Patagonia: Customer service is 300 percent overstaffed

What’s more, Patagonia’s conscientious approach to business has long extended to its employees. Yvon Chouinard, the mystical climber-turned-entrepreneur who founded the company, instituted flexible work hours from the beginning, giving employees the freedom to go out chasing waves or picking up their kids from school—all part of an alternative approach to business that Chouinard outlined in his autobiography. Let my people go surfing.

So it was no surprise that Patagonia’s announcement earlier this week that it was asking a third of its customer service representatives to either relocate to one of seven cities in the U.S. or leave the company made headlines.

Corley Kenna, chief communications officer at Patagonia, said Assets that its customer service team, which has been working entirely remotely since the pandemic, has been overstaffed by 200 to 300% for much of the past year.

“Often, employees only had about two hours of work per day,” Kenna said. “That’s not good for careers. That’s not good for business.”

The company began piloting the “hub” model last year, Kenna said. Assets, This was largely due to the negative feedback received regarding the fully remote access strategy.

“Many (employees) missed many of the important cultural aspects that come with Patagonia and that come with being close to the people. They also worried about career transition and career growth and felt a little isolated as a result.”

Under the new model, 90 of the 255 employees will be asked to relocate within 60 miles of a new “hub” – Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Reno, Dallas, Austin, Chicago or Pittsburgh. Workers were told to make a decision by Friday, and if they decided to move, they had until Sept. 30 to move. The company said it would contribute to the moving costs.

Some employees said the timeframe for decision-making seemed rushed and unreasonable.

“It is a big decision to turn your life upside down and move to another city, and you have to decide that in two or three days?” one employee told the Ventura County Star, which first reported on the decision.

Kenna said she understands the frustration of some employees, but Patagonia was transparent with its employees when it switched to the hub model. Given the company’s overstaffing, the switch could have happened sooner.

“We really wanted to be targeted and make sure this was the right model,” she said Assets“We knew it was going to affect a lot of people, and so we thought very seriously about how we could take care of our people. I think that’s a fair request, but I think that’s our real response.”

Kenna also said there was some flexibility regarding Friday’s deadline.

In 2023, Patagonia was ranked the world’s most respected brand according to an annual Harris Corporate Reputation Survey, climbing from third place the previous year, and falling to eighth place in 2024.

In 2022, Chouinard and his family gave up their profits from the $3 billion company and split the company shares into two new trusts designed to fight climate change. Since the restructuring took effect, according to the New York Times.

“Instead of exploiting natural resources to generate shareholder returns, we are turning shareholder capitalism on its head by making the earth our only shareholder,” wrote Chairman Charles Conn in a Assets Opinion.

But after this week’s decision, the company’s attitude toward its employees has changed, say some of the affected employees.

“I think the company has changed a lot since the sale to Mother Earth,” said one employee Business Insider“Since Yvon left, the company has slowly stopped caring about its employees.”

Despite the restructuring, the Chouinard family continues to maintain strong control over the company.

“It is factually incorrect to say that Yvon has resigned,” said Kenna Assets“He would tell you he’s working harder now than ever before.”

“Over the last three years, we’ve really worked to improve how we communicate with our people and how we care for them,” she said. “And it makes me sad to hear that people think we’re doing less of that, because we’re working really hard to actually do more.”