Lewis employees fear losing jobs

ONGWEDIVA – Sixty-two employees of Lewis Stores in Namibia fear losing their jobs, as reaching monthly targets has become increasingly difficult.

Northern sales staff at Lewis are complaining of being threatened to resign from their permanent position to become outside agents after failing to meet monthly targets.

According to one of the employees, who spoke under anonymity, staff are being forced to meet the monthly target, which is too high in a struggling economy.

“Our company has requested each employee to reach 90% each month. We are pleading from the company to at least lower it to 50% or 70%,” she requested.

She said, this month, they have received a letter, indicating that about 33 employees are going for a poor performance hearing, which may lead to them losing their job this month.

Approached for comment, Lewis’ northern regional manager Jacks Kandjoromba refused to comment on the matter.

“I am a just normal employee like other employees. I don’t recruit, neither do I chase people. It is wise to call the head office,” he said.

Lewis stores human resources manager Sammy Janser, however, said he is not allowed to speak to the media, so he cannot answer the questions brought to his attention.

“All I can say is what you have fed with are all lies. There is nothing like that,” he added.

“Twenty-nine employees are on red warning, waiting for hearings in the coming month,” noted the anonymous employee.

She added they are being threatened to resign from their permanent position to become outside agents before the hearing is conducted.

Another employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it is an ongoing situation, whereby Lewis is being inconsiderate and only prioritises making its profit while exploiting employees.

“Lewis is trying to fire employees behind closed doors, instead of retrenching – the reason they don’t want to give remuneration but still recruit new employees with less experience in the industry, which is less costly to the company, so they won’t be able to perform and reach the target and again get fired before becoming costly to the company,” she complained.

They further said some branches are overcrowded by salespeople, and they are not abiding by their basic company norms of 25 calls per day.

The issue has become irritating to the customers, as they receive calls three to four times from Lewis every day.

“Now, we call upon the company to review their company policies of dismissing poor performance employees; everyone wants to sell but the economy now is very bad, and business is not going well as it used to be,” employees appealed.