Angela Ahrendts Says She Views Apple Store Staff as 'Executives'

[MacRumors]

Angela Ahrendts spoke yesterday to Fast Company about her first two years as Apple's retail chief and her strategy to improve the company's customer experience at its global chain of retail stores.

In an interview titled "Apple's Angela Ahrendts On What It Takes To Make Change Inside A Successful Business," the Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores explains that, in her first six months at Apple, she travelled to 40 different markets and met with retail leaders to learn about how stores were "uniting people and getting them to collaborate."

When asked if Apple Store staff feel the same pride working for the company as Cupertino employees do, Ahrendts boasted about the company's 81% retention rate in 2015:

We just ended the year with the highest retention rates we’ve ever had: 81%. And the feedback [from Apple Store employees is that it’s] because they feel connected. They feel like one Apple. They don’t feel like they’re just somebody over here working with customers. I don’t see them as retail employees. I see them as executives in the company who are touching the customers with the products that Jony Ive and the team took years to build. Somebody has to deliver it to the customer in a wonderful way.

Ahrendts goes on to explain that her experience at Apple has taught her just how strong the culture is within the company, which was "built to change people's lives", and that the same core value is being continued by Apple's current CEO Tim Cook:

That foundation, that service mentality, that drive to continue to change lives — that is a core value in the company. And Tim Cook has added his on: He says it's also our responsibility to leave it better than we found it. So you have these two amazing pillars and a culture built around that. It's the same in retail and in Cupertino. That is the underlying mission, and how could you know that unless you're inside? But it is deeper than you would ever imagine.

Apple has aggressively expanded in China under Ahrendts' retail leadership, with stores opening last year in Chongqing, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Nanjing and Tianjin, and several more on the way throughout 2016.

In an interview for 60 Minutes late last year, Ahrendts spoke about how Apple is continually refining new designs for its stores worldwide to achieve a common "wow" factor, so that customers are "transfixed" from the moment they walk through the doors.

Ahrendts officially joined Apple in mid-2014 to replace former SVP of Retail John Browett, who was fired from the company a year and a half earlier. Previously CEO of hugely successful UK fashion retailer Burberry, she is currently Apple's highest paid executive, according to a recent regulatory filing.

Read more of the Fast Company interview with Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts here.

Article Link: Angela Ahrendts Says She Views Apple Store Staff as 'Executives'

 

[xDKP]

Will she start paying them as Executives as well? Count me in then...

 

[bbeagle]

Maybe they should get stock options like the 'real' executives?

 

[Lemon Mac]

Bless. What an angel.

 

[samcraig]

Executives that get their bags searched every shift

 

[tkermit]

They feel like one Apple. They don't feel like they're just somebody over here working with customers. I don't see them as retail employees. I see them as executives in the company who are touching the customers with the products that Jony Ive and the team took years to build. Somebody has to deliver it to the customer in a wonderful way.

Hard to believe she said that with a straight face.

 

[CrAkD]

Maybe they should get stock options like the 'real' executives?

They do.

 

[Blackstick]

That's a lovely statement from somebody with $400M in the bank... I was a Genius in the trenches for 7 years. I loved being a genius, but the moment I left my salary doubled and nobody searches my bag (gotta love corporate IT).

 

[Davey84jones]

She didn't come to the store I worked in. In three years I was underpaid, harassed by management, made to feel unlinked and confused, all the while having three years running of the highest store sales and customer satisfaction numbers. I was by no means treated as or viewed as an executive, nor compensated as one. I finally left to work closer to home, reasonable hours, and in an environment where my work and helpfulness is worthwhile and appreciated. None of this happened at an Apple Store.

 

[cdmoore74]

I just looked up the definition.

"a person or group of persons having administrative or supervisory authority in an organization. 2. the person or persons in whom the supreme executive power of a government is vested. 3. the executivebranch of a government."

Clearly she is throwing words around to make the company look better.

 

[hufflematt]

So, let's recap.

The piece is titled, "What it takes to make change inside a successful business."

What Ahrendts actually says is. "An amazing culture was already built."

There is no description of any change. I'm not seeing her contribution here.

Oh, but she's opened some shops in China. Maybe half a dozen. Gosh.

Yup, she's definitely worth every cent of the one hundred million dollars Apple has thrown at her.

 

[Bubba Satori]

A Hallmark moment with some Apple "executives".

 

[hufflematt]

I've found a transcript of one of the conversations she had with a store employee, during her listening exercise.

"Hi. I'm Angela. I literally earn over five thousand times what you do per year. I'm your boss and I could have you fired in an instant. Tell me about how you love working at Apple and feel really connected to the unimaginably wealthy people at the top of the company."

 

[aajeevlin]

Nothing against her, this is typical PR stuff all over the place. Mostly talk, very little substance. Even if you somehow managed to find a way to ask her about this, she will simply throw similar stuff back at you.

 

[hufflematt]

Incidentally, how is opening half a dozen stores in China "aggressive expansion"?

In the vastly smaller UK alone, supermarket Aldi applied for planning permission to open 93 new stores last year.

 

[lars666]

They do.

Suuuuure they do. What are you smoking?!

 

[Kaibelf]

She didn't come to the store I worked in. In three years I was underpaid, harassed by management, made to feel unlinked and confused, all the while having three years running of the highest store sales and customer satisfaction numbers. I was by no means treated as or viewed as an executive, nor compensated as one. I finally left to work closer to home, reasonable hours, and in an environment where my work and helpfulness is worthwhile and appreciated. None of this happened at an Apple Store.

Exactly what kind of pay did you think you were worth? What kind of harassment? What do you define as "reasonable hours"? Usually when I see posts like this it turns out to be people who want to make 50k on a 20 hour work week in retail.

 

[hufflematt]

Suuuuure they do. What are you smoking?!

Didn't they get a super-generous not-quite-a-whole-year's subscription to Apple Music?

 

[Brookzy]

These interviews are just grating. It's pathetic that Apple can just choose a media outlet they want and use them as their mouthpiece.

Perhaps the only exceptions are the BBC and the Guardian, but both miss the point, going for usually unfounded allegations about the supply chain.

I want to see an interview with questions like "How do you feel earning 5,000 times the salary of a store worker?", "How do you think product launches have gone since you joined Apple?" or even "How do your stores leave the world better than you found it?"

Not this connectedness crap.

 

[0098386]

Incidentally, how is opening half a dozen stores in China "aggressive expansion"?

In the vastly smaller UK alone, supermarket Aldi applied for planning permission to open 93 new stores last year.

And Aldi are actually great to their employees too. I mean, I doubt they're treated like executives like they are at Apple, but I've only heard good things about Aldi.

(Good place for deli meats and continental drinks)

 

[naeS1Sean]

A Hallmark moment with some Apple "executives".

Exactly...

 

[0098386]

These interviews are just grating. It's pathetic that Apple can just choose a media outlet they want and use them as their mouthpiece.

Perhaps the only exceptions are the BBC and the Guardian, but both miss the point, going for usually unfounded allegations about the supply chain.

I want to see an interview with questions like "How do you feel earning 5,000 times the salary of a store worker?", "How do you think product launches have gone since you joined Apple?" or even "How do your stores leave the world better than you found it?"

Not this connectedness crap.

I'd love to see a Paxman interview with her.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

They do.

I'm not sure that contributing up to 10% of your pay towards buying discounted shares twice a year is considered 'stock options' by most.

 

[Mums]

Exactly what kind of pay did you think you were worth? What kind of harassment? What do you define as "reasonable hours"? Usually when I see posts like this it turns out to be people who want to make 50k on a 20 hour work week in retail.

Kaibelf to Angela's rescue. Surprised?

 

[realeric]

That was the reason why Apple store employees didn't help us well. They are executives with slaves' pay and we are slaves with executives' equipment?