Skulduggery at the spa Barknots department store in Dublin is a long-established institution with a wide range of products on sale and about 150 staff in total. Bruce Barknot has just taken over the reins as CEO. The store survived the recession and more recently Covid.
However, with increased competition from online shopping the store’s senior management team has had to rethink its strategy in order to secure the store’s future. As part of this strategy, they plan to expand the highly successful Lottie Millbury spa and open it up to a wider range of clients. Currently, the spa is very exclusive and has a 6-month waiting list and while it is profitable, it is felt that opening it up to more people will raise profits significantly.
Larry is the senior facialist. Larry has been with the company for almost a year and was poached from another store bringing many clients with him. He is not happy with the changes which he feels will bring the store down market and feels very stressed by it all. One day he is so stressed he has a sneaky cigarette in the reception area which is noticed by one or two customers who complain. Smoking at work is clearly listed as against the code of conduct.
More seriously however a friend of Bruce’s tells him that while his husband was on a regular visit to the spa, Larry dropped strong hints that he would soon be available for consultations in a new exclusive start-up just off Grafton Street. Worried Bruce gets access to Larry’s work email account and finds evidence that he has been downloading client lists and seems to be in negotiations with the highly exclusive and expensive Clair de Lune brand to set up a new spa which will directly compete with Barknot’s Grafton Street spa and cosmetics sales area.
Bruce is incensed- but also, he sees this as maybe an opportunity. He feels Larry was overrated and has been an expensive hire. There are other equally good facialists that could replace him for much lower salaries. He calls Larry in for a chat. When Larry arrives at the meeting Bruce and another senior manager confront him about the smoking and the client list. Larry is incensed that Bruce has been accessing his email and a heated argument ensues. Larry is frogmarched out of the office in full view of customers.
The next day Larry rings in sick but Bruce orders that he is not to be paid sick pay as he has breached the relationship of trust and confidence (and thus his contract) by stealing customers. Two weeks later as Bruce is dictating a letter of dismissal to be sent to Larry, he gets notice of Larry’s resignation. He is delighted…. the problem has gone away!…Or has it? Around this time Bruce also decides that it’s time to make sure that everyone is pulling their weight as he feels covid and having had the covid payment has resulted in a level of ‘quiet quitting’ among many staff.
He gets a list of the main offenders across the store from line managers, and they are all called in for performance meetings with both Bruce and their relevant line manager. At these meetings, they are all told in no uncertain terms that their performance and attitudes need to change and are all issued with raised targets and final warnings. Some of the sales targets have been set deliberately high to ensure that the ‘dead wood’ won’t meet them and thus will be legitimately terminated within 6 months.
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