Hours at Kroger are still being cut

[snugglegirl05]

My co-workers and I are frustrated at Kroger giving us 15 hours a week when we need much more than that.

I and one of my co-workers told the Front Line Manager who makes the schedule a couple of weeks ago that both of us need to be continuously working as many hours as possible every week. Last week both of us worked 20 hours, but this week our hours were cut to 15. We have been working there since the end of April. She asked one of the Assistant Managers why this is happening, and he told her to speak to the Front Line Manager about this. She then told him that she will have to get another job.

According to the Store Manager at that location, he reads every complaint that this location receives. He also reads every survey that this location receives. I am wondering if our reduction in hours is due to negative feedback.

I dealt with an upset customer yesterday...

She was upset because one of the two small cakes she got from the bakery, which I put in the same bag... the two candles on that cake fell off. She told me that I should have put each cake in its own separate bag. The cake was for her grandson's birthday. She also told me that she was also missing 3 limes that she bought. I looked around the checkout I was assigned to, but I did not find them. She came back to the store with the cake in her hand. I was at the checkout I was assigned to cashiering when she came up to me. I told her to go back to the bakery and let them know that the cake needs to be replaced and to get the 3 limes from produce since she showed me her receipt. She looked at me for a couple of seconds and then left. I just wondered if she wanted me to go to the bakery as well as to produce even though there was a line of customers at the checkout. Maybe she did not even notice the line of customers.

This is just frustrating.

[EricKei]

How much you wanna bet a big chunk of those complaints are the direct result of lowered payroll hours/less employee availability -- which the SM will blame on you guys? x.x

Maybe she did not even notice the line of customers.

Pretty much this. They're not her, so they're not important

[snugglegirl05]

How much you wanna bet a big chunk of those complaints are the direct result of lowered payroll hours/less employee availability -- which the SM will blame on you guys? x.x

Another employee was indirectly complaining about that at work yesterday while working out on the floor at the front end of the store. Another employee asked her when she works next. She told that employee the next day she works as well as how many days she is off next week. She is one of the employees who warned me about this when I noticed a reduction in my hours earlier in May. Obviously she is at the point that she does not care where she is when she does this.

Why does this happen?

[EricKei]

It's not your fault or any of the other workers' faults. This sort of thing just happens -- It's Corporate being Corporate. They look at things like overall profitability (which includes payroll, of course, but there are many other factors), year-to-date sales compared to prior years, computerized projections regarding "how many workers of type X do we absolutely really NEED" for a given shift...and then they cut payroll hours to suit the projections, because (a) it's a fairly significant expense, and (b) it's an obvious one in their eyes, and not one they need to think too hard about. Note that that "how many we need" number is, of course, reduced significantly by the presence of Self-Checkouts; that's why they exist. Corp's have also been known to reduce payroll hours based on getting "too many" customer complaints. If those complaints are one of the many, MANY problems caused by having too few workers (especially cashiers and stockers), they just ignore them and tell the managers to push you harder.

[snugglegirl05]

It's not your fault or any of the other workers' faults. This sort of thing just happens -- It's Corporate being Corporate. They look at things like overall profitability (which includes payroll, of course, but there are many other factors), year-to-date sales compared to prior years, computerized projections regarding "how many workers of type X do we absolutely really NEED" for a given shift...and then they cut payroll hours to suit the projections, because (a) it's a fairly significant expense, and (b) it's an obvious one in their eyes, and not one they need to think too hard about. Note that that "how many we need" number is, of course, reduced significantly by the presence of Self-Checkouts; that's why they exist. Corp's have also been known to reduce payroll hours based on getting "too many" customer complaints. If those complaints are one of the many, MANY problems caused by having too few workers (especially cashiers and stockers), they just ignore them and tell the managers to push you harder.

Thank you for the informative reply.

That alone tells me to look for a better job.

[kilroy220]

it sucks that Corporate puts all their efforts into cutting payroll hours instead of realizing that these people have bills to pay, rent to pay, college courses to take, etc.

[EricKei]

NP. Just keep in mind that many - but not all - large corporations think in similar ways to this. Better to have a job without enough hours than no job at all, so I'd recommend brushing up your resume, but not actually walking out on this one until you have the next 100% locked down.

[snugglegirl05]

NP. Just keep in mind that many - but not all - large corporations think in similar ways to this. Better to have a job without enough hours than no job at all, so I'd recommend brushing up your resume, but not actually walking out on this one until you have the next 100% locked down.

My question is this...

Should I put Kroger on my resume?

How should I explain my needing to find a better job when applying for jobs?

[eltf177]

My question is this...

Should I put Kroger on my resume?

How should I explain my needing to find a better job when applying for jobs?

I would. But explain that you simply cannot get enough hours to survive. You've tried to sort this out with them to no avail and they've basically given you no other choice but to seek alternatives...

Best of luck!

[EricKei]

Yes. On a resume: Just list it as your current job, e.g. "January 2012 to present" -- Job seekers who are currently employed are generally seen as more viable/less desperate.

In an interview: Just state it matter-of-factly, without emotion -- You were not getting enough hours at the job; thus, you decided to look elsewhere for a better opportunity, and your company looks like a great fit! (etc etc)

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

it sucks that Corporate puts all their efforts into cutting payroll hours instead of realizing that these people have bills to pay, rent to pay, college courses to take, etc.

Well yeah. The CEO's job is to make more money for the big investors and the board of directors. Keeping the company afloat is nice but not required.

[workerbee222]

With a lot of retail jobs, the hours fluctuate. In some of the jobs I've had, if it was a nice day in the summertime and people were at the beach instead of the mall, the manager would look for volunteers to cut their shift short and go home. If she could, she'd call someone who was scheduled to come in and tell her to stay home. The payroll was supposed to be less than 3% of the store's gross for the day, and I bet most every store has a formula like that.

Looking for a second job is a good idea. As for the cake and the limes...do your best, everybody makes mistakes, just make sure you *sound* really sorry and sympathetic. I apologize every time I think it *might* be appropriate: something wasn't ready at noon (doesn't matter that six other things were labeled "do this first") pant had a plain hem instead of a cuff, (it doesn't matter that someone else wrote up the slip incorrectly) took too long to find the item on hold because I ought to know the guy's name but I didn't want to ask, should have been shipped but no one wrote "ship" on the receipt, they all get, "So sorry for the inconvenience." It doesn't matter if it's my fault or not.

[EricKei]

THREE percent? Please tell me you meant twenty-three...? Three is unrealistically low, unless the stuff sold there was priced well beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, and plenty of customers with more money than sense who didn't care what they spent...

E.g. Back at MajorPizzaChain, a labor percentage of 20% was considered impressive -- and almost TOO low. Even that required just using a skeleton crew on a day where we had had a number of unusually expensive orders.

[KuariKaydrith]

When I was still managing a Subway I was supposed run with a labour percentage of 11%, but most of the time I was hitting 23-27%. It was a daily fight with head office because my store was already having to struggle to stay on top of prep, cleaning, and everything else, so to cut another person would have been truly hellish. They wrote it off partially as me being fairly new, even though I was still trying to get it through their heads that we needed more staff on, especially during lunch and dinner rushes if we wanted to avoid walk-outs because of the line going out the door.

I think that many stores and restaurants have an unrealistic expectation when it comes to budgeting out labour. I can understand that they want to make a profit, but if there's not enough staff people aren't going to want to come back. I'm the sort that would prefer to schedule too many so that we're fully covered than to try to run a bare-bones operation. As long as there is still some profit to be made it should be good, right?

[AngryFaery]

"Business needs" is the phrase one company I worked for used to justify screwing up employee schedules and metrics. I could never understand how demoralizing your workforce was good for business.