After widespread controversy involving GameStop’s “Circle of Life” program, a report claims that the retailer is about to introduce changes that’ll, in theory, relieve some of the pressure that its employees found themselves under.
In a nutshell: the program underwent some changes recently, which put additional pressure on employees to prioritize used game sales as opposed to new. As a result, the company was accused of misleading customers while its employees allege that they felt threatened if they didn’t meet the targets set for them. If you want to go over the previous reports for context, head over here.
Now, some company managers have contacted Kotaku (who was behind the initial reports as well), stating that GameStop will no longer be monitoring individual performances under the program. Instead, each store will now be given overall targets. The publication writes:
Until now, a COL score had been based on four metrics: 1) pre-owned sales, 2) trade-ins, 3) pre-orders, and 4) rewards cards. Now, GameStop is adding a fifth metric: new sales, which will track each store’s sales numbers against their goals. This will—at least in theory—prevent employees from being punished for selling new games, as they had been in the past.
We’ve learned that the aforementioned changes haven’t been implemented yet but store managers were informed Friday afternoon that GameStop will begin rolling them out next week.
Some employees have expressed their relief to Kotaku via emails, with one noting that it’ll “eliminate a lot of the sleaze and take a lot of pressure off everyone.”
[Source: Kotaku]
