By Michelle Baker
Last week, around 90 Patagonia employees across the country were given two choices—move to a newly approved Patagonia “hub” city, or be laid off. They had just 72 hours to decide.
The outdoor clothing company, known for its progressive stance on environmental protections and, in recent years, making headlines for selling the company to “Mother Earth,” is being criticized for its handling of the latest round of layoffs.
On Tuesday, June 25, employees in the customer service department, known as customer experience (CX), received a text message and an email to inform them that a “town hall” meeting would be happening in 30 minutes. According to an employee who asked to remain anonymous, the department-specific online meeting lasted about 15 minutes, and unlike in other meetings, the chat function was turned off. The RGJ first reported about the situation.
“People were unable to directly comment,” the employee said.
During that call and in a follow-up email, Patagonia management said the fully remote customer service department was overstaffed. The company would be moving to a hub model—anyone who was not living within 60 miles of one of the hub cities, and within the state of that hub city, would be required to relocate, with financial assistance from the company, to keep their jobs.
Patagonia’s hub cities model has been piloted for about a year with seven hubs: Austin and Dallas, Texas, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Reno.
Patagonia’s Reno distribution center has more than 850 employees in wholesale, repairs and the CX leadership team. Some of those people live in Truckee or on the California side of Lake Tahoe, within 60 miles of the Reno hub but across the state line.
The alternative to relocating would be to accept a layoff and a severance package. Employees who already live within the region of a hub city were not given this same offer.
Within a few hours of that meeting, the company shut off the work computers used by the 90 employees who were affected by the hub model changes, the employee said. They were given three days to make a decision.
According to Patagonia spokesperson Gin Ando, the move to transition the department to the hub model was motivated by feedback from CX employees who said they would feel closer to their coworkers, community and the company if there were a physical location for their workplace. Previously, the CX team has been advertised as fully remote, even after other departments came back into the office after the COVID-19 pandemic halted all in-person work.
Ando said this move is not to be mistaken as a return to the office, however.
An employee who spoke to This Is Reno said they agreed that the pandemic dismantled the thriving work culture that once existed at Patagonia and they believe the company has good intentions in establishing the hub model to remedy the issue.
“These 90 people didn’t deserve this, though,” the employee said. “There was a way to recover the culture and keep everyone on board, but the new director put every operations manager on a corporate path and it slowly destroyed the structure.”
According to the source, during the hub city pilot program, the company introduced in-person activities and events, and management had many conversations about job security regardless of an employee’s location.
“I live 20 minutes from the Patagonia corporate offices but I do not get to keep my job!”
Employees reported feeling secure in their jobs, with management being transparent about the company making less profit than in previous years. Still, an employee said in the most recent town hall meetings staff were assured that if cuts needed to happen, management indicated that nothing would come out of employee bonuses, but would instead be taken from smaller employee perks like DoorDash gift cards.
But in last Tuesday’s CX town hall meeting, an employee said upper management made it clear that they “couldn’t continue” with the business this way. They said the CX department has been overstaffed by 200-300% for 10 months out of the year, a stat confirmed by the company.
Ando said the combination of low attrition rates and the high retention rate of CX employees has made it difficult to address other department needs, “like increasing the number of bilingual representatives and more comprehensive geographic coverage—especially as storms and other disasters cut power to large swaths of the country.”
As for the 90 employees currently facing layoffs, the company has offered up to $4,000 for moving expenses and five paid days off for those who are willing to relocate to a hub city by Sept. 30. Alternatively, the severance package is one of two options: 13 weeks of pay or two weeks of pay per year of employment with the company, whichever is more. The severance package also offers a year’s worth of compensation for medical insurance, bonuses and other benefits they would have earned.
In March 2024, Reno’s Patagonia retail store became the first store in the country to unionize, joining United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 711. The group took to social media on Friday, offering solidarity to those who the layoffs had impacted.
“Tired of management making changes without you? You might need a union!” the post said.
The department’s employees who live in or near Ventura, California, where the company’s headquarters are located were also included in the layoffs.
“I have worked for Patagonia for eight years and was fired today with approximately 90 other folks because they have decided we need to live in certain hub areas,” Shannon Carroll, posted on Instagram last week. “I live 20 minutes from the Patagonia corporate offices but I do not get to keep my job!” she said.
“They allowed us to be overstaffed for years and now 90 innocent people, many with families who relied on their health insurance, are without a job,” one employee said.
