Morons running this division. The sales are all money losers and they scratch all the big sales items. Then complain about OSAT. This place is going down fast.
Hours have been put on the chopping block here as well despite the statement that was made in one of our recent huddle's by management that summer vacation is over now and it's going to get busier again. Yet, hours are cut and no overtime is allowed, so the workloads have increased for eveyone. Why cut the damn hours if the "slow" period is over!? Some of the departments finally managed to (somehow) get some new hires, but I've heard from people within those departments that the new hires are now talking about quitting because they are only getting two, maybe three, days a week, and not even all eight hour shifts, either. Great job, Kroger. We finally get some new help and just three or so weeks later, that new help is looking to quit because hours have been slashed.
What's pathetic is ELMS, which is suppose to be very scientific, says we need X amount of hours a week to operate our department efficiently. We're short over 100 hours and yet they say absolutely no overtime, unless of course you're on the stock crew. Then you can have all the overtime you want. If we're short 100 hours, why can't we use 66 hours of overtime? At time and a half that would be 99 hours worth of labor.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was an algorithm or two incorporated into the software that calculates ELMS that deliberately lowballs the time necessary/labor required to complete tasks in order to maximize profits. Not to mention, you're only going to get so much productivity out of a worker that is paid minimum wage/slightly above minimum wage and is demoralized with his/her job. On the reverse side, happier workers (through a combination of being paid well and working in a positive, supportive environment) equals a higher level of productivity.
That really is exactly how it works. Literally every task has been timed to determine how long it would take (for example, they went into a bakery department and timed someone icing a cake, so they will allow 5 minutes in elms for icing a cake or whatever). Well what they aren't thinking about is that of course if you're being monitored, you're going to go faster than what you can actually keep up with for an 8 hour shift, whether it be icing a cake, or throwing cases, or whatever else.