So we recently went back to doing out of stock/ shelf review reports daily in my department. Well we actually got our orders put away and low and behold we actually had 0 holes. My asst. deli manager was telling me that our co-manager, said that every dept. has to send in an OOS report and were not "allowed" to have 0 holes. So he goes out and "finds" one!
It's my understanding that we are supposed to strive to have 0 holes but god forbid we actually do it! No wonder this co-manager has been at 2 stores that shut down with that kind of incompetence! Just the Kroger way, managers always have to find something wrong, whether it's there or not.
We just got a new manager like that. I caught her hovering around last Sunday, and couldn't figure out what she was looking for... but it took her about 40 minutes before she found sometime I was doing that she objected to.
Grocery having 0 holes would definitely be wrong unless it's some freak situation. The departments with smaller allocations like dairy, frozen, bakery etc have 0 often if they are managed well. Keep in mind OOS = controllable OOS, not just holes.
It's the great stupidity of this age. If you're good, that means you're perceived as a possible threat. It's the Peter principle and you better believe it goes on in retail management.
It just so happened that we got our orders stocked, though we had a few spots that were really low. But at the time of the report, the asst. deli manager found no holes. If she would've waited a few more minutes a few of the low spots would have more than likely been a hole. But the co-manager didn't believe it, and when he was found out to be wrong he had to make himself right.
