We're busier than we've ever been. Every weekend our stores are packed full of pretty much everyone in town. We're slammed. The weekdays are nothing to sneeze at either. Yet every week they tell us our sales are down from last year and we're over budget and we're not doing our best to sell. If only we could sell more there would be more hours for everyone, they tell us. They give us all the blame. But if you're doing your best to sell and the customer still says no, what are you gonna do?
That is nothing but a bullsht mind game management likes to play; it alternately is designed to drive productivity through intimidation, while justifying the lack of hours/raises.
I'm ashamed to admit I've uttered those same 'sales are down' words to the people who work at my store (notice I didn't say "my people").
Over budget can mean two different things. If they say you're over budget on sales it means you made more than what you were projected to make. If someone says your department is $500.00 over budget it means the department took in $500.00 more in sales than what they thought they would take in. That's a good thing. If you're over budget on hours it means you used more hours than what you were projected to use. That's a bad thing.
We're busier than we've ever been. Every weekend our stores are packed full of pretty much everyone in town. We're slammed. The weekdays are nothing to sneeze at either. Yet every week they tell us our sales are down from last year and we're over budget and we're not doing our best to sell. If only we could sell more there would be more hours for everyone, they tell us. They give us all the blame. But if you're doing your best to sell and the customer still says no, what are you gonna do?
Really? I know next to nothing about our sales and yet I do that since our remodel in 2010 our store has already surpassed the amount required to justify the remodel and then some. We're well over projections and yet part timers are still quite limited in their hours and full-time slots are non-existent. The fact of the matter is the schedule is designed to spread the available hours way too thinly. Literally every time our store does well, I think to myself, what the heck is my inyentive exactly?
Don't they hand out a stack of papers at your huddles that show the numbers? We're busy as hell, every week we've been setting new records. I'm finally starting to see some new faces on the floor. Not the front end, that doesn't count. New faces are always seen there. Best thing is? I've seen these new faces for longer than 2 weeks. We have a lot of FT people. We also have a lot of people who have been there for years. Our store is relatively new at less than 8 years old, but most of the people have a lot of years under their belts.
