott Jacky must have a vested interest with Bob Nardelli or doesn't know how it used to be). I used to work for HD, along with my husband and many family members that we "recruited" when it was the "Bernie and Arthur" Home Depot. I absolutely loved working there! There was always a sense of family, for your own and Home Depot. The Home Depot family was my second family and they treated their employees with high regard and value, and we reciprocated by loving our job and our customers. Customers always came first and we believed in teamwork. I used to train new employees and then towards the end of my employment, I realized it was hard to speak of family, teamwork and unity when clearly it wasn't coming from the higher ups. As soon as they got Nardelli, things started to change. My husband and I would have been "lifer's" but we started to notice that the company started to care less about their employees and more about the bottom line. We were both key-carrying DH's(basically, we did what the assistants did, without Home Depot having to compensate our pay or give us bonuses-we were supposed to be ever thankful for the opportunity)and I grew resentful that I was bleeding orange for a company that started taking away more and more from their employees but constantly wanting more and more. We noticed that veterans were getting fired for sometimes bogus reasons and they were replaced with younger faces with a lot less experience for half the pay. We witnessed first hand, the difference in the Christmas parties. What started as beautiful, lavish meals, music and prizes at hotel banquet rooms, turned into closing time potlucks (we literally ate on upside buckets in the lumber department). We were told to only schedule one associate in our departments, even when we would repeatedly ask for more because we knew it would be busy. But we were told, based on the "forcast" it just wasn't needed. Tell that to the angry customers that would walk out of the store because it took them 20 minutes to find help. Explain to me Mr. Nardelli, when I had people in my face, fuming mad,telling me what a pathetic joke Home Depot was turning into (as if it was my fault), why you would not value those employees who gave and continues to give you their all. Thankfully, we've left the company, but I still know a lot of employees that feel the same way, but need their jobs to support their families. I miss Bernie and Arthur... and I do blame Bob Nardelli, because while he was stripping everything away from his employess, saying there was just not enough funding...he sure got paid!

I whole-heartedly agree with Ronald, Nick, Bob and Thomas and Lisa. I am currently a 16 year employee at the Corporate Offices. I have been a supervisor in merchandising payables and a merchant assistant. And yes Lisa is currect about the Christmas Parties, we used to have large ones at the big ballrooms downtown Atlanta and then it was moved to the Galleria, but not any more, it is now potluck. Christmas 2005 and 2006 our Christmas Present from Bob is a 20% discount at the store. This is SO TACKY! I thought surely someone would of told him that last year so that he would not repeat it this year. We used to get Kroger gift certificates and we used to get a free turkey at Thanksgiving, he took that away also. Funny, we had 135 stores and BIG nice parties, now we have 2,000 stores and we get potluck?!?? (I started working there when there was only 135 stores)

FACT: May of 2005 he fired ALL MERCHANTS (sales reps) at Corporate. They had to reapply for their jobs. This made alot of them angry, and it hurt moral, some of the good ones quit. But the iceing on the cake was the same month BOB Nardelli was in Texas accepting an Award for Retailer of the YEAR??!!??? You have GOT to be kidding! I was a merchant assistant at the time.

Also during this time he turned off ALL SKU's/Products so NO ONE, NO STORES could place an order for product. The BIG kicker is....he did NOT tell us on the "Merchandising Team" Even my Vice President had no clue what was going on when we came into work one morning with over 2,000 stores calling and emailing what the ___blank is going on??!!?? He said we had to much inventory, so he just turned them all OFF. We spent the next two weeks going thru reports and trying to justifiy turning them back on! What a WASTE of time management! What a sneaky, underhand and behind our back move! Image the stores confusion? and the "egg on our faces" at corporate. Imagine the vendors....coming in that day and no purchase orders, so no trucks move, heck they thought our system had broken down! lol I have spent years building a reputation with my 2,000 stores and thousands of vendors, he just busted my reputation with ONE move.....crazy eh?

FACT: He closed all of our Buying Offices (BYO's) around the same time frame, same year, all at the same time! These BYO's was my eyes and my ears out in the field. I could deligate work out to them, and now they are gone??!?? Now you have 2,000 stores not knowing who to call if they need "corporate" help, not to mention over 6,000 vendors. My email was full ever day and could not accept any new emails, so my phone would ring all day long. The 1-800 number Bob had set up for the stores to call (was and is) still staffed by Temps that have to learn 4 departments, heck I have been here 16 years and learning ONE department is enough. I truely feel sorry for the stores when they call "corporate" for help.

The above mentioned people are also correct on pay increases. Pay increases are very very low.

Alot of our departments are now moved to India. Our old timers have to reapply for a job, some made it, some did not.

I am also sad to see Tom Taylor go.

I could go on....but it is all just so sad.

I truely luved going to work when Bernie and Arthur was there. I still love Home Depot, but it is a very sad love.

I will be there tomorrow trying to hold the broken pieces together.

I still have hope.

I was a 15 year associate with the Home Depot until May of 06. I was a 10 year assistant store manager up until the time I decided it was time to leave in May of 06.The reason I left,Bob Nardelli. Yes, we can all remember the mentoring and coaching we received by our predecessors,Bernie Marcus and Aurthur Blank,and the many great high brass and terrific district managers and store managers. They all "walked the talk." Unfortunately Mr. Nardelli does not "walk the talk." Which means that the brass under Bob does the same. What happened to out once great company? The Home Depot Wheel of Values went right out the door along with his cummulative 300 million dollars during the past 5 1/2 years. Glutney,greed and a puppet regime have taken over.I just could not understand how a C.E.O. can recieve such incredible stock options during the past 5 years when my options have been worth next to nothing since I started receiving them back in "97."I think that backdating stock options is kind of against the S.E.C. and as well against the law. The days of Home Depot representing the great Dow 30 will soon be comming to and end. We can all thank Mr. Nardelli and all of the other Regional Managers,Divisional Presidents, Merchandising V.P.'s, and especially our Board of Directors who would not stand up against Bob to do what was right for our,the employees and the share holders,company. The # 1 job description for a c.e.o. of a company is to provide shareholder value. I don't think that a 40% reduction in shareholder value during the past 5 years is a valid piece of performance. Bob needs to be put on a 90 day improve or remove. Hopefully time will dictate appropriate action. I think that it would be a great idea to have this company that is holding over 1 million shares of Home Depot stock to have multiple representation on the board of directors. Remember,you have to look at the presentation from the eyes of the customer. Thank You.

Fuuny, I was surfing th net looking to validate my gut feeling and frustration with the HD store in my area, and lo and behold, seems it's all true!
I have grown increasingly frustrated with shopping at HD! I received a stack of gift cards for the store as wedding and Christmas gifts, but I don't want to go through the struggle to use them... My most recent experience with the store was to buy a FEW COMMON plumbing items to complete a shower remodel; suffice it to say that I found NONE - not one - of the items on my list. There was a time when you could nearly build a whole house with supplies from HD; now I can't even find the supplies to finish a simple project - how sad!
Seems ever since they undertook the task of creating a "friendlier" store atmosphere, they managed to toss out all the important items. Now they have nice, big, bright and EMPTY stores.
I've asked everyone I know not to waste their time and money on gift cards from that store anymore.

I was an employee for the Home Depot for 14 long years. I started at $6 an hour in 1991 and caught some nice breaks and finished with $17.25 when I quit. I was stunned and saddened to see Bernie and Arthur go. I knew things were gonna get worse. We actually loved coming in to work. I remember in orientation class our instructor said," who wants to be a millionaire?" No joke thats what he said. Do a good job and invest in the company, you are all part owners here, they said. It was great for a long time. Teamwork,enthusiasm, a big sense of ownership. It was all very nice while it lasted. I met Bernie on day while he was touring our store in Atlanta. His charisma was overwhelming!! I felt personally thanked for being a hard worker and found ways to improve my own performance. Then I began to see the "good ole' boy" system take effect. The wrong people being promoted for the wrong reasons. But still I loved my job and enjoyed interacting with my customers. Bob "the robber" (as we all called him) Nardelli entrance into our family was not welcomed at all. I knew he got blown off by Jack Welch at GE and we all thought, "great now we have to pay for it" and pay for it we did. The merit badges went away. The moral in the stores began to erode. Managers had a hard time explaining to employees why they were not geting a raise this year after so many years of steady and well earned compensation. All the pep rallies we had once a month were cancelled. The huge Christmas parties in nice hotels were taken away and since held inside the very stores we worked in every day. WOOHoo!! They stopped hiring employees and would not replace the ones who quit in dusgust. Every proxy statement I got I voted "against" everything the company suggested I support. They became more interested in their own money. I stopped buying stocks in the company because it became worthless and has not split in years. This is whats happening in corporate America today. Employees pour their guts into a job just to see it fall apart. It disgusted me to see Robert Nardelli waiting in victory lane for Tony Stewart after a race, and to see him in the audience at every black tie affair President Bush held. He was never my CEO...and he walks away with $210 million dollars? Severance package my ass, this is theft!

Do not shop at HD any more, there is no body to ask when you are looking for something. And when you find some one they don't know where it is.
Why do companys hire CEO's that are failures in other company's and give them such high salares and bring their loser friends into the company and bring down the company?

All the comments about HD are correct and acccurate. I was terminated 3 days after my 5 year anniversary. I had made the biggest error of all I had reported an internal theft ring to corporate. One day in store I spotted a woman removing merchandise on a flat bed going out front door. I mentioned it to management and latter that day I was terminated by store manager for calling him a liar. 6 weeks latter I found out woman was live in girl friend of store manager. She was caught at another store stealing.

Management was not interested in increasing sales with add ons. Under staffed major departments kitchen design, carpeting, and millwork custom order desk. This lead to customer's being very unhappy with lack of customer service.

I would close a $6,500 carpet sale and then have customer stand in line for over 30 minutes to pay for custom order at service desk. Carpet expediters would not take calls from customers till after 10AM and store management supportted them.

The failure to follow up with customers on their orders and return phone calls caused customers to not return to HD for any other large orders.

I know of 2 assistant managers that bought kitchen cabinets from Lowes because they did not want to be treated like a customer at HD. That is why sales went down and operational costs increased with more labor being put into completing orders for customers.

Lowes has the base of an excellant customer service team in place in most store. If you check with the experienced staff, you will find X hd employees working at Lowes.

Many of the old timers at HD predicted after 1 year working under Bob,that he would run HD down and lose stock value becaused of his lack of knowledge of the DIY business.

Many of the original employees wondered if Bob's actions were deliberate attempt to cause stock to go down or just plain stupidity.

The golden parachute for Bob was not earned by him. It is a reward for stupidity.