I've noticed in the last several months since I left Kroger that the store conditions are terrible. And the shelves have tons of holes and I rarely see the same employees two visits on a row. Is this the case everywhere now!?
Morale is low. Everyone is bitch, bitch, bitch. On RARE occasions you MIGHT get a compliment. Even then, usually it's a mistake. With no compliments and recognition, it's no wonder people stopped caring. I know I would.
That's the case at my store, yes. When I go into a Walmart or a Target or WinCo or an Alberstons, for example, the stores look ten times better than my and other Kroger stores do. Those stores actually have (relatively) full shelves that actually appear (reasonably) well-conditioned. Even if I wasn't biased against Kroger, I would still say that other grocery chains in my area, have stores that look to be in better condition. Even if say Target or Tom Thumb or one of the other aforementioned grocery chains look a bit destroyed on the weekends, at least those stores recover relatively early in the new week, whereas Kroger, the shelves look picked over and wrecked whether it's the weekend or during the week. Today, at my store, in the afternoon, aisle after aisle looked horrible because the night crew again didn't have the time to condition before leaving and we have NO daytime grocery people - aside from the DSD Receiver, but that person is stuck in receiving for most of her shift and her shift is over early afternoon.
I personally try to appease angry customers through the Make It Right program and doing substitutions, discounts and stuff, but that is something that is working less and less as customers become more and more frustrated with incomplete and inadequate shopping trips. Morale being as low as it is in the store is only contributing to the poor store conditions because, frankly, I know some of the employees in my store have simply... given up, due to them not knowing what else more they can do because management doesn't help and management also doesn't listen, so many employees at my store perceive the situation as hopeless.
So conditions get worse, and I can only imagine you-know-what is really going to hit the fan with the holidays right around the corner. It's not going to be pretty. It's seriously going to be bad on so many levels.
Oh yes, it's getting worse and worse as time goes on. The store they've sent me to has such a small budget that they don't allow overtime AT.ALL. but my home store is actually in much worse shape! I worked an extra day there again this week and they still have the rest of the people in the department working 6 or 7 days. How long can they keep this up for?
I have a feeling i'm going back to my home store soon, because i don't see how that store is going to survive when every department is in the same boat as the bakery. I can't be in two stores at once, i think soon my coordinator is going to have to decide which store is more important to her, the one making 700-800k a week, or the one making way less than that where there's people that live closer that could do the job. I don't want to take a demotion at all, but seriously how long can you expect people to work 6-7 day weeks? They're going to end up losing the whole department of people at that rate because they're already halfway there.
Oh yes, it's getting worse and worse as time goes on. The store they've sent me to has such a small budget that they don't allow overtime AT.ALL. but my home store is actually in much worse shape! I worked an extra day there again this week and they still have the rest of the people in the department working 6 or 7 days. How long can they keep this up for?
I have a feeling i'm going back to my home store soon, because i don't see how that store is going to survive when every department is in the same boat as the bakery. I can't be in two stores at once, i think soon my coordinator is going to have to decide which store is more important to her, the one making 700-800k a week, or the one making way less than that where there's people that live closer that could do the job. I don't want to take a demotion at all, but seriously how long can you expect people to work 6-7 day weeks? They're going to end up losing the whole department of people at that rate because they're already halfway there.
If conditions are that bad across all departments in both stores, then why don't they just close one of them and move everybody to a single store?
you guys nailed it. poor conditions, lack of help, low morale, people being pushed to the limit (physically and mentally) and holidays are approaching. It's going to be rough. They expect us to give 100% all the time. It's just not possible. It's not our fault that they're having such a difficult time hiring people; would you want to come in and do this **** work for minimum wage when there are other, less demanding jobs available elsewhere? There is clearly something wrong, but they sure don't see it or if they do then they just don't care.
They can't just "move everybody to a single store" the logistics of that idea are horrible. Granted it does happen sometimes when a store closes, but I don't think consolidation is a good move.
All this, yet the local District claims an 80% positive and only 6% negative rating by employees on the 2016 Associate Insight Survey. (Of course, Store 536 had the "correct", positive answers on the wall above the survey computers, but, hey, what's a little comprehensive cheating among corporate management friends?)
Oh yes, it's getting worse and worse as time goes on. The store they've sent me to has such a small budget that they don't allow overtime AT.ALL. but my home store is actually in much worse shape! I worked an extra day there again this week and they still have the rest of the people in the department working 6 or 7 days. How long can they keep this up for?
I have a feeling i'm going back to my home store soon, because i don't see how that store is going to survive when every department is in the same boat as the bakery. I can't be in two stores at once, i think soon my coordinator is going to have to decide which store is more important to her, the one making 700-800k a week, or the one making way less than that where there's people that live closer that could do the job. I don't want to take a demotion at all, but seriously how long can you expect people to work 6-7 day weeks? They're going to end up losing the whole department of people at that rate because they're already halfway there.
If conditions are that bad across all departments in both stores, then why don't they just close one of them and move everybody to a single store?
Oh these stores aren't in the same town at ALL. It's a long ass drive for me to get to this one they put me at, it's a good 40 miles away.
-- Edited by 4hourrush on Friday 21st of October 2016 07:15:01 PM
Oh yes, it's getting worse and worse as time goes on. The store they've sent me to has such a small budget that they don't allow overtime AT.ALL. but my home store is actually in much worse shape! I worked an extra day there again this week and they still have the rest of the people in the department working 6 or 7 days. How long can they keep this up for?
I have a feeling i'm going back to my home store soon, because i don't see how that store is going to survive when every department is in the same boat as the bakery. I can't be in two stores at once, i think soon my coordinator is going to have to decide which store is more important to her, the one making 700-800k a week, or the one making way less than that where there's people that live closer that could do the job. I don't want to take a demotion at all, but seriously how long can you expect people to work 6-7 day weeks? They're going to end up losing the whole department of people at that rate because they're already halfway there.
If conditions are that bad across all departments in both stores, then why don't they just close one of them and move everybody to a single store?
Kroger wants to open more and more new stores, not reduce the number of stores. In and around my district, Kroger wanted to open four or five new stores in 2017. Those plans have been scrapped - not because the demand isn't there, but because Kroger is having so hard of a time staffing its new and existing stores, that the company literally can't hire enough new employees to open the new stores. There is another new store opening in my district at the end of the year, but that's only after several delays due to being unable to hire sufficient help to staff it.
Amazingly enough, Kroger still refuses to increase the pay for hourly associates even though the terrible pay and poor conditions in stores contributes to a nearly 80% hideous turnover rate per year and is thus preventing Kroger from opening new stores in a market that is experiencing explosive growth. Incredible, isn't it?
Kroger wants to open more and more new stores, not reduce the number of stores. In and around my district, Kroger wanted to open four or five new stores in 2017. Those plans have been scrapped - not because the demand isn't there, but because Kroger is having so hard of a time staffing its new and existing stores, that the company literally can't hire enough new employees to open the new stores. There is another new store opening in my district at the end of the year, but that's only after several delays due to being unable to hire sufficient help to staff it.
Amazingly enough, Kroger still refuses to increase the pay for hourly associates even though the terrible pay and poor conditions in stores contributes to a nearly 80% hideous turnover rate per year and is thus preventing Kroger from opening new stores in a market that is experiencing explosive growth. Incredible, isn't it?
it really is. They think people want to come in, do a ridiculous amount of work and do it for pennies. People aren't stupid. They can easily go down to mcdonalds and flip burgers for the same wages and not deal with near as much BS as we have to. I'm sure they don't even notice or acknowledge that there's a problem, but it's painfully obvious when the stores look like **** (across the board!) and nobody wants to work for them anymore.
There's a new Kroger store opening up near my house. It's one of the big marketplace ones and they're accepting applications now. Someone who I work with now applied over there and said they're supposedly starting at $15/hr. I highly doubt this, especially since a friend/ex-coworker of mine is still trying to get $10/hr and she's been there for 3+ years. If this is indeed true (once again, doubtful), how would that do for morale among workers knowing that you can come off the street and make more than them?
I haven't even been working at Kroger's all that long and yea the conditions are bad. For mine in particular, I know we have massive communication issues left and right. I mean yea the morale is low and the pay is minimum wage. But at times, I feel like it's even more of a hot mess when new hires aren't getting effectively trained. When trying to figure out particular information to tell to customers, it's like you have to ask 3 or 4 different people to find someone that actually knows what is what. There is no communication between which tasks have been done and what is going out. And sometimes, employees are so up your but about "did you do this? or not do that" that it personally annoys the hell out of me. I won't even get into how crazy the damn scheduling is. As we are always ending up with a skeleton crew at one point or another. And the fact they expect one person to do 5 jobs at once. It's insane.
Been the case at my store since a new store manager was brought in earlier this year. Very high turnover and low morale, and not enough people to get the job done nightly. It's not a hard job to do, nor one to manage, but management has Ferrari expectations on a Daewoo budget.
