Sunstar could have become a strong, solid medium-sized company with a great workplace. However years of mismanagement have led to poor strategy, a toxic culture, slow sales, and high turnover. The business has been under-invested in for years, making it especially vulnerable as new, larger competitors enter GUM’s major categories. Despite some senior management turnover, Sunstar remains a hugely hierarchical organization with no empowerment and has extremely slow decision-making, limited strategic planning, a weak future as new competitors enter, poor teamwork across functions and a toxic blame culture. Senior management has understood the business challenges and cultural issues for years and years but has time and time again chosen inaction. A desire for meaningful change does not exist and many senior leaders have been at Sunstar so long, they lack understanding of what defines a great company with a vibrant culture. Employees are not valued and the better ones receive more work with no financial incentives and then eventually leave. Human resources leadership is particularly poor, showing no concern whatsoever for training, leadership development, or organizational culture. Professional office staff are treated like hourly unskilled labor and people decisions appear to be based on minimization of payroll costs and preservation of existing senior management roles.
